I decided to do a book review on the latest book I’ve read as part of a promise to myself to do something creative every day of the summer when I’m just sitting at home :)
‘Life of Pi’ is a spiritual tale, intricately woven from threads of philosophy, theology, reality, and the imagination. From life at Pondicherry zoo, to spending 227 days in the Pacific ocean aboard a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orang-utan, and a Royal Bengal tiger, Pi travels on an enlightening journey, exploring the notions of religion and the complexity of the human psychology.
Martel sets the stage for a thrilling, philosophical adventure. The narrative transcends generic fiction in its unique use of situation and symbolism to paint a story “that will make you believe in God”. However, whether the novel actually causes you to believe in God is questionable.
The novel is split into three parts. Part one vividly explores Pi’s childhood in India, part two is essentially “the story” of Pi’s life at sea, and part three presents an alternative story combined with a relatively ambiguous ending. Whilst I enjoyed Martel’s descriptions of Pi’s life in India, some of Pi’s ramblings about animal social hierarchies and biology were textbook and bore no imminent relevance to the narrative. Although the Pacific ocean does not make its grand entrance until the second part of the novel, you can almost drown in Pi’s sea of facts. Martel contrasts Pi’s scientific paradigm with the paradigm of religion. Pi adopts three religions throughout his childhood - Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. Why the author made this choice, I do not know. It is, in no way, a disinteresting element of the narrative but the overriding religious moral of the story would have had the same outcome with the use of a singular religion. Perhaps multiple religions were used to highlight Pi’s unconventionalities, giving greater substance and plausibility to the unusual narrative. I should go back and read this part again one day because I desperately wanted to like it but found myself at a loss for its ultimate purpose.
On the contrary, I adored part two of this novel. Martel is an absolute genius in his written expression. Pi’s tragic suffering and isolation summons tears to your cheeks, his hunger almost carves a void in your own stomach, and his thirst can make your muscles tremble with mutual weakness. Pi’s relationship with Richard Parker, the 450-pound carnivorous Bengal tiger, is both touching and thrilling and ironically gives life to such a hopeless situation. Despite Pi’s physical deterioration and decline into savage cannibalism, his ability to provide complex philosophies upon life, such as the nature of fear being life’s “only true opponent”, is utterly inspiring. This part of the novel shines as bright as a flare at sea.
However, the third part of the novel is what prevents me from completely absorbing myself in this tale. Pi’s story is told, but is deemed too improbable to be true. This is essentially a symbolic metaphor for religious belief. Pi is instructed to tell the real story of what happened at sea, and he provides a logical alternative account of his experiences but detracts the animals from his lifeboat. This logical retelling of the story is essentially an allegorical representation of science. Pi asks his interrogators, and Martel asks his readers by extension of characterisation, “do you prefer the story with the animals or without?” The constant battle between transient belief and scientific logic is left for the reader to ponder on - is it more enriching to believe the interesting but improbable, or the science of the universe, grounded upon solid logical soil, unlike the miraculous botanical meerkat island which Pi stumbles upon? If we do not hold belief in religious deities do “we sacrifice our imagination on the alter of crude reality” and “end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams”?
Religion aside, perhaps this fictional tale is nothing more than a story for our enjoyment. Who says that choosing the story with the animals represents an inclination towards religion? The theoretical value of this tale could be ultimately translated into a love for transcendental beauty of storytelling and the imagination.
Despite the ambiguous ending of the novel, the character of Pi remains in our hearts, courageous and knowledgeable to no end, a parallel to the infinite numerical aspect of his quirky nickname.
My rating: 3/5 :)
(I originally posted this on tumblr but thought I would post it here because this blog has been neglected)
