Life of Pi by Yann Martel

After a tragic shipwreck, a solitary lifeboat is left at the mercy of the wild blue waters of the Pacific. The only survivors are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a zebra with a broken leg, a hyena, an orangutan – and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Now a major motion picture from acclaimed director Ang Lee, the much loved Life of Pi is a bewitching tale of adventure and friendship – and of finding courage in the most unexpected places.

Pi is the son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry and he is as curious about metaphysical philosophy as he is about the animals in the zoo. The teenage Pi arranges to meet with religious leaders of Christianity, Islam and Hinduism to discuss the philosophy of each of the religions. He tries to live by the philosophy of each of them in turn, wondering why the leaders say that he cannot be a Christian, a Muslim and a Hindu all at the same time and instead that he has to choose only one religion.

When he is not pondering the mechanics of various world religions, Pi describes the nature of some of the animals in his zoo, what principles they live by and the more practical side of taking care of them.

When political unrest in India is on the rise in the mid-1970s, Pi’s parents decide that the family will sell the zoo and emigrate to Canada, taking with them some of the animals they have sold to North American zoos. They set off by freighter but disaster strikes shortly after they leave Manila. The ship sinks and Pi is left on a lifeboat with three animals, including an enormous tiger named Richard Parker.

For almost the rest of the book, Pi floats through the Pacific Ocean, in equal measures terrified and comforted by the presence of Richard Parker. Impressively, and despite this being one long ‘scene’ with very little actual scenery other than the ocean, the episodes are varied, detailing the lengths to which Pi goes in order to survive.

I will admit that it took me a while to get into Life of Pi. I don’t tend to shy away from theoretical or abstract ideas as a general rule, and I did find the philosophical ideas interesting, but as the whole of the first part of the book is left out of the blurb I was not sure where it was taking the story. Once the family has resolved to move to Canada, I felt that the story had more direction.

Right at the end of the book, Pi makes a comment which sheds a different light on the story that has just been told. It did make me want to read the book again with that in mind. I haven’t yet, but maybe a reread will be a different experience to the original read.