The Life of Pi

The Life of Pi by Yann Martel

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So, after watching the movie, I decided to read the book. The movie itself moved me; the story was absolutely touching. I know from experience that books are often better than the movies, so I immediately dove onto the book.

The beginning seemed to move fairly slowly. The narrator spoke a lot about zoology for many chapters, although a lot of facts were amusing and/or interesting. Pi, whose nickname sprouted from a mispronunciation of his full name, Piscine, describes his life in India and the decision that his father made to move to Canada.

He knew that moving to another country would change things, but he had absolutely no idea how drastically.

Pi is revealed to be an eager-to-learn boy, very spiritual and wrapped up in religions--plural. This spiritual mindset differed from his father's ideas. "The Greater Good and the greater Profit are not compatible aims, much to Father's chagrin." While his father believed in monetary power and science, Pi turned to God.

This book reveals the strength of faith, and, although I'm atheist, it moved me. Besides that, for those of you who don't want to even have a brush with spiritual ideas, it also shows how much living beings depend on each other. Richard Parker is a full-grown male Bengal Tiger, who got swept off of a sinking ship onto the lifeboat that Pi was trapped on for the next... eternity, it seemed. Without Richard Parker, Pi's morale would have sunken very quickly. He had lost everything; it seemed as though he would be stuck on a lifeboat with an ugly, evil hyena. On top of that, his family was at the bottom of the Pacific in a drowned, dead zoo of a ship. Both his salvation and his ever-present source of fear came in the form of this tiger that paddled through the sea to get to the lifeboat.

It made me think about how much I loved my home. Home is "Strange in a familiar way, familiar in a strange way." Plain can be beautiful, and complicated can be dull. It helped me appreciate what I have more than I already do, and I'm glad that I don't have to abandon my ideas and struggle to survive like Pi had to during his 227 days at sea, stranded on a lifeboat with a hungry, terrifying tiger.

This book was absolutely amazing, and just seemed to get better and better as I read.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book to someone.