Life of Pi

Infobox Book
name = Life of Pi
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption =
author = Yann Martel
illustrator =
cover_artist =
country = Canada
language = English
series =
genre = Novel
publisher = Knopf Canada
release_date = September 2001
media_type =
pages = 336
isbn = ISBN 0-676-97376-0 (first edition, hardcover), ISBN 0-15-602732-1 (US paperback edition) ISBN 1-565-11780-8 (audiobook, Penguin Highbridge)
preceded_by = Self
followed_by = We Ate the Children Last

"Life of Pi" is a fantasy adventure novel by Canadian author Yann Martel. The protagonist Piscine (Swimming Pool) "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of religion and spirituality from an early age and survives 227 days shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean.

First published by Knopf Canada in September 2001, the novel won the prestigious Booker Prize the following year. It was also chosen for CBC Radio's "Canada Reads" 2003 competition, where it was championed by author Nancy Lee. Its French translation, "L'Histoire de Pi", was also chosen in the French version of the competition, "Le combat des livres."

Plot summary

The book has three parts. The first section is an adult Pi Patel’s rumination over his childhood in Pondicherry, a former French Colony in India. The main character, Piscine Patel (shortened to "Pi") talks about his life living as the son of a zookeeper, and speaks at length about animal behavior and religion. Pi investigates Hinduism, Christianity and Islam and sees merits in all three religions. He says "I just want to love God." [cite book
last = Martel
first = Yann
title = Life of Pi
pages = page 69
publisher = Harcourt
year = 2001
isbn = 0-15-100811-6 ] Because of the political situation in India, Pi’s father decides to sell the zoo and relocate the family to Canada. In the middle of the ocean, the cargo ship, on which the family has found passage, sinks.

The second part is a fanciful allegory in a medieval style. Pi manages to find refuge on a lifeboat, though not alone. He shares the limited space with a female orangutan named Orange Juice, a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, and a Royal Bengal Tiger by the name of Richard Parker. At first Pi believes that Richard Parker has abandoned the boat, and focuses on surviving the hyena. It is not long before the hyena begins to feed on the zebra. After the zebra's death, the hyena kills the orangutan, after which a possibly suicidal Pi approaches it. It is then that he notices that Richard Parker has been resting under a tarpaulin and has been aboard the lifeboat the entire time.

The tiger kills and eats the hyena, but does not immediately attack Pi. The young man manages to construct a raft using supplies aboard the boat, and avoids direct confrontation with Richard Parker by keeping out of the tiger's territory on the deck of the boat. Pi eventually marks his own territory by using his knowledge of zoology thus taming Richard Parker. Pi reasons that while Richard Parker is healthy, he poses less of a threat - an injured beast being more dangerous. Therefore keeping the tiger alive becomes his primary focus. Pi's focus day to day is redirected towards day to day survival. He catches fish and turtles, and uses solar stills to obtain drinkable water. At one point, due to poor diet, nutrition, and weakness, Pi goes temporarily blind, and during this state meets another castaway on a boat travelling parallel with his own. The other man has a French language accent, and after a period of amicable conversation he boards Pi's boat with a view to murder him. As soon as he boards, however, he is killed and devoured by Richard Parker. Soon after the duo wash ashore upon a strange wooded island, populated by meerkats, and containing pools of fresh water. After some time, Pi finds a strange tree on the island, and upon examining the fruit, finds human teeth. He realizes that the island is carnivorous, and he and Richard Parker must leave the island immediately. The lifeboat finally washes up on the beach in Mexico at which point Richard Parker bounds off into the jungle never to be seen again.

Here begins the third part of the story. When Pi is rescued and taken to a hospital two men representing the Japanese Ministry of Transport quiz him to find out why the ship sank. Pi offers his fantasy story but that does not satisfy the Japanese. Pi then offers an alternative and more plausible explanation. He was on board the lifeboat with three other people: his mother, the ship's French chef, and a wounded sailor. The barbaric chef first kills and eats the sailor, then brutally kills his mother. Upon seeing this, Pi kills and eats the chef.

Pi asks the men from the shipping company which story they prefer. The novel ends with the report to the Japanese government, in which the two men have told the first story. The last part also offers the reader a choice to choose the story version they preferFact|date=July 2008. Martel suggests that there are two ways of making sense of Pi's survival story, either allegorically or literally.

Yann Martel

Yann Martel is a Canadian author who won the Man Booker award for his novel. He was born in Spain though he moved to different locations throughout his childhood because his parents worked with the Canadian foreign services. He lived in places such as: Alaska, Spain, France, British Columbia, Costa Rica, Mexico and Ontario. As an adult Yann Martel studied philosophy at Trent University. He has written two other books though none acquired the same national acclaim as "Life of Pi". In a conversation with Yann Martel, November 11, 2002 with PBS [Ray Suarez, "PBS News Hour", November 11, 2002] , Martel reveals his inspiration and motives for his novel saying “I was sort of looking for a story, not only with a small ‘s’ but sort of with a capital ‘S’ – something that would direct my life”. He spoke of being lonely in his life and needing direction to his life. This novel became that direction and reason to his life [(Martel, Y How I wrote Life of Pi. Powells, Retrieved Jan 20, 2007, from http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html]

Plagiarism Controversy

This dedication to Moacyr Scliar appears in the preface of his novel Life of Pi and sparked controversy. Many people wonder whether this book was deliberately plagiarized.

Scliar's "Max e os Felinos", published in 1981, is a story of a German refugee who crosses the Atlantic Ocean while sharing his boat with a jaguar. "Max and the Cats", an English translation by Eloah F. Giacomelli, was published in 1990. The striking similarity caused critics to question Martel..

Martel says he did not read Scliar's book, but he did read a negative review many years prior to writing "Life of Pi". What makes it more confusing is that Martel said the review was written by John Updike in "The New York Times". However, the newspaper never ran a review of "Max and the Cats", nor has Updike ever reviewed the book. When the prize was awarded to Martel in 2002, Scliar said he was perplexed that Martel "used the idea without consulting or even informing him", and considered taking legal action. After talking with Martel, however, he elected not to pursue the matter. [Cite interview|first=Moacyr |last=Scliar |subjectlink=Moacyr Scliar |interviewer=Eleanor Wachtel |program=Writers & Company |callsign=CBC Radio 1 |date=July 16, 2006 |url=http://cbc.ca/writersandcompany/media/060716_scliar.ram |format=.ram]

Characters

Piscine Molitor Patel

"Pi" is the narrator and main character of the story. The story is told as a narrative when Pi is much older and living in Canada. He recounts the story of his life and thus the 227 day journey on a lifeboat when his boat sinks.

Richard Parker

Richard Parker is the 450-pound Royal Bengal Tiger who is stranded on a lifeboat with Pi Patel.

Richard Parker was named after an Edgar Allan Poe character from "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (1838). The book tells of four shipwrecked men who, after many days' privation, drew lots to decide who should be killed and eaten. One Richard Parker, a mutinous sailor, draws the short straw and is eaten. Tales of cannibalism by shipwrecked sailors were not uncommon in the 19th century, but oddly enough, 46 years after Poe's story was published, similar events would happen in reality. Captain Dudley and three sailors were stranded in a skiff in the Pacific after the sinking of their yacht "Mignonette" on the way to Australia. They are forced to eat one of the party to survive, and feast on his body for 4 days — a sailor boy named Richard Parker. ["The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens"; L.R. 14 Q.B.D. 273] Yet another Richard Parker died when his ship, named the "Francis Spaight", sank in January 1846. Ten years earlier, in December 1835, an earlier "Francis Spaight" was wrecked in the north Atlantic: some of the survivors of that wreck too were involved in cannibalism. As Yann Martel said "So many Richard Parkers had to mean something."

Film and theatrical adaptations

M. Night Shyamalan, writer and director of "The Sixth Sense", became interested in a proposed film based upon the novel, but dropped the project due to its twist ending (a common feature of Shyamalan's films), telling magazine "Entertainment Weekly":

"I was concerned that as soon as you put my name on it, everybody would have a different experience. Whereas if someone else did it, it would be much more satisfying, I think. Expectations, you've got to be aware of them."

Alfonso Cuarón, director of the third "Harry Potter" movie, has also expressed interest in making it.

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has been signed to direct the movie. Martel himself confirmed Jeunet's involvement in a public appearance in April, 2006 at the Peterborough Public Library in Peterborough, Ontario.Fact|date=February 2007 He has since pulled out due to budget reasons.

The novel was adapted for the stage by the Twisting Yarn theatre company, which produced a stage adaptation in the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford in 2003 and is due to tour February 2007. The company received the exclusive UK rights to adapt the novel into a play from Yann Martel himself.

A second version of the play was later directed, again with Keith Robinson as the director, but working with students of the Ba Drama, Applied Theatre and Education Course at the Central School Of Speech and Drama. It was performed at the Minack Theatre in Cornwall in late June 2008 and was very well received by the press.

Allusions and references

Actual geography

The novel is clearly a work of fiction, but much of the setting of the novel really does exist. Discussions of the political situation within the Patel household are realistic and refer to actual events. Pondicherry is a former French Colony in India, and it does have an Indian Coffee House and Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Garden has a toy train track, but there are no signs of a working train, and there is no zoo currently within the gardens (though there is a small building housing an aquarium). Munnar, where the Patel family took a brief vacation, is a small but popular hill station in Kerala and there is a church in the town. Madurai, also referenced in the novel, is a popular tourist/pilgrimage site in Tamil Nadu.

Pop Culture

The book has been mentioned in the popular Canadian television show "Corner Gas" in the episode "Comedy Night" in which several of the characters form a book club to discuss reading it.

Notes

References

*Cite book| authorlink=Brian Busby |last=Busby |first=Brian |title=Character Parts: Who's Really Who in CanLit |location=Toronto |publisher=Knopf |year=2003 |id=ISBN 0-676-97579-8
*cite news | last=Davies | first=Hugh | title=£50,000 Booker winner 'stole idea from Brazilian author' | date=September 2002 | publisher=Telegraph Group | url=http://portal.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/11/09/wbook09.xml
*cite news | title='May Richard Parker be always at your side' | date=November 2002 | publisher=Guardian Unlimited | url=http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,6000,848131,00.html
*cite news | last=Fialkoff | first=Francine | title=Too Sensitized to Plagiarism? | date=December 2002 | publisher=Library Journal | url=http://www.libraryjournal.com/article/CA263159.html
*cite news | last=McMurtrie | first=John | title=French director swept away by 'Life of Pi' | date=October 2005 | publisher=San Francisco Chronicle | url=http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2005/10/13/DDGVAF6PQ733.DTL&hw=life+of+pi&sn=001&sc=1000

ee also

* The story of Poon Lim, who holds the actual world record as a sea survivor (133 days).
*Book trailer, "The Life of Pi" has the record for being the first of the winners of the Booker Prize to have its own book trailer.

=External links=
* [http://www.pbs.org/newshour/conversation/july-dec02/martel_11-11.html NewsHour Online Conversation with Yann Martel]
* [http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html "How I wrote Life of Pi" by Yann Martel]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BzqsKLbGpM YouTube interview] "People are better for being less reasonable"
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJYS9SQn1LA YouTube audio interview] "I suspect most people will read this book and say this is an allegory"
* [http://textualities.net/writers/features-h-m/martely01.php Jennie Renton Interview textualities.net] "Life is a story. You can choose your story. A story with God is the better story."
* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/generalfiction/story/0,,848131,00.html Guardian Q&A] "I wanted to push the reader till he/she was forced to make some leap of faith. (About the Island.)"
* [http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/lifeofpi/index.html Spark Notes]

Book reviews

* [http://books.guardian.co.uk/reviews/generalfiction/0,6121,721434,00.html "The Guardian" review by Justine Jordan]
* [http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9C05E6DC123EF934A35754C0A9649C8B63&scp=1&sq=life%20of%20pi&st=cse New York Times Review]