| Rating: | ★★★★ |
| Category: | Books |
| Genre: | Literature & Fiction |
| Author: | Yann Martel |
I choose to read this book “Life of Pi“ is because it has been mentioned by another book “Letter To Sam” which I have read some time ago, thus has gone to the library to search for this book (published 8 years ago).
“We all have tigers under our tarpaulins, tigers that we feel could destroy us. We think we want to get rid of our tigers, but the truth is, we would feel a great loss if they ran away, because ultimately each tiger is a part of us.”
This is absolutely a very imaginative yet thoughts provoking novel. Really give you some serious food of thoughts and see how the indomitable nature of the human spirit at work.
Basically the novel can be divided into three sections.
First section covers the life of Piscine Patel (aka "Pi") as a child growing up at the zoo his father owns’ in Pondicherry, India. Pi talks about his life living as the son of a zookeeper, knowing all about animal behaviour. I like the part mentioning about his religion -- Pi practices Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, at the same time, and having seen merits in all three religions. He says "I just want to love God."
Second section is his struggle (at the age of sixteen) for survival trapped in a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal tiger after the ship his family was migrating to Canada on sinks. Talking about how he is joined by a zebra that jumps into the boat and breaks its leg, how he helps a dangerous tiger board the lifeboat and other animals including a hyena, an orang-utan (named Orange Juice). how the hyena begins to feed on the zebra, kills the orang-utan and how the tiger kills and eats the hyena. Left with Pi and the tiger, Richard Parker, in the lifeboat, making their way to Mexico, whereupon the tiger abruptly leaves Pi to go live in the wild, never to return, causing him to feel at a loss for losing his only constant companion on his journey so unceremoniously. It might be a bit boring and monotonous at some points, and full of self-pity.
Final section tells how Pi is found by some people and is taken to a hospital to recuperate. He narrates his story of animals and spending seven months at sea with a tiger to the 2 Japanese officials from the shipping company, who do not believe his tale. Thus Pi says he will tell another story to let them choose. In the other story, there are four occupants in the lifeboat, Pi, a sailor, Pi's mother, and the French cook. The sailor breaks his leg when jumping into the lifeboat, and the cook cuts the leg off. The sailor dies and the cook butchers and eats him. Eventually the cook kills Pi’s mother. Soon after, Pi kills the cook. Then, as Pi says, “Solitude began. I turned to God. I survived.”. At end, the officials agree the story with the animals is a “better” story, that they can write the report.
