Life of Pi - Yann Martel
I knew quite a lot about the general plot of this book before I began reading, thanks to reviews about it when it first came out, as well as having seen at least part of the Oscar-winning film version. Life of Pi tells the story of Piscine Molitor Patel, who starts by growing up as the son of a zookeeper in India and choosing to follow three religions simultaneously, and later on ends up adrift in a lifeboat with a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena and a Bengal tiger. With a plot like that, I knew the book would be somewhat 'quirky', but I wasn't expecting the level of humour, or the level of insight within it.
The three religions thing is a bit odd, but then, so is the character of Pi. To him, the three religions of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity all overlap in numerous ways: "Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims." (page 50). The thing is, there are a lot of people that would agree with Pi. Especially if you haven't had a personal encounter with Jesus yourself, religions do all have surface similarities, and it would be particularly fitting for someone from a pluralistic background (such as Pi's native India) to be far more okay with the idea of multiple deities manifesting themselves in different ways, or in one... its a bit confusing but I get how it can be appealing.
However, despite religion being a big part of the book, the more well known section is that involving the lifeboat and the animals, which (mild spoiler, but most book covers kind of hint at this anyway) soon are whittled down to one, the tiger 'Richard Parker'. Here the book starts in a fairly realistic fashion, rationally showing how someone could plausibly survive in a confined space with a dangerous predator; Pi outlining the methods he uses to train Richard Parker, and the reasons why he chooses to try and help the tiger survive rather than letting it starve. As the time at sea progresses, though, the book becomes more and more surreal, with moments happening that are far more unbelievable than those first talked about. This could be seen as the result of Pi's deteriorating mental conditions, but some of them are far more extensive than a simple hallucination would imply.
One explanation for all of this is given near the book's end, when Pi recounts his tale of survival to two representatives of the Shipping Company that Pi had originally sailed with. Finding them incredibly skeptical that a person could survive such a long period of time with a tiger for a companion, Pi offers to tell them a 'second story', one without animals in it.
This 'more realistic' version is told over only a few pages of the book... yet it is horrific. Honestly. I am a bit squeamish, but it is a fairly sickening story, and one that would certainly provide a reason for someone to invent a more palatable story to mask the trauma of it.
So... how do I feel about this book?
Life of Pi is - overall - one of the better Booker books I have read. It has very little swearing, no sex scenes or incest, and is both humorous and thought-provoking. The sea-journey part of the book goes on for a bit longer than it really needs to, but that is also kind of the point of that section too. I disliked the 'second story' for its stomach-churningness, but I can also see why it exists in the context of the book.
So... I guess this one, in terms of Booker books, is one I'd recommend.
Completed 28 March 2021.
(Bookerworm)
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