The Life of Pi

I had been longing to read this book for the longest time, but since I still have some that are patiently waiting for me to explore, the intention was pushed aside. It was reignited when I learned of a plan of turning this into a movie. I wanted, I needed, to digest it earlier than the moviegoers. So, out of impulse, I bought a copy from one of the local bookstores when I passed by it a couple of months ago.

It took me two months to finish it. It is impressive in the beginning, declines in mid part, and reaches the Mt. Everest somewhere in the middle and all through the ending. It is an interesting linear graph of emotions, with ascending and plummeting points popular all throughout.

The story is about a boy named Pi π. This is the short form of his Indian name that even his fellowmen are having a hard time pronouncing. I am still contemplating till this very moment if this name is a significant symbolism of something in the story. Is it equated with his guilt, like the mathematical constant that has an infinite but decreasing value? So is his conscience? After his ordeal, he returned back to God. The relation of his name is uncertain.

His family owns a zoo in India. His father, wanting to upgrade their economic status, decides to sell all the animals to migrate to Canada. They were in the middle of the Pacific when the ship sank. All the animals, the crew, and his family submerged along with the ship. He is the sole survivor. 

Or he thought he is.

When he falls on the water of the Pacific, he sights a lifeboat. He strives to aboard it, swims the best he could, sees another life form heading to the same direction. He attacks the living thing, he succeeds, then he drags his body to the safe part of the boat. This is where realization strikes him. He is not the single soul who survives.

And his adventure commences.

There are two realities presented in the story: the 'dry, yeastless factuality', and the 'better story'. After he reaches the land of Mexico, two Japanese men pay him a visit. Pi elaborates the two realities to them who are extracting valuable information from him as a way of justifying the ship's tragic end. I had accepted the 'better story' involving Richard Parker and dismissed the thought of defense mechanism playing a big part in the atypicality of the story. Until Pi uttered, "Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without the animals?", inquiring of the two men. So it is defense mechanism at work that is the main point of this book. Magnificently maneuvered and delivered!

He thanks Richard Parker for the company, Richard Parker vanishes like he never exists, and his imagination forms a better story to conceal his guilt. Richard Parker is the character he chose to acquire. Pi is a brilliant boy, God-fearing, and I guess he has all the valid reasons for all the lavishing and cannibalism he acted. According to him, animals are capable of doing crazy things for self-sustenance. If it does not resort to such, there is no way to survive. And men are the highest form of animals.

The Life of Pi bagged the Man Booker 2002 Award, a prestigious award-giving body for literary piece. It is an intelligent mixture of religions and human spirit, beautiful wordings crafted from a rich vocabulary, and well researched data to back up the facts. It is a survival manual containing three major aspects: spirituality by glorifying God in all patterns; morality with the creation of Richard Parker, and physicality through cannibalism, literally and metaphorically speaking. It is a twisted mentality, a last resort all of us might be capable of cooking up if in such a circumstance. But God is good.

At the end of it, Pi gets to take his cookie and eat it too.