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Once in a while, we all get lost. I got lost in all kinds of places. I even once got lost in my friend’s house. But I was never as lost as Yann Martel. Yan Martel is a Canadian author. He was so lost and he even wrote a book to tell you how lost he was. The book he wrote, Life of Pi, make made him famous and even more lost than ever.
Before I tell you how I feel about this book, I should explain why I am writing reviews about it. I rarely read English novels and rarely found that English can help me to engage with a story. I had to read the Life of Pi for a book club that I joined. The book club helped me to recognize how good this book is. I was intrigued and hoped to record my feelings about this book.
First of all, I wouldn’t praise its writing as much as I would do for other books like Chocolat. The author scrambled a lot. But I would forgive him. You may agree that the following dialogue is typical for a madly lost person. This person would yield to a phone:”I am lost.” “OK, where are you?” “If I know where I am, I wouldn’t consider I am lost.” “OK, which street are you on?” “How can I know what is this street. All the streets look the same…”……When you read through this book, just remember this dialogue and it will help to understand the language pattern of this book.
Despite of its poor structure, I should point out that this book is award winning and it suits a variety of readers. It is in general classified as a fantasy. If you like thriller, part of the story can get really chilly. If you like detective story, you will find that this story is about an unsolved murder case. This story can be both philosophical and amusing. It is quite religious as well.
The main role of this book is a boy called Pi. This book consists of three parts, in which Pi is sometimes fading to the background and sometimes plays infront of you. You wouldn’t understand why the first part exists unless you look at this book from a philosophical perspective. If you are a naturalist, you may find the first several paragraphs of the first part engaging. It admired the ecological and biological attributes of a sloth. Before you indulge yourselves further to the harmony in the nature, Yann suddenly pours the idea of positivism on you and forces you to recognize the cruelty of nature. He kept you wondering if animals truly belong to the nature and if we should worship the beauty of nature as what we always do. In the first part, Pi went through some difficult religious practices. He practiced three religions all at the same time. On the stage of religious beliefs painted by Yann’s pan, all the religious leaders danced as a clown and reveal their human nature. Yann was praising and attacking all these religious beliefs all at the same time.
Story truly begins at the second part. In the second, Pi was traveling from Indian to Canada with his family (of course, tiger and zebra can only be vaguely considered as family) on a boat. The boat was hit by a storm. That was the time when I realized why people call this book a fantasy. Pi ended up saving a tiger out of water and staying on a boat with this tiger, zebra, and later a hyena. Now, you would argue that who would save a tiger and put their own life in jeopardy. But believe me, if you finished reading the first part, you wouldn’t mind imagine Pi saving anything. Also, if you are an extreme naturalist and you seriously practice Buddhism, you would save a tiger, or any life form. So far, it might not be hard for you to consider Pi as a realist. But facing a tiger, he reasoned his way out. He sort out all the possibilities that he might survive in the presence of a tiger. Boat was floating on lonely pacific ocean. He was companied unfortunately by predators of different preys. The ocean was so quiet, and you would imagine that god might hear his pray. But he was just throwing into one horrifying killing scene after another. This reminded you again and again of the cruelty of materialism. But occasionally, Pi would still notice how lovely animals can be. But soon, the story will tell you what a beast they truly are. In this trip, he met another floater, who was thinking about killing and eating him. But Pi survived after floating for more than 200 days…Maybe after all, god did hear his pray. I have to tell you that the second part was so engaging and so real. I forgot my lunch entirely when I was reading it…..
After I wrote this much, you may think that the author’s opinion is well balanced and he is trying to please reader with different views. Quite on the contrary, he wasn’t pleasing anyone. He was gaming and racing with everybody. He put all these ideas into a small cage, poked their weak points and watched them to fight with each other using a weapon called reasoning…But if you liked the Catcher in the Ray, you would find this story is only mildly rebelling.
In the third part, the story was getting even more interesting. Pi was rescued and he told the story about the tiger. Nobody believed him. He ended up making up another story which only him, his mom and another cook were on board. So what is real? Which one is true?
I will leave this up for you to decide. So far, I have covered all the boring details. It is a juicy story. If you are a boy you would find this story advantageous. In these 200 days, there was not even one day that Pi’s mind was at rest. He had to fight to stay alive. If you are a girl, this is a great book for you to know men and their vulnerable world hidden behind their tough appearance. One of my friends told me that the reason why girl got lost was because we got wrong directions. But for boy, they got lost was because they never ask for directions. You would find it is absolute true that once they are lost, they can only be more lost…..
This novel was in my heart very close to song: I am on my knees, looking for an answer: Are my human? Are we dancer (from Human). I hope you enjoy reading it.
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