Life of Pi: A Review

"Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger."

Very few books can claim an ending that so well ties the story together, and none which blend Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity. Life of Pi is a novel, to be sure, but it is also a philosophical examination of human religious experience and the meaning of stories of our lives. The author skillfully ties together a lengthy exposition with the tale of the castaway to make a novel that is very nearly perfect.

I picked up Life of Pi because I needed an audiobook, and it was the only one available with which I was familiar. I knew there was an Ang Lee movie, but I didn't know much about the original novel. I'm so glad I decided to find out. The story takes us along with narrator, Pi Patel, into zoology, philosophy, and an oceanic adventure story to rival all others. At the beginning, Pi is a child growing up in a zoo-keeping family in Pondicherry, India. When his family decides to move to Canada and sell their animals in America, they clamber aboard a cargo ship and set sail across the Pacific. Unfortunately, due to a nautical disaster, Pi ends up trapped in a lifeboat with Richard Parker, a large and cranky Bengal Tiger. As a result of their time together, Pi explores the ideas of zoology, philosophy, and religion that preoccupied him while he was still in Pondicherry.

As a young man, Pi was raised a nominal Hindu, but converted to both Islam and Christianity without leaving behind his native faith. He found no contradiction between worshiping God in multiple ways. While it appears at the outset of the story that perhaps the novel is an attempt to justify post-modernist spiritualism over religious ideology, the end reveals a much greater argument about the power of stories and religious life.