10.12.04 Life of Pi by Samir

Life of Pi is indeed a great novel, but let me be the first to say it's not for everyone. The book, at its most basic level, charts the story of a young Indian boy called Pi Patel. It traces the some events in his childhood in the former French territory of Pondicherry, India. The novel then moves quickly to his survival of a ship-wreck, to his 277-day journey at sea, floating around in a lifeboat with a cast of animals on-board, the most prominent of which is a 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger. Since he is telling the story retrospectively from the beginning, early on, the reader realizes that Pi indeed survives his ordeal and ends up in Canada, the ship's original destination. However, it is not so much the arrival and end of his odyssey that make's Pi's story a good one, but the entire journey there. Martel's style is an easy and accessible one, but one sophisticated enough to convey deep concepts, sophisticated theories and to create some truly moving, human moments in the admittedly barren setting of a white life-boat floating in the Pacific. In a way, the lack of things to describe around Pi Patel allowed Martel to really take the inner character of Pi and focus on it in a way only an accomplished story-teller can. When the external can not be relied upon for plot development, it is inevitable that internal matters, those that occur within the spirit of a character, come front and center, and that is what Life Of Pi's bread and butter is. Through his odyssey, Pi goes through psychological changes brought about by the need to survive that are reminiscent of the transformation experienced by the boys in Lord of the Flies. Like William Golding, Martel transitions Pi from a timid, almost weak Indian boy with a soft stomach to a nude savage who, as desperately as he clings to civilization, is not above eating Tiger feces and drinking blood from a live turtle as it gushes from its arteries. The fact that Martel does this so well and so smoothly are a testament to his writing skills, to his ability to create both plausible and believable transitions in his characters, and to lay them out perfectly in the course of a novel. Of course, I'd be lying if I said that's what the best part of the book is. To anyone who reads it, Life of Pi can truly be a book about many things. As I hinted at before, one way to see this is as a survival tale, one in which you have a man clinging to civilization as the harsh elements take their toll on his spirit. At times, Martel leaves enough questions unanswered for the reader so as to create a certain doubt about the sanity of Pi, and the veracity of his unlikely tale. This is never more true than at the end, when he openly admits that it doesn't matter if the story is true or not, so long as he survives. However, it all ties into the story of a boy who, at the edge of life, is also at the edge of his sanity, and it is here where he discovers more about himself than most people would of themselves in a life-time. People might suggest that Life of Pi is an extremely diverse didactic novel, with sermons on religion, ecology, psychology and zoology. Pi's penchant for observing three religions at once back in Pondicherry again reeks of a boy trying to reach the summit of his being, but it also provides an excellent segue for Martel to discuss religion and all of its corollary issues, the most important of which are faith and reason, which weigh heavily on Pi's survival, especially in instances where things, from a logical point of view, certainly don't look good for our protagonist. It is this tying in of text and subtext so beautifully that makes Martel's preachiness about faith more tolerable than preaching usually is. Instead of going on a rant, Martel shows the reader, in all practical terms, where faith has place in a world of reason. In doing so, he slowly peels off the layers of Pi's character and rewards readers for patience. As I said, this book isn't for everyone. For those who dislike existential tales such as The Catcher In The Rye or, perhaps more appropriately, The Old Man and The Sea, Life of Pi will be a definite pass. Such readers are keen to stay on the literal level of things, and to them, a tale set in pretty much the same place for 277 days would be nothing if not utterly boring. A tale in which the plot developments are rarely external to Pi's own conscience is not for such readers. A tale in which Pi's surroundings, as he describes them to us, serve as nothing more than a mirror to his frame of mind and his condition, would be duly under-appreciated by such people. So, to anyone else, I can wholeheartedly recommend this book. Anyone with a bent for literature, with an understanding of the figurative, will become engrossed in Pi's character and will long to see what happens to it next. Similarly, anyone who can get into Pi will love how Martel treats his environment, and how he delicately creates a two worlds, those inside Pi's mind and those outside of Pi, and how, at times, he masterfully blurs the distinction between both to make a point about life. Those with, perhaps an understanding greater than mine, will probably also see Martel laying out some interesting existential theories, a sort of "Guide to Living Life" by an un-assuming philosopher with a left-brain, who, through his own introspection, has "been there" and "done that". Perhaps my only problem with the novel is that, at times, it can get preachy and long-winded. Coming in at 354 pages about a boy at sea and not much else, there are moments where Pi's odious monologues drag on and on, almost to a grinding halt. As he re-iterates for the 400th time his stance on agnosticism, or goes on ad nauseum about the morality of keeping animals in cages, there are times when the book feels like it has moved beyond the story of Pi and delved into being Martel's own personal ranting forum. It's like sometimes, it almost stops being a novel. Of course, such incidents are not frequent enough to break the flow of the larger story arcs, but I'd be remiss not to mention them just the same. Overall, I think Life of Pi is a great book, but only for those who seek to immerse themselves deeply into a character and a story, for readers who don't just want to be entertained, but want to, when they close to the book after reading the last page, always keep a small part of the story with them.

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