‘Life of Pi’ by Yann Martel
Behold, the first in my ‘I need to read the book before I see the newly released film’ series - the much-hyped Cloud Atlas is up next - the truly wonderful Life of Pi by Yann Martel. Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize, shortlisted for the Governor General Award and the Commonwealth Writers Prize, praised by such greats as Margaret Atwood and Jeanette Winterson, Life of Pi is nothing less than a classic of contemporary literature. The film adaptation, directed by Ang Lee of Brokeback Mountain and Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon fame, has earned widespread acclaim, receiving eleven nominations at the 85th Academy Awards. At the ceremony this past Sunday, Lee took home the award for Best Director. But enough showbiz, I’m here to talk about Life of Pi the novel; the extraordinary, inventive, memorable novel.
Now before I launch into what will no doubt be a gushing, digression-laden discussion of Life of Pi, allow me to share with you a passage from page five of the novel which, though seemingly unrelated to the story as a whole, made a strong impression on me: 'When you’ve suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling. My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, “You’ve got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don’t believe in death. Move on!” The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn’t surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn’t biological necessity - it’s envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud.' Seriously, I read this through no fewer than five times I was so damn moved. I may have yet to share a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal tiger, but this particular passage resonated so deeply I struggled to get to sleep afterwards.
As you may already know, given the press coverage the film has been receiving of late, Life of Pi is the story of a sixteen-year-old boy, Pi Patel, who is forced to share a lifeboat with a tiger when the cargo ship transporting his family and their menagerie of zoo animals tragically sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Life of Pi is split into three parts: the first, Toronto and Pondicherry, involves the adult Pi reminiscing about his childhood in Pondicherry, southern India, where his father once owned a zoo. This unusual upbringing provides Pi with a good understanding of animal psychology, something which is key to the novel as a whole. Eventually, due to a dispute with the government, his father decides to sell the zoo and sell the animals to various zoos around the world before emigrating to Canada. But when the Japanese freighter carrying his family and a selection of their animals sinks en route to Canada, claiming the lives of his parents and older brother Ravi, Pi is left to escape in a lifeboat with the following: a spotted hyena, an injured zebra, a female orangutan and, as he later finds out, a 450-pound tiger named Richard Parker.
And so begins the second part of Life of Pi, aptly titled The Pacific Ocean. This part is an account of Pi’s 227 days spent at sea with no-one other than the aforementioned Richard Parker for company (being a Bengal tiger and all, Richard Parker inevitably kills and eats the hyena, though only after the hyena has already killed and eaten both the zebra and the orangutan…the bastard). The end of the second part of Life of Pi sees Pi and Richard Parker washing up in Mexico with Richard Parker simply running off into the nearby jungle, never to be seen again. This abrupt goodbye lends itself to one of the novel’s most heart-piercing passages: 'I was weeping because Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously. What a terrible thing it is to botch a farewell. I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape. For example - I wonder - could you tell my jumbled story in exactly one hundred chapters, not one more, not one less? […] It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse. That bungled goodbye hurts me to this day.' Again, the only tiger I have been acquainted with recently, or indeed ever, is a stuffed toy named Sampo that I brought back from a hotel in Helsinki, but still this passage struck a nerve.
The third and final part of the novel, Benito Juárez Infirmary, Tomatlán, Mexico, sees Pi recovering in a Mexican hospital and being questioned by two representatives from the Japanese shipping company that supplied the ill-fated freighter. This final part of Life of Pi underscores the idea that this is, at its core, a novel about belief and perception. As Pi plays with the heads of his Japanese inquisitors, so Yann Martel plays with the heads of us readers. The novel’s ending is intentionally ambiguous, allowing the reader to choose which version of the story they would rather believe. All I can say is that I know which version of events I’m sticking with. Just read Life of Pi now (provided you haven’t already).
This piece was originally published on alisonlaurabell.tumblr.com in February 2013.