Life of Pi is a truly inspiring novel. Reading this (and watching the movie) was just amazing.
Pi takes us through an unbelievable journey of survival and companionship, as well as restoring our faith in God.
When I read this book back in high school a few years ago, I thought it was the most amazing piece of literature ever written. I was so amazed by Yann Martel‘s imagination and creativity. He was able to create a scenario where a Bengal tiger and a human were trapped on a boat, yet they didn’t kill one another. Then he was able to show us how you can be faithful to more than one God. This is what amazed me the most.
I grew as a Christian so I only believed in one God (obviously), but after reading this, I became more open-minded about religions. This book is able to show you how there could in fact be more than one true religion. Yes, I know this is fiction, but in a way it kind of makes sense. You can see that when Pi was struggling, God (whichever one was called upon at the time) heard his prayers and was able to help him-gave him flying fish when he was hungry.
Then I was amazed by his survival skills. He was able to create a whole new raft out of random junk left in the boat. I definitely wouldn’t be able to do any of that if I was in his boat-pardon the pun. And then on top of all of this, he was able to survive for 227 days with a Bengal tiger and not get eaten. Unbelievable.
Being the very gullible teenager that I was, a part of me wanted to believe that all of this was based on a true story. But reading it again last week, I realised how predictable and overly dramatic it is.
The minute Pi begins struggling with something, his problems are solved almost instantly. For example, the fish. The poor boy is almost dying of hunger, then suddenly there’s flying fish jumping into the boat. You could see this coming. But I guess that the predictability plays a major part in the “religion” side of the novel.
I really loved the end of the book though, where Pi is telling the Japanese officials about his journey and then tells them a different version with the cook, a sailor, his mother and himself. He then asks the Japanese to choose the one they believe.
Naturally as humans, we would choose the second story but only because that seems like the more realistic answer, no matter how gruesome and inhumane in appears to be.
But I didn’t. I choose to believe the story with the animals because I’m the sort of person that doesn’t like to see humans portrayed through such a negative light. But, over the years my opinion could change.
The movie also did the film justice. This was my original intentions on re-reading the book. Familiarise myself with the story and falling in love with it all over again. The film was superb. Kudos to Ang Lee for such a brilliant job.
Overall, a wonderful story. Pi is an inspiring character of survival and faith.
j.x
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