Adventures in Reading: "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel

If I could only pick one thing about this novel to talk about, it would be VOICE. This book has one of the most distinct and memorable voices that I've ever read. It is unique and genuine, and draws the reader into the story in a very special way. The main character, Pi Patel, tells his story in a way that makes him feel real, like the story is being told by an actual person. It feels like Pi's own beautiful story telling skills, not Martel's, are moving the story along. It's engaging and very well-done.

A quick summary of the story is this: Pi Patel, the son of a zookeeper in India, loves God in all his incarnations. He is a Hindu, a Catholic and a Muslim, because he sees all three as ways to learn how to love God. In his teens, Pi's family decides to move to Canada. They embark on a cargo ship with many of the animals from their zoo, though unfortunately, the ship sinks. Pi manages to get aboard a lifeboat, and the rest of the story is his tale of survival...survival on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific alongside a Bengal tiger.

I will admit, there were a couple of times in the middle of Pi's oceanic journey that I felt a bit...not bored, but anxious to get to the next thing. However, I think that only builds on the strength of the novel, because isn't that exactly how a person would feel who's been lost at sea?

The main strength of this novel comes from its storytelling, as I've already mentioned. The story is told from a very personal first person point of view, which draws the reader into Pi's mind as he struggles with not only survival, but his belief in a high power. His humanity fills up every page and causes the reader to really experience Pi's situation.

The end of the novel startled me. Now that I can look at the book as a whole, I see how the ending makes sense. I don't want to give too much about this story away in this review. Instead, I will quote a section from the end of the book that essentially summarizes the novel as a whole:

"So tell me, since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without animals?"

Martel is saying that, in Pi's case, religion acts as a metaphor to help him understand and make sense of human existence. In the above quote, Pi is asking whether life is better with or without some sort of religious explanation. While I personally believe that God is more than human invention, Martel has crafted a story that really gets to the heart of this idea, and why it is that people often seek something outside themselves: the tragedy of life must have an answer. There must be meaning. In the very least, this book will make you analyze what it means to be objectively truthful. Basically, "Life of Pi" is a perfect example of the way story can be used to convey ideas and make a reader think.

As with most books or movies that have an unexpected ending, this book may deserve a second reading at some point. I have other stories to begin right now, though, so it will have to wait for now.

**Side note: M. Night Shamalan was slated to make "Life of Pi" into a movie, but ended up bowing out because all of his movies have some sort of twist at the end, and he didn't want to diminish the ending of this book by putting his name on it (because people would assume there was a twist if he's making it, which sort of ruins the element of surprise). Mr. Shamalan, maybe this is a sign that you should branch out a little bit. Just saying.