Life of Pi by Yann Martel

May 14th, 2006 admin Posted in Reviews | No Comments »

I usually do not read pure fiction, where the pure involves fiction without any after-effects. Fiction that ends when the book ends is not something that excites me. But what is a story if not fiction. Be it facts or ideas, they become so much more tangible when served with a soup of characters, with their quirks and their passions, with incidents that resonate with something that every person can participate in, with a story. A yarn pulled out of thin air may often last longer than a string pulled out of rigid, limited spool of the collective observation. It�s the same with newspapers. They become a boring, tiresome and apparently pointless jumble of facts, unless the editorial tries to show a subjective view-point that ties together the brutal reality that the other reports blandly serve up, into something that makes a story. The reporters job is to be objective and precise. The editor can then provide his commentary. Not his facts, but his commentary. His story.I usually do not read pure fiction. This book is purely fictional, but reveals much more than any number of factual observations can ever attempt to. This book is not pure fiction. The after-effect is strong. The book provides answers. The answers are everywhere in the book, but never is it provided in a direct, authoritative tone. The answers are provided by raising simple yet pertinent questions. The hero of the book, shows us the meaning of belief and the reason for belief.

This book is difficult to categorize. I struggled to explain to my father over the phone tonight what this book is about. �Nanna, I finished reading this wonderful book called �The Life Of Pi��. �OK, what it is about?�. �Well it is a fiction, a book on philosophy, on religion, on reason. Well it is a story of a kid in Pondicherry whose family decides to leave India due to Indira Gandhi�s imposition of The Emergency, and plan to settle in Canada. The father owns a zoo, so they decide to carry some of the animals along with them in a ship. The ship sinks and the kid alone survives, along with some other animals, most notably a Royal Bengal Tiger. The books relates the story of how the kid survives at sea for over 7 months. Well� but it is not really a book about just his survival.� I struggle. It a book about �our� struggle. It answers one very important question that beautifully ties together the world of philosophy, the world of religion, the world of science ��Why are we?�. These worlds are not really disjoint, and so it is no surprise that this one question can be grappled with from many angles. The answer science gives us is rather unsatisfying if not positively distressing. It essentially says we do not have much of a purpose other than to procreate and try to improve our species to survive in the changing environment. Life only strives to survive and expand, it says. You and I are mere cogs in this giant gear system, each one thinking it is special. That brings us to philosophy�s attempt to grapple with the purpose of our existence. The premise is that there must be some meaning to why we are. And finally religion�s attempt to provide an answer that satisfies the sense of purpose we all need to survive. To survive. We are all surviving, we are all struggling. Maybe not struggling in a ready visible way, but we are struggling to understand our place in time and space. More importantly, struggling to find the reason for our existence.

This book helps bring some direction to our search for that answer. The book�s colourful, evocative, vivid and sometimes gory images are like a dream. Sometimes too hard to believe, but at the same time very tangible. Even obvious. The story, through the hero, challenges some of the notions of faith. At the same time, the story, again through the hero, vehemently supports the notions of faith. The book claims that it will make you believe in God. It does. But it is not exactly what you might be led to believe when you read that line first�or even when you read it here. It will not just make you believe in God, but it will tell you why there is no way to live without believing. There is a memorable line in the book which I quote here. �It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith,and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them – and then they leap.� In another quote about agnostics, the book says � Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane�But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to chooseing immobility as a means of transportation�. The book builds its case very well. And in the shattering final few pages, forces you to see why belief is what keeps us all going in life. Belief not in any particular man, nor idol, not in any particular scripture or song, not in any particular house nor priest, but belief in that there has the be an answer. It cannot be chaos. The place given to the method of science is very high in the whole book. Every argument the hero makes is bolstered with enough scientific reasoning. But scientific reasoning only works to solve some of his more immediate problems. To solve his biggest problem, not how to survive, but why to survive, he had to go beyond.

Fiction, is nothing but mangling of the fact to bring out the essence of the message. There is a sentence in the book that says something to the same effect as the previous sentence, only it says it better. This is truly exemplified by this story. It was a heartening and rejuvenating read for me. There are three parts to the book. The first part is about Piscine Molitor Patel’s childhood in Pondicherry. His interactions with his parents, his brother, his teachers at school, the animals in his father’s zoo and the various religious faiths in secular India. This part was thrilling because I could relate to a lot of his childhood memories and a lot of the author’s very accurate observations about India. I have been to several Indian Coffee Houses in India and can vouch for the squareness of the tables, the high ceilings and the slow whilr of the ceiling fans hanging from long shafts. I can vouch for the heavenly transformation of leftover batter into an oothappam. The nostalgia got me hooked, but the second part about Pi’s struggle to survive for 227 days on a lifeboat, against and with Dennis Parker, the fully grown Royal Bengal Tiger, made me go on. The evocative, vivid language describes a near surreal experience. The third and final part, that wraps up the story at exactly the hundredth chapter, or rather opens in right up again, is the most riveting and honest. The story is rich, the writing and imagination mind blowing, but what worked for me most of all was that I could relate to Pi�s ideas about the true meaning of religion, and its indispensability.

Here are some memorable lines from the book.

�Father saw himself as part of New India � rich, modern and as secular as ice-cream.�

�I have heard nearly as much nonsense about zoos as I have about God and religion.� � Pi on why animals would prefer zoos compared to the wild.

�I was named after a swimming pool.� � Pi explaining how he came to be knows as Piscine Molitor Patel.

�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�I picked up the knife and fork. I had hardly ever used such instruments. My hands trembled. My sambar lost its taste.� � what a magnificient example of Yann Martel�s ability to get into Pi�s mind.

�I was more afraid that in a few words thrown out he might destroy something that I loved. What if his words had the effect of polio on me? What a terrible disease that must be if it could kill God in man.� � Pi�s interactions with Mr. Satish Kumar, his science teacher.

�It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. Like me, they go as far as legs of reason will carry them – and then they leap.�

�Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger.� � from Mr. Okamoto�s report on Pi�s ordeal.