The Life of Pi: Tolerance, Culture and Survival

“Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little.” Yann Martel, Life of Pi

 Life of Pi

By Yann Martel

To me, if a story grabs you as you are reading the first pages then the trip is going to be fantastic.  That is what exactly happened to me when I began reading Life of Pi.  This is the first book I have read by the author Yann Martel. Life of Pi is a popular book published in 2001 and the winner of 4 Academy Awards including Best Director for Ang Lee.  Honestly when I saw that Life of Pi was listed on the 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, I was anticipating a book about a kid and a tiger on a boat.  What I did not anticipate was how much more to the story there was, and how much I was going to love reading this book.    

The book takes place in the mid to late 1970s first in India, then for 7 months in the Pacific Ocean.  I have always been fascinated by India and would like to travel to the subcontinent someday, although I am nervous about liking the food.  When I was a boy in pre-school my good friend was from India. I remember how nice and kind he was. I remember one summer he was going back to India to meet both of his grandmothers. As a boy who was very close with his grandmothers this was a shock to me. Right from the start I learned so much reading this book.  First, I learned that France actually controlled parts of India longer than the British Raj, finally ceding the territory to India in 195).  I was really surprised that I did not know that fact.  

The book is broken up into three parts. The first part of the book takes place in the town of Pondicherry on the eastern coast of India.  Pondicherry was part of French India at one point and home to our main character—Piscine Molitor Patel.  Piscine’s family owns and runs the zoo in Pondicherry.  He is named after the most famous and luxurious swimming pool in all of France. Piscine’s father has a friend who is a swimmer and teaches Pi to swim, which saves his life.  From the character of Mamaji we learn about the pools of France (some much less desirable, such as the Olympic Pool that was filled with water from the Seine during the first Olympics held in France).  I think the swimmers had to dodge human waste to get their medals.

 The first part of the book also emphasizes Pi’s interest in religion, the zoo animals and swimming, each plays an important role in the story.  Piscine is called “Pissing” by his “friends” in grade school. So when he enters middle school, he creates a persona for himself with the nickname Pi.  I was really impressed with this description of his life in India.  Pi develops a very interesting faith.  Born a Hindu, Pi embraces Christianity and Islam, practicing elements of all three important religions.  His family is not very religious and finds Pi’s broad faith amusing.  The India of Ponticherry comes alive for me and sounds quite beautiful.  I did laugh at one quote that is fantastic when Pi is learning about Christianity,

 “The first thing that drew me in was disbelief.  What? Humanity sins but its God’s Son who pays the price?  I tried to imagine Father saying to me, ‘Piscine, a lion slipped into the llama pen today and killed a black buck.  Last week two of them ate a camel.  The week before it was painted storks and grey herons.  And who’s to say for sure who snaked on our golden agouti? The situation has become intolerable.  Something must be done.  I have decided that the only way the lions can atone for their sins is if I feed you [Pi] to them.’ 

 The second part of the story begins when Pi turns 16.  His father, in a disagreement with the government of Indira Gandhi, decides to sell the zoo and emigrate to Canada.  The Patel’s embark on a boat trip to Canada with their animals which they sold and were being delivered to points along the way.  The family was going to settle in Winnipeg.  This is where the trip goes terribly wrong.  Somehow an accident sinks the boat, killing all the Patel family except for Pi and most of the animals.  Pi ends up in a lifeboat thrown by the boat crew with a tiger, named Richard Parker; a hurt zebra, a hyena and an orangutan.  The story becomes one of survival between Pi and the Tiger.  The adventure is fascinating.  The fight for survival is surreal.  Pi is stranded on the boat for 227 days until he lands in Mexico where he is treated in the hospital.  There are some moments in the story that do turn your stomach as they are gruesome.  I also kept feeling the story was a little hard to believe and as the story goes on there is a reason for that. 

 There is a twist in the story.  I am not going to give away the ending but to say you need to judge for yourself what really happened.  According to James Mustich, the story is, “Whimsical and amusing, Life of Pi encompasses a great deal of human experience—from theology to zoology, desperation to wonder—in its drifting current of story.  It’s marvelous, in the exact sense of the word”.  I wholeheartedly recommend you picking up this book and reading it this summer.  You will not be disappointed. 

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