Life of Pi is a book that gained great popularity soon after it was published in 2001. I read it because I had heard so much about it, and while I’m happy that I read it, it was of those interesting fantasy type books where I was never really sure how much of the adventure was real and how much of it was not.
This story is about Pi (Piscine Patel) who is an Indian boy who was raised around his father’s zoo. Pi is a curious interested boy and takes time to learn and practice numerous religions with great sincerity. Initially Pi is Hindu, and when he is 14 discovers Christianity, and at fifteen, Islam. He is confronted by the leaders of these faiths who don’t think he should be practicing all religions and he states, “I just want to love God.”
Things get interesting in the book when Pi’s father decides to pack up the animals from the zoo and the family and move them from India to Canada. The boat sinks and Pi is the only human survivor on a lifeboat…with a tiger from the zoo. As well as a hyena, a zebra and an orangutan. Most of the animals don’t survive long but Pi and the tiger learn to exist with each other through 227 days of being shipwrecked. Pi has had lessons from his father about the dangers of tigers and works to mark his territory in the boat and train the tiger to respect that. He has conversations with the tiger (named Richard Parker) as though they are people, momentarily lands on an island with flesh eating algae (at night), and learns to survive at sea before landing in Mexico.
There is some question as to whether the events in the book were truly what took place or if Pi used the animals as substitutes for human characters while telling his story. It was very interesting and an unbelievable story the way it is told.
06/07/2010 at 5:35 am Permalink
Your review is good but I disagree with your last sentence: I think the way the story is entirely believable the way it is told.