Life of Pi - Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Life of Pi - by Yann Martel

Reviewed by Maggie Devero

Piscine Molitor Patel, known better as simply Pi, expects nothing but a grand adventure when his family ups and leaves their home in India, and more importantly their zoo, to begin again in America. Little does he expect after a sudden turn of events, to end up on a small lifeboat, with none other than Richard Parker, a three year old adult tiger. Even though he, the son of a zookeeper, knew better than anyone what sort of harm such a beast could bring upon him, he made the choice to stay in the lifeboat. Would you do the same? Pi spends a long amount of time in this boat with his feline companion, lacking pure water and nutrition, before washing up on an island. The island leaves Pi feeling paranoid though, so he and Richard Parker once again take to the Pacific Ocean. When they end up landing again some time later on a Mexican beach, Richard Parker disappears and Pi gets taken to a hospital. He tells the story exactly as it is, but isn't believed until he tells it again, this time changing the animals for actual people. Because really, who would believe the adventure of a boy and a tiger?

I've never been an adventure story type of person, but there was something about Life of Pi that I really enjoyed. Maybe it was the more philosophical feel of it focusing on the minute details of how animals, and even humans work. And though you would never expect it, theology and zoology make quite an interesting mix of topics in this novel. Both play equally important roles in Pi's life, making him, in my eyes, an extremely unique character. Also, the way the story is presented, as a man telling a story he was told by another, through first person narration as Pi, was something I hadn't seen before. This part could be confusing at points, especially when he would stop telling Pi's story, and add in his own personal experience of how he came to know the story and the man behind it. See? Confusing just trying to explain it. Even so, I enjoyed the read and would recommend the story to others, although not super highly. There is in fact a movie based on the book, though I have not seen it. I've heard multiple different reviews, but I think anyone who has read the book should see a movie to make a rightful opinion about it. Nor have I read other books written by him, but if you are interested, they sound more along the lines of scifi genres, but have different and cool topics all the same. The titles are: Self and We Ate the Children Last. I think in general Yann Martel has a lot of potential as an author.