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Life of Pi: A Novel Paperback – Black & White, May 1, 2003

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4.4 22,096 ratings

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NOW ON BROADWAY

The international bestseller and modern classic of adventure, survival, and the power of storytelling is now an award-winning play.

"A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction."—Los Angeles Times Book Review

After the sinking of a cargo ship, a solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a wounded zebra, an orangutan—and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.

Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi Patel, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with the tiger, Richard Parker, for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again.

The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional—but is it more true?

Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.

From the Publisher

WARNING: California’s Proposition 65

Editorial Reviews

From The New Yorker

An impassioned defense of zoos, a death-defying trans-Pacific sea adventure à la "Kon-Tiki," and a hilarious shaggy-dog story starring a four-hundred-and-fifty-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker: this audacious novel manages to be all of these as it tells the improbable survivor's tale of Pi Patel, a young Indian fellow named for a swimming pool (his full first name is Piscine) who endures seven months in a lifeboat with only a hungry, outsized feline for company. This breezily aphoristic, unapologetically twee saga of man and cat is a convincing hands-on, how-to guide for dealing with what Pi calls, with typically understated brio, "major lifeboat pests."
Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker

Review

Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

"Let me tell you a secret: the name of the greatest living writer of the generation born in the sixties is Yann Martel."--L'Humanité

"A story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction and its human creators, and in the original power of storytellers like Martel." -- Los Angeles Times Book Review
“If this century produces a classic work of survival literature, Martel is surely a contender.’--The Nation
"Beautifully fantastical and spirited." -- Salon

"Martel displays the clever voice and tremendous storytelling skills of an emerging master." --Publishers Weekly

"[Life of Pi] could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Audacious, exhilarating . . . wonderful. The book's middle section might be the most gripping 200 pages in recent Canadian fiction. It also stands up against some of Martel's more obvious influences: Edgar Allen Poe's The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym, the novels of H. G. Wells, certain stretches of Moby Dick."--Quill & Quire
—

From the Back Cover

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK of 2002

Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, has a fervent love of stories and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. Alas, the ship sinks -- and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi. Can Pi and the tiger find their way to land? Can Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they do?

"An impassioned defense of zoos, a death-defying trans-Pacific sea adventure a la Kon-Tiki, and hilarious . . . : This audacious novel manages to be all of these." -- The New Yorker

"Life of Pi could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life." -- The New York Times Book Review

"Life of Pi is a real adventure: brutal, tender, expressive, dramatic, and disarmingly funny. . . . It's difficult to stop reading when the pages run out." -- San Francisco Chronicle

Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. He grew up in Costa Rica, France, Mexico and Canada, and has traveled extensively on his own. After studying philosophy at university, he worked variously as a dishwasher, tree planter and security guard. Then he began to write. When he's not living somewhere else, he lives in Montreal.

About the Author

YANN MARTEL was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. Life of Pi won the 2002 Man Booker Prize (among other honors) and was adapted to the screen in the Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. Martel is also the author of the novels The High Mountains of Portugal, Beatrice and Virgil, and Self, the collection of stories The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, and a collection of letters to the prime minister of Canada, What Is Stephen Harper Reading?. He lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

CHAPTER 1

My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life. I have remained a faithful Hindu, Christian and Muslim. I decided to stay in Toronto. After one year of high school, I attended the University of Toronto and took a double-major Bachelor's degree. My majors were religious studies and zoology. My fourth-year thesis for religious studies concerned certain aspects of the cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria, the great sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed. My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour-calm, quiet and introspective-did something to soothe my shattered self.
There are two-toed sloths and there are three-toed sloths, the case being determined by the forepaws of the animals, since all sloths have three claws on their hind paws. I had the great luck one summer of studying the three-toed sloth in situ in the equatorial jungles of Brazil. It is a highly intriguing creature. Its only real habit is indolence. It sleeps or rests on average twenty hours a day. Our team tested the sleep habits of five wild three-toed sloths by placing on their heads, in the early evening after they had fallen asleep, bright red plastic dishes filled with water. We found them still in place late the next morning, the water of the dishes swarming with insects. The sloth is at its busiest at sunset, using the word busy here in a most relaxed sense. It moves along the bough of a tree in its characteristic upside-down position at the speed of roughly 400 metres an hour. On the ground, it crawls to its next tree at the rate of 250 metres an hour, when motivated, which is 440 times slower than a motivated cheetah. Unmotivated, it covers four to five metres in an hour.
The three-toed sloth is not well informed about the outside world. On a scale of 2 to 10, where 2 represents unusual dullness and 10 extreme acuity, Beebe (1926) gave the sloth's senses of taste, touch, sight and hearing a rating of 2, and its sense of smell a rating of 3. If you come upon a sleeping three-toed sloth in the wild, two or three nudges should suffice to awaken it; it will then look sleepily in every direction but yours. Why it should look about is uncertain since the sloth sees everything in a Magoo-like blur. As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound. Beebe reported that firing guns next to sleeping or feeding sloths elicited little reaction. And the sloth's slightly better sense of smell should not be overestimated. They are said to be able to sniff and avoid decayed branches, but Bullock (1968) reported that sloths fall to the ground clinging to decayed branches "often".
How does it survive, you might ask.
Precisely by being so slow. Sleepiness and slothfulness keep it out of harm's way, away from the notice of jaguars, ocelots, harpy eagles and anacondas. A sloth's hairs shelter an algae that is brown during the dry season and green during the wet season, so the animal blends in with the surrounding moss and foliage and looks like a nest of white ants or of squirrels, or like nothing at all but part of a tree.
The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. "A good-natured smile is forever on its lips," reported Tirler (1966). I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at sloths in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of my scientific probing.
Sometimes I got my majors mixed up. A number of my fellow religious-studies students-muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright-reminded me of the three-toed sloth; and the three-toed sloth, such a beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of God.
I never had problems with my fellow scientists. Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.
I was a very good student, if I may say so myself. I was tops at St. Michael's College four years in a row. I got every possible student award from the Department of Zoology. If I got none from the Department of Religious Studies, it is simply because there are no student awards in this department (the rewards of religious study are not in mortal hands, we all know that). I would have received the Governor General's Academic Medal, the University of Toronto's highest undergraduate award, of which no small number of illustrious Canadians have been recipients, were it not for a beef-eating pink boy with a neck like a tree trunk and a temperament of unbearable good cheer.
I still smart a little at the slight. When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling. My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, "You've got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!" The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn't surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity-it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud. The pink boy also got the nod from the Rhodes Scholarship committee. I love him and I hope his time at Oxford was a rich experience. If Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, one day favours me bountifully, Oxford is fifth on the list of cities I would like to visit before I pass on, after Mecca, Varanasi, Jerusalem and Paris.
I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
I love Canada. I miss the heat of India, the food, the house lizards on the walls, the musicals on the silver screen, the cows wandering the streets, the crows cawing, even the talk of cricket matches, but I love Canada. It is a great country much too cold for good sense, inhabited by compassionate, intelligent people with bad hairdos. Anyway, I have nothing to go home to in Pondicherry.

Richard Parker has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.
The doctors and nurses at the hospital in Mexico were incredibly kind to me. And the patients, too. Victims of cancer or car accidents, once they heard my story, they hobbled and wheeled over to see me, they and their families, though none of them spoke English and I spoke no Spanish. They smiled at me, shook my hand, patted me on the head, left gifts of food and clothing on my bed. They moved me to uncontrollable fits of laughing and crying.
Within a couple of days I could stand, even make two, three steps, despite nausea, dizziness and general weakness. Blood tests revealed that I was anemic, and that my level of sodium was very high and my potassium low. My body retained fluids and my legs swelled up tremendously. I looked as if I had been grafted with a pair of elephant legs. My urine was a deep, dark yellow going on to brown. After a week or so, I could walk just about normally and I could wear shoes if I didn't lace them up. My skin healed, though I still have scars on my shoulders and back.
The first time I turned a tap on, its noisy, wasteful, superabundant gush was such a shock that I became incoherent and my legs collapsed beneath me and I fainted in the arms of a nurse.
The first time I went to an Indian restaurant in Canada I used my fingers. The waiter looked at me critically and said, "Fresh off the boat, are you?" I blanched. My fingers, which a second before had been taste buds savouring the food a little ahead of my mouth, became dirty under his gaze. They froze like criminals caught in the act. I didn't dare lick them. I wiped them guiltily on my napkin. He had no idea how deeply those words wounded me. They were like nails being driven into my flesh. I picked up the knife and fork. I had hardly ever used such instruments. My hands trembled. My sambar lost its taste.

Copyright © 2001 by Yann Martel

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced
or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Requests for permission to make copies of any part of the work
should be mailed to the following address: Permissions Department,
Harcourt, Inc., 6277 Sea Harbor Drive, Orlando, Florida 32887-6777.

Product details

ASIN ‏ : ‎ 0156027321
Publisher ‏ : ‎ Mariner Books Classics (May 1, 2003)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 326 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 9780156027328
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0156027328
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 14 years and up
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 830
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8 x 5 x 0.91 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #4,366 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #44 in Contemporary Literature & Fiction
- #144 in Psychological Fiction (Books)
- #507 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction

Yann Martel, the son of diplomats, was born in Spain in 1963. He grew up in Costa Rica, France, Mexico, Alaska, and Canada and as an adult has spent time in Iran, Turkey, and India. After studying philosophy in college, he worked at various odd jobs until he began earning his living as a writer at the age of twenty-seven. He lives in Montreal.

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Customers find the book interesting and unique. They find the writing quality descriptive and easy to read. The story is described as engaging, fun, and a lot of fun. Readers appreciate the believable story about survival, trauma, perseverance, and hope. The characters are developed with multifaceted personalities and readers grow to like them.

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Readability Thought provoking Writing quality Enjoyment Believable story Character development Storyline Pacing

2,645 customers mention "Readability"2,530 positive115 negative

Customers find the book interesting and funny. They describe it as a unique adventure story with an interesting twist. Readers consider it worth reading and a literary masterpiece.

"...Moreover, in the book's final chapters Martel gives Life of Pi an intriguing twist...." Read more

"...The author takes pains to remind the reader that the book itself is a work of fiction and that the literal representation of the truth is not his..." Read more

"I found this allegorical novel so compelling, so delightful, so well written, and such a paradoxical mix of sacred-profane and earnest-lighthearted..." Read more

"...This novel can be read simply for an action, intrigue, and the survival story which rivals any other, but my guess is there are tons of English..." Read more

1,037 customers mention "Thought provoking"979 positive58 negative

Customers find the book thought-provoking and engaging. It explores issues of belief in God and survival in difficult times. The writing is easy-going and relaxing, providing powerful insights and inspiring readers. Readers describe the book as a complex mix of sacred and profane elements, with an intriguing thought pattern and excellent glimpses of life in India.

"...will leave him with a better understanding of animals, the barbarity of the human race and will leave much to ponder about the story of a young man..." Read more

"...The island is an idyllic place (at least at first) with almost magical properties. It is wholly absent from the second narrative...." Read more

"...compelling, so delightful, so well written, and such a paradoxical mix of sacred-profane and earnest-lighthearted that I was blown away...." Read more

"...Piscine's, or "Pi's" thought patterns were intriguing, including his initial inquisitiveness and near naivety before the shipwreck, to his brain's..." Read more

1,009 customers mention "Writing quality"894 positive115 negative

Customers enjoy the writing quality of the book. They find the language vivid and descriptive, with an amazing vocabulary that evokes beautiful imagery. The author is described as a provocative storyteller who writes in a fluid and easy-going style. The book has great force through its images and details. Readers appreciate the font changes that let them know who is speaking. While going into great detail about the ordeal, it also offers many ideas.

"...At this point in the novel, Martel relies on his extremely gifted storytelling abilities, giving the reader the impression that Life of Pi is just..." Read more

"I found this allegorical novel so compelling, so delightful, so well written, and such a paradoxical mix of sacred-profane and earnest-lighthearted..." Read more

"...The novel was simply tremendous. The writing was both easily digestible and yet filled with deeper implications...." Read more

"...balance of highs and lows, conflicts and complications; vividly descriptive language; and overall "production values" as it's put together cohesively..." Read more

700 customers mention "Enjoyment"700 positive0 negative

Customers enjoy the book. They find it engaging, interesting, and fun to read. The sense of surprise keeps them reading from cover to cover. Readers recommend it to anyone who enjoys adventure and survival stories.

"I found this allegorical novel so compelling, so delightful, so well written, and such a paradoxical mix of sacred-profane and earnest-lighthearted..." Read more

"...It's that sense of surprise that kept me reading, dragging me through the story as if I were tied to a truck rolling through a busy street...." Read more

"...Yann's style is very fluid, occasionally almost poetic, and he gets by with a minimum of description of places and scenes...." Read more

"...you are currently ingesting, the book feels like a tragedy, a comedy and a romance...." Read more

213 customers mention "Believable story"199 positive14 negative

Customers find the story believable. It shows how people have the drive to survive and the will to live. The book explores themes of love, religion, and the spirit of both man and beast to survive. Readers describe the situation as fascinating and realism, with elements of implausibility.

"...The account is striking in both its realism and its utter implausibility...." Read more

"...resources available to him, Pi does survive, and this seemingly miraculous survival is what makes up the bulk of this story's 100 chapters...." Read more

"...Each has a combination of wonder, coming of age, and blunt survival...." Read more

"...material comes into play, making the situation not only highly believable but quite fascinating...." Read more

158 customers mention "Character development"147 positive11 negative

Customers enjoy the character development. They find the characters appealing and the author well-versed in describing different scenes and characters. The narrative explores and celebrates the human and animal characters. The conflict between the protagonist and antagonist is unique, with love taking the lead role. The emotions are explored with love taking the lead. The acting, computer work, story depth, and beautifully filmed scenes are appreciated.

"...voice--with its unique mix of earnestness and humor--made his character so appealing that I was sad when the book ended...." Read more

"...I wanted to know what happened and Pi is a likable character. But, there were several things that didn't sit right with me: -..." Read more

"...jive with the rest of the book -- it's necessary background for understanding the character but I couldn't help but feel it could've been presented..." Read more

"...The characters and story are well developed and mature as the story progresses...." Read more

680 customers mention "Storyline"466 positive214 negative

Customers have different views on the storyline. Some find it engaging and interesting, while others find it bizarre, dull, and abrupt.

"...has a corresponding aspect in the second narrative that is tragically believable...." Read more

"...Overall, it's a very simple story that is somehow made into 400 pages. :)..." Read more

"...While the plot is bizarre, it works...." Read more

"...in the mood for something both harrowing and inspired, with a satisfying ending that may make you look at your own life with a bit more appreciation." Read more

321 customers mention "Pacing"100 positive221 negative

Customers have different views on the pacing of the book. Some find it fast-paced, with an engaging story and good line delivery. Others mention it starts out slowly but picks up about 1/3 of the way through, leaving the reader feeling dizzy. Overall, opinions are mixed on the overall pacing.

"...Its flaw is in the slow, dragging beginning which (in my opinion at least) doesn't completely jive with the rest of the book -- it's necessary..." Read more

"...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...." Read more

"...Yann's style is very fluid, occasionally almost poetic, and he gets by with a minimum of description of places and scenes...." Read more

"...from beginning to end, loved the characters, yes, it might be a little slow at first and the time spent in the sea to long, but it’s definitely..." Read more

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Nick M.
Read with a group of fellow students/friends - Would read again and again!
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2015
Verified Purchase

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi raises a question that no other novel has ever done before. In proper paradox, the author catalogs the tale that Pi tells of his voyage and one in which one in which replaces the barbaric animals with human beings, seemingly questioning both the Japanese officials and reader’s faith one token. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional—but is it more true?
The son of a zookeeper, Piscine “Pi” Molitor Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. Much in the story is left up to the reader’s imagination as it leaves out key details that prove to be crucial to the story such as the sinking of the Tsimtsum and the disappearance of Richard Parker.
In part one of the book, Yann Martel sets up the theme of religion by establishing Pi’s poly-religious worshipping preferences: Christianity, Islam, and Hinduism. More so, Martel’s introduction and analysis of the zoo give the reader thoughtful insight into his purpose for the book. Martel hopes to inspire readers’ thoughts by using animals to symbolize how similar people are in fact to other species.
In part two of the book, the reader is unaware of the significance of the novel (which could be perceived as ineffective by some at this point), and what Yann Martel is trying to bring to his or her attention. At this point in the novel, Martel relies on his extremely gifted storytelling abilities, giving the reader the impression that Life of Pi is just another entertaining modern survival novel. However, the author makes sure to give subliminal messages throughout the novel, almost all of which carry a heavier significance by part three of the book.
There are times when Martel pushes the didactic agenda of his story too hard. One episode involving a bizarre ''Gandhian'' island of carnivorous seaweed -- populated by an enormous herd of South African meerkats -- struck as a little too baldly allegorical, however magical in its imagery. Despite this Martel is able to keep his feet on the ground by focusing on the physical and logistical details of his hero's predicament.
Moreover, in the book's final chapters Martel gives Life of Pi an intriguing twist. After the lifeboat comes safely to shore in Mexico (and Richard Parker disappears without ceremony into the jungle), Pi finds that his wild narrative is not believed by the officials sent to debrief him. And he knows exactly why: ''You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. Urged to provide a more credible explanation for his survival, Pi placates the officials with a story that contains just the kind of ''dry, yeastless factuality'' they're looking for. But is this more straightforward (and tigerless) version of events actually closer to the deeper truth of his adventure? It's a testimony to Martel's achievement that few readers will be tempted to think so. Whether the first or second story is accurate is left up to the reader to decipher.
Perhaps the best indication of Life of Pi as a contemporary Postmodern novel is its theological destitution: instead of being interested in the theological basis of Pi’s soul, it is really interested only in the theological basis of storytelling. The former is or could be a day to day, lived reality; the latter is only a piquant but now familiar contemporary abstraction. Yann Martel’s prose leads the reader to believe Pi’s abstract story as told with conviction and establishes a bridge between religion and the moral of the story being hope: without hope the situation seems helpless and barbaric but with hope the situation is romanticized and tells the tale of love and admiration. The novel leaves the reader desiring more of the story and will leave him with a better understanding of animals, the barbarity of the human race and will leave much to ponder about the story of a young man and his journey with a Bengal Tiger.

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Kevin W Rogers
Using stories to find meaning * Possible Spoilers *
Reviewed in the United States on April 15, 2013
Verified Purchase
Warning: This review may contain some spoilers

Why do we choose to tell the stories that we tell in the way that we tell them? Is it to portray unembellished reality or do we chose our narrative in service to a deeper purpose? In the novel Life of Pi, Yann Martel suggests that stories are how we find meaning in the universe; they are a path to God. Martel's characters tell stories that provide comfort, explain hardship, and provide inspiration without being literally factual. The author takes pains to remind the reader that the book itself is a work of fiction and that the literal representation of the truth is not his priority. In fact, Martel seems to say that sometimes we must abandon literal truth if we want to find meaning in the universe. If we fail to look beyond the literal truth in search of something deeper, we will "lack imagination and miss the better story"--we may fail to find God (Martel, 2007, p. 64).

Piscine Molitor Patel, known as Pi, is the titular character of the novel. The book's central conflict is Pi's struggle to survive while adrift at sea in a lifeboat after his ship sinks. He must endure against elemental forces, lack of food and fresh water, and stave off despair. However, on top of these very serious challenges, he must also deal with the fact that he is not alone in the life boat. For most of his ordeal, his only companion is a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker: a wild and untamed creature that could easily kill him at any time. However, this is not a simple survival story where the tension comes from wondering if the main character will manage to triumph over adversity. Even before we know a single detail of his ordeal, Martel assures us that Pi is alive and well, living an almost ordinary life. At the same time, he assures us that this is "a story to make you believe in God" (Martel, 2007, Author's Note). Much of the tension of the book comes in discovering what the author means by this.

On the surface, this is a survival story. However, this is not really a book about Pi's ordeal at sea; it is about the telling of the story of Pi's ordeal at sea. In the course of the narrative, there are at least five different times that one character tells the story to another. We are only privy to the details of two of these exchanges; the others occur "off stage." However, after each one, Martel shows us the impact hearing the tale has on the listeners. We get the sense that nobody is truly the same after hearing it. This is true even though the two versions of the story we see are mutually contradictory. By this, Martel demonstrates that it is not necessarily the literal truth of a tale that makes it meaningful. There is some other aspect of the story that makes it meaningful.

In the Author's Note, Martel calls fiction "the selective transforming of reality" and says that writers create it "for the sake of greater truth" (Martel, 2007, Author's Note). This note is where the narrative actually starts; it is part of the fiction Martel has created, not something that lives apart from the rest of the book. The character of the author appears throughout the book in a series of interludes within Pi's narrative. Martel uses these recollections to describe the man Pi has become and how the events of the story have changed him. The author also uses them to heighten the mystery about what exactly transpired in the lifeboat. He makes numerous references to events that have not yet been shared with the reader, foreshadowing the action to come.

Martel devotes most of the book to telling Pi's preferred account of his ordeal. This is a story that focuses on both the practical day-to-day details of his survival and his internal struggle to retain his faith in a higher power. The account is striking in both its realism and its utter implausibility. Even if we ignore the improbability of being able to survive on a lifeboat with an untamed Bengal tiger for 277 days, there are many other aspects of Pi's story that are hard to believe. We know this because Martel takes pains to have other characters, such as the shipping agents who hear the tale, point out the implausibility of these aspects. Details such as encountering another lifeboat at random in the Pacific midway through the journey, finding an almost magical floating island, and just the act of being able to survive in a lifeboat for 277 days are all highlighted as being hard to believe. However, this is not the only account of the events that Pi offers. He tells an alternative version of the events that is just as brutal and unforgiving as the other, but far more plausible. In this story, many more things make sense. Pi's actions are selfish, even if excusable. His thoughts are about survival, revenge, and satisfying his hunger, not his relationship with God. This version has only ugliness; it offers no meaning. Pi tells the shipping agents both of these stories and offers them a choice; the author does the same for the reader.

Pi seems to prefer the version of the story where he finds meaning because that is something he craves. Earlier in his narrative, he describes how his search for meaning caused him to become a Christian, a Muslim, and a Hindu, all at the same time. Each of these religions tells stories that explain the universe; they provide meaning and comfort. Pi embraces all of them. He feels no need or obligation to choose between these mutually exclusive stories. Why should he choose? The author told us in the Author's Note that stories are selective transformations of reality for the sake of greater truth. Pi craves this truth; he wants to know God and not restrict himself to "dry, yeastless factuality" (Martel, 2007, p. 64).

For the most part, both versions of Pi's narrative have the same elements; each of the fanciful aspects of the first narrative has a corresponding aspect in the second narrative that is tragically believable. However, there is a key part of the first narrative that does not appear in the second one: the floating island. This is the least plausible portion of Pi's first narrative. The island is an idyllic place (at least at first) with almost magical properties. It is wholly absent from the second narrative. This is a mystery within a mystery; the shipping company representatives he tells the story to give up trying to understand it. We are left to wonder if it points to a gap in Pi's second story, a piece that explains how a man could survive that long at sea. On the other hand, maybe it does not appear in the second story because it was literally true and needed no amendment. We are left to wonder.

Martel is careful to leave the door open for both interpretations of the story. For instance, one of the shipping representatives calls the island a botanical impossibility (Martel, 2007, p. 294). However, the representatives had also just assured Pi that the floating island of bananas that appeared earlier in the story was similarly impossible, an assertion that Martel shows proven wrong (Martel, 2007, p. 293). In this way, Martel hints that if the representatives were mistaken about one floating island, they might be mistaken about another. If one thing that is hard to believe is possible, perhaps another incredible thing also can be so. Even when we are convinced we know what happened, Martel reminds us that we should have doubt. The author tells us how he has read the diary that Pi kept during his ordeal. In it, we are shown Pi questioning his relationship with God. This is the Pi of the first story, not the survival obsessed pragmatist of the second one. There is always reason to doubt.

Why does Martel tell this story in the way that he does? Why is this not a simple linear narrative of a boy trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger? Martel tells the tale this way because he wants the reader to face the same choices that his characters face. He uses a complex structure of narratives within narratives in order to create ambiguity. The reader is left to decide what really happened. Do we choose the version of events with meaning, or the one with plausibility? Which one do we prefer? Is the "more plausible story" truly plausible? Martel refuses to give us definitive answers to these questions. Martel uses the plot and structure of the book to show that it does not matter if either is true. It does not matter if the author invented this story or if, as he says, it was told to him. What matters is the meaning we choose to give the story as readers.

Work Cited

Martel, Yann (2007). Life of Pi (Kindle Edition). New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. (Original work published 2001)

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Johanna Musingya
I love this book!
Reviewed in Canada on December 30, 2024
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Happy I got this!

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Dobrawa S.
A must read
Reviewed in Spain on February 26, 2025
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This book is absolutely a must read.

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cihat
Orijinal basım ve Çok temiz geldi
Reviewed in Turkey on August 12, 2024
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Tertemiz ve elime hızlı ulaştı teşekkürler

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Sap
all good
Reviewed in Belgium on July 19, 2024
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delivered as promised

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Viktor
Interesting book.
Reviewed in Sweden on December 3, 2023
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Recommend fir those who seek unexpected adventure!

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