When you finish you'll want to read it again (or throw it at a wall.) It's almost a puzzle, a riddle, a real thought-provoker. The writer is a provocative storyteller. I still think about the story and the meaning behind it all, and I finished it a couple of weeks ago...Can't imagine how this book will translate into a movie and retain its essence, but of course, I will see the movie to observe how the story is told in cinematic format. Also wondering how it will be rated, not for sex, drugs or language, but for violent content inappropriate for children...Of course the film maker might tell a little different story. At any rate, whatever one's take on the book, it's a story about storytelling!
Now, for my own version of Life of P.I. (Pine Island, that is). This won't mean much to you if you haven't read the original Life of Pi:
I find myself living on an island in SW Florida. I am trying to survive it until I find another place to land. Living here is hard because it's a place where people fish, or drink alcohol, or both. That's pretty much IT. The activities are not mutually exclusive, and both activities can begin at daybreak. I neither fish, nor drink, so I have to find other activities to keep me busy. Having found much beauty and solace in the great outdoors in the past, I've tried hiking through P.I.'s overgrown woodlands. I've tried kayaking the many waterways on and around the island. I've greased up my green thumb, and tried planting a garden, a rewarding pursuit in my past, living in other places. Here? All of those things are horribly disappointing! The air is thick with biting insects, some of whom could kill you if you're allergic or there's a mosquito-borne virus in the area. Fire ants crawl up your legs and deliver a fiercely painful bite--not one, but hundreds, all together now "let's really hurt this person." The bites fester and swell with pus and angry redness; infection often follows. There are poisonous brown recluse spiders who hide in your kayak and garden, lurking there to bite and possibly kill you, too. Never mind the snakes! Snakes lurking in the woods, in the water, in your garden. Rattlers, cottonmouths, coral snakes. You can never be too careful! Behemoth alligators swim whereever it's wet....beware! Did I mention the heat? It's relentless...burning, smothering, wet, nasty and oppressive. You can never escape it, night or day. The sky seems to be bearing down on you. And forget hurricane season! It's so nerve-racking and dangerous. Best to stay indoors and hope the air conditioner never stops working in home or car. This place is hell on earth!
or, if you'd prefer I can tell you the story of P.I. without all the animals, at least not the nasty ones:
Have I told you about my home, P.I. (Pine Island)? What a glorious place! The island folk are laid-back and friendly--they'll invite you out to fish on their boat or buy you a beer at the local saloon the first time they meet you. I was here during Hurricane Charley which was unpleasant and nerve-racking, but afterwards the people on this island pulled together and helped each other put our lives back together, like nothing I've ever seen. "Love thy Neighbor" truly practiced here...The island is luxuriant and forested--the predominant colors here are blue (the water and the sky) and green (the color of the woods that keep this island different from other barrier islands.) Oh, and I shouldn't forget the multicolored flowers, dragonflies and butterflies that flourish here in island gardens, along the roadsides, and in the woods. Large pink birds and brilliant white ones can be seen flying across clear blue skies or brilliant sunsets over the gulf. The warmth here embraces like a light blanket even when people in the north are shivering under real ones. At night the air is filled with the sound of bald eagles calling to their mates, and the delicious aroma of night blooming jasmine. There's so much to do! Fishing, hiking, kayaking, birding, gardening, trying to spot native wildlife, socializing with the locals. This place is heaven on earth!
Which version is true? I wrote them both, and on different days have believed both versions. Just like The Life of PI.
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The relationship between the character and his passenger..
Very good read. At first it was hard for me to get into the storyline..Nevertheless it did end up grab me n taking me on an adventure..
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₹ockey
A must have book for your personal library
Reviewed in India on February 14, 2022
₹ockey
Reviewed in India on February 14, 2022
Although occasionally uncomfortable at school, Pi is incredibly happy at home surrounded by a veritable wonderland. He learns that the zoo animals live by habit and, once their basic needs are met, are content to repeat the same rhythms and rituals every day. Change the routine in the slightest way, however, and the animal will express confusion, anger, or retreat into a safe place. He grows up knowing not to anthropomorphize — assign human characteristics — to the animals. In one very scary scene, Pi's father demonstrates than animals are ferocious beasts who are driven by their hungers and passions. He also teaches the boy about how a circus animal trainer is able to control large animals by assuming the position of the alpha male, demonstrating dominance and an ability to provide for their needs.
Pi's parents are secularists with no interest in religion. This teenager, who is a Hindu, finds himself also attracted to Christianity and Islam. Although he thinks that Jesus' ministry can't hold a candle to the exotic adventures of Hindu gods, his message of love seems very important. He begins to meet regularly with a Catholic priest and soon asks to be baptized. Pi finds Islam to be "a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion." After meeting a Sufi mystic in the market, he puts a prayer rug in the garden facing Mecca and prays five times a day. However, once the local leaders of each religion discover what he is doing, they try to convince Pi that he must choose one over the others. But this ardent teenager refuses to give up his multifaith path of loving God.
All of this spiritual practice leads to a mystical experience which he describes this way: "I left town and on my way back, at a point where the land was high and I could see the sea to my left and down the road a long ways, I suddenly felt I was in heaven. The spot was in fact no different from when I had passed it not long before, but my way of seeing it had changed. The feeling, a paradoxical mix of pulsing energy and profound peace, was intense and blissful. Whereas before the road, the sea, the trees, the air, the sun all spoke differently to me, now they spoke one language of unity. Tree took account of road, which was aware of air, which was mindful of sea, which shared things with sun. Every element lived in harmonious relation with its neighbour, and all was kith and kin. I knelt a mortal; I rose an immortal. I felt like the centre of a small circle, coinciding with the centre of a much larger one. Atman had met Allah."
When Pi's father decides to leave India and move to Winnipeg, Canada, he closes the zoo and arranges to distribute its inhabitants to other facilities. The family and some of the animals board a Japanese cargo ship. Then the unexpected happens, and the boat sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Pi makes it to a lifeboat where his only companions are a zebra, a hyena, a orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. The sixteen-year-old boy watches horrified as the war begins for supremacy between the animals. In the end, of course, just he and the tiger are left.
Luckily, the lifeboat is stocked with survival supplies and a detailed survival manual. Pi sets up equipment to collect water, learns to fish and catch turtles, and makes a raft for those times when he needs to stay some distance from Richard Parker. Everything he has learned about animals serves him well. In shark-infested waters, with no land in sight, Pi attends to the needs of the 450-pound tiger. This section of Martel's phantasmagorical novel is absolutely enthralling, a true adventure where Pi's physical prowess, intellectual courage, and spiritual perseverance are all tested. At one point, he observes: "For the first time I noticed — as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next — that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still."
Throughout his journey, Pi practices religious rituals — "solitary Masses without priests or consecrated Communion hosts, darshans without murtis, and pujas with turtle meat for prasad, acts of devotion for Allah not knowing where Mecca was and getting my Arabic wrong." But these provide a stay against despair and loneliness and his grief for his lost family. The worst enemy is fear. He observes:
"It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then, fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy."
One of the things that makes Life of Pi such an extraordinary read is that it covers so many fascinating subjects with aplomb. Martel provides overviews of animal behavior, survival at sea, the limits of reason, and a boy's coming of age. The novel is a work of spiritual adventurism, a expression of mystical awareness, and a salute to the ample powers of imagination and the versatility of storytelling. During his long stay aboard the lifeboat with the tiger, Pi notes: "My greatest wish — other than salvation — was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time. Alas, there was no scripture in the lifeboat."
This ambitious novel is stuffed with ideas, interesting people, and exciting situations. Each reader could spend quite a bit of time pondering the spiritual implications of the deep relationship that develops between Pi and Richard Parker over the course of their confinement together. At first, the teenage is scared out of his wits that the animal will eat him. Then he tries to keep the tiger happy with food, fresh water, and regular routines. The final level of their interaction is a surprise that will only startle those who haven't had the delight of close mystical relationships with animals.
Life of Pi is a multileveled exploration of the beautiful mysteries that light up our lives and have no rhyme nor reason of their own. Yet without them, we would be nothing more than wonder-deprived creatures.
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