All At Sea With a Menagerie (Life of Pi - Yann Martel)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Life of Pi - Yann Martel
Date:	27/09/05 (2594 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Beautifully written, evocative and thoughtful, full of meaning

Disadvantages: Can be a little surreal at times

***Introduction*
If there's one thing that retains an enduring popularity it's an allegory. There have been many stories over the years that have called on the notion of a fable to weave a way into a reader's heart and "Life of Pi" is a book that belongs in this very genre. I guess I was drawn to the story by the careful positioning of the aforementioned in the prizewinners section in Tesco. Blinded by the acclaim of being the winner of the Man Booker prize, I made the potentially naïve assumption that "Life of Pi" would be good.

***The Author***
Yann Martel is a new author to me. Born in Spain and now living in Montreal, Martel wrote the acclaimed novel "Self" as well as the story collection "The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios". "Life of Pi" was his third book to be published and was short-listed for the Governor General Award, the Commonwealth Writers Prize and was the winner of the Man Booker Prize 2002.

***The story***
Piscine Patel is the son of a zookeeper from Pondicherry in India. With the zoo struggling to make ends meet, the Patel family decide to emigrate to Canada taking some of the animals with them. On June 21st 1977, The Tsimtsum leaves Madras bound for Canada along with its passengers and cargo, amongst who are the Patels and assorted menagerie. Unfortunately, the ship sinks with a "..monstrous metallic burp" leaving Pi (short for Piscine) stranded as the only human survivor on one of the lifeboats along with a zebra, an orang-utan, a hyena and 450-pound Bengal tiger. This is the surreal tale of those days on board the lifeboat floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean at the mercy of the elements and sea life surrounding the boat.

***My thoughts***
First and foremost, "Life of Pi" is an irreverent read. With critical acclaim from just about every quarter, the book was easy to get excited about and it's the depths in which the story operates that add so much to the quality of the story telling. As the central character telling the story from a first person perspective, Pi's approach to faith and religion is a cross-cultural joy. Even before the trauma of the sinking of the ship, the story captivates as Pi converts successfully from Hindu to Catholic to Muslim with a rye slant on each that brings a smile to the reader's face. The culmination of these conversions is an unplanned showdown with the imam, priest and the pandit who fall headlong into a theological debate about the vagaries of each of their faiths. The upshot is that all three confront Pi's father with the ultimatum that Pi must choose one and only one. Pi's reply is "Bapu Gandhi said, "All religions are true". I just want to love God." The subsequently awkward silence speaks as loudly as any debate that had gone before.

Pi's eventual descent into desperate carnivore reflects obliquely how the niceties of religious callings can be so easily consumed by the situation allowing for even the most mild mannered of people. After all, 227 days lost at sea without sufficient food and water is enough to influence anyone's behaviour, especially a desperate 16 year-old boy who has just lost everything he ever had.

At the heart of the story is Pi's relationship with the tiger. Here again, the author manages to infuse a good deal of humour as the naming of the eponymous beast is recounted as a comical, clerical accident involving the tiger's hunter giving his name to his quarry i.e Richard Parker. The irony of the tiger being the only thing stopping Pi going insane is a neat juxtaposition against the continuing life and death struggle between Pi and his nemesis, Richard Parker. This relationship is ultimately explained in the finale which was a surprise to me and beautifully disguised to underpin a show stopping final paragraph.

Pi's predicament has more than an element of the old man of the sea about it with Martel achieving a great deal of authenticity to the tale with his knowledge of boats and seafaring in general. The story does become something of an ongoing diary although the dates and days are obscured by the central character's failing memory. Martel avoids any anachronistic tendency in the haze of the saga although when the fable does finally unravel it does become clear that the whole thing may have been an anachronism after all given that it's made pretty clear early on that Pi does live to tell the tale which he is, indeed, recounting.

Of course, the main attraction is the yarn spun around the various animals in the boat and the latter stages of the plot strands come together to create a harrowing surprise that finally lends the allegory and takes the story into the realms of fable.

Martel's writing style is very descriptive. He manages to vividly account for the sometimes cartoon situations with the use of adventurous description and a lilting narrative that keeps the reader entranced. Take that together with his gentle poking fun at religions in general and you end up with a multi-layered story of life and death, tragedy and joy, hope and despair.

If I was being harsh the only criticism I would make is that the book does get pretty surreal at times. I'm sure the carnivorous island towards the end is meant to be an analogy of some kind but I really didn't get it. I'm sure others will and that will only add value to what is a wonderful piece of writing.

***Conclusion***
At 319 pages, the book was a middle-of-the-road read certainly in terms of length. Divided into 3 parts: Toronto and Pondicherry, The Pacific Ocean and Benito Juarez Infirmary, Tomatlan, Mexico, "Life of Pi" runs rather nicely to 100 chapters. The chapters themselves are anything between a couple of paragraphs long and 28 pages towards the end although most are much briefer and usually around half a dozen pages.

As far as genre goes then I'd place this as general fiction. Events towards the end of the story would make it more suitable for adults and certainly should not be read by younger children. I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was unusual, absorbing, highly entertaining and I can't see me encountering anything quite like it for some time.

Thanks for reading

Marandina

Published by Canongate (www.canongate.net)
ISBN 9 781841 953922
Price £3.79 at Tesco. You may find it cheaper online at Ebay or even a used copy from Amazon.

Summary: Man Booker Prize Winner from 2002