Life of Pi by Yann

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

This is a story about a16-year-old Indian boy named Pi, when he and his zoo-keeping family come to a decision to resettle themselves as well as a few animals to Canada, Pi winds up stranded on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named 'Richard Parker.'

It seems to me that the book is about a person's assessment of faith in all its forms -- young Pi loves God and in order to demonstrate it, Pi turns into a Christian, Muslim, besides his original Hindu faith. In the story, it is seen that Pi also likes animals; furthermore the story inspects animal psychology as well as its connection to human psychology in a vibrant and interesting way: "Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that's creation in frenzy. To one born in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay race run over many centuries, with innumerable generations passing along the baton, the quick resolution of Christianity has a dizzying effect. If Hinduism flows placidly like the Ganges, then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in the instant. In a moment, you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now."

The Life of Pi tackles religious stories and beliefs since Pi emphasizes that faith compels one to be both a listener and a devotee. Unexpectedly, even if Pi is a religious person, he also showed appreciation to those who is a non-believer of God because to Pi, what is important is to have faith in something -- Pi appreciates that an atheist's capability to have faith in the nonexistence of God by means of no tangible evidence of that absence.

Although, Pi despised the agnostics, those who declared that it was not possible to understand either way, as well as those who thus desist from saying a definitive statement on the question of God. Pi understands this as proof of a disgraceful lack of imagination because to Pi, agnostics who cannot create a leap of faith in any way are similar to listeners that cannot understand the non-literal reality an imaginary story may give.

The story will make one ask questions about life, beliefs, and society as one proceeds with the story. One will have to ask himself, what kind of person am I? The story is entertaining because of its sharp storytelling, although it can also help one to inspect how they one should really see the world.

I noticed that even if the characters in the story were castoff in a shipwrecked, they were incessantly obsessed on food and water. The writer showed in a satirically manner that the lifeboat was with food and water but the salty water cannot be drank and the food is not that easy to acquire. Pi frequently tries to catch a fish or haul a turtle above the side of the craft, as he needs to steadily as well as constantly gather clean drinking water with the use of the solar stills. The recurring struggles to stop hunger and thirst shows the severe distinction between Pi's previous life as well as his present life on the lifeboat.

In the city of Pondicherry, where people are given food similar to zoo animals, the people did not have to exert any energy or effort just to get their nourishment; however Pi was forced to provide for himself when he was stranded on the open sea. Pi's change from modern civilization to the more primitive survival on the open sea is evident by his manner regarding fish -- before Pi was a vegetarian and was unwilling to take the life of an animal and then eat it, only when the fish was lifeless, seeing it like it was from the market, made Pi to feel better. As time passes by, Pi showed that his acceptance of his new found life because he showed an increasing ease when he eats meat.

As mentioned earlier, what the author wrote was beautiful and amusing because the metaphors of the tiniest thing can make one wonder why he/she did not see it that way before, as well as one's observations towards people and religions are motivating, frequently reflective; especially when Pi portrays scientists as: "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."