By quickly perusing my posts, you’ll find that I don’t often review “popular” or even recent novels on this blog. In fact, of the 29 books published since 2020 that I’ve read, only 3 were novels, and 2 of those were written by acquaintances.

Chasing the bandwagon of NYT Bestsellers, I generally am not. Waiting 23 years to see what all the fuss had been about for a book, I occasionally am.

The Life of Pi was a hit back in the day. Immediately made into a movie (which I saw early on but didn’t care for at the time) and raved about everywhere, the book was definitely on my radar, but knowing about it and caring to read it are two very different things.

The only reason I picked it up recently, in fact, is that I found it in a give-away pile in my new overseas home. Having left my entire library in storage boxes back in the States two months ago, I wanted something tangible to hold and read that wasn’t shaped like a phone or an e-reader.

My pastor back home was also looking for a book to read “together” across the waves, so I chose this (as well as Edmond Morris’ Dutch). Thus, our 2-man reading club began. This book was shockingly spot-on for the both of us: a religious book (though not biblical) about nature and survival at sea. That’s 3 boxes checked. It was definitely a hit.

The Story: Pacing and Word Pictures

The story is that of an author scrapping an unsalvageable novel project midstream. Instead, he chases down a lead for another interesting plot from an Indian man living in Canada. The two meet, and Pi Patel shares his unbelievable story, one that he promises “will make you believe in God.” The author shares all of this from his own point of view at first, but then eventually switches to and remains first-person from Pi’s point of view. It’s Pi’s story, after all.

Seventy pages in, I had yet to take a single note as I read. I suddenly realized that this book was not at all what I had expected. From my recollections of the movie, I had expected more animals. More lifeboats. More…tigers and floating garbage, right? Yet up to this point, the book was nothing but childhood recollections and discussions of religion—it was syncretism at its finest. As a kid, Pi Patel sought to merge all world religions into one collective faith, even to the point of thanking Krishna for introducing him to Jesus Christ! My confusion was tinged with a heavy dose of genuine interest, though: this book was way more engaging than I had anticipated, and for all the unexpected reasons.

The pacing was slower than I’d hoped, and yet the content was so engaging, I found myself not caring. I zoomed through it fairly quickly—Martel’s writing just kept me hooked, projecting images in my mind through beautiful descriptions and clever analogies. On page 78, for example, he shares a view of news and politics that I needed to hear midst the violent drama of America’s 2024 election cycle. Pi compares his complete disinterest to the politics of mid-1970s India to the carelessness of nature, saying:

It’s not that I didn’t understand the drift of what [my parents] said—it’s that I wasn’t interested. The orangutangs were as eager for chapattis as ever; the monkeys never asked for the news from Delhi; the rhinos and goats continued to live in peace; the birds twittered; the clouds carried rain; the sun was hot; the earth breathed; God was—there was no Emergency in my world. (78)

Ah, sweet release! I remember coming to my own sane awakening one day in 2020. While Minneapolis and Kenosha burned, and while “everyone else” was hiding in their homes from COVID-19, I suddenly heard my neighbor mowing his lawn outside, and I thought, “You know, if I just turn off the news, the world is no longer as bad as they say it is. In fact, it’s downright normal out there.” That’s exactly what I read in Martel’s words here, and that’s honestly why this book struck home for me.

The Writing: Insightful yet Familiar

The further I read, the more engaged I became, because eventually Patel found himself alone at sea with a tiger in his boat. “Oh, Richard Parker.” I can still hear the actor quote the Indian-lilted words.

And it wasn’t just the adventure of survival with wild animals that drew me in: it was the writing. Yann Martel has a way of producing bursts of poetic expressions of humanity that we all feel but can’t seem to put into words. Take this description of fear as one lengthy example:

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unerring ease. It begins in your mind, always. One moment you are feeling calm, self-possessed, happy. Then fear, disguised in the garb of mild-mannered doubt, slips into your mind like a spy. Doubt meets disbelief and disbelief tries to push it out. Bust disbelief is a poorly armed foot soldier. Doubt does away with it with little trouble. You become anxious. Reason comes to do battle for you. You are reassured. Reason is fully equipped with the latest weapons technology. But, to your amazement, despite superior tactics and a number of undeniable victories, reason is laid low. You feel yourself weakening, wavering. Your anxiety becomes dread. (161)

I didn’t take too many other notes as I continued to read this book, so engrossed I was in the tale. But in Chapter 93, with Pi standing atop the island of algae, something sparked my memory. I suddenly realized what this book was: nothing more than a modern-day adventure in the vein of H. Rider Haggard and Edgar Rice Burroughs!

The Life of Pi is an adventurer’s tale that takes us readers off to some mythical place where survival amidst a whole world of frightening circumstances is the focus, and where we tend to suspend our disbelief as we sit in the boat alongside this boy and his monster. It’s the same kind of stuff every boy read 130 years ago, but which has since gone by the wayside. The advent of TV, video, real-life explorations and documentaries have proven that such mythical lands are false. Our dreams of maybe finding something like out there are dashed. So this isn’t so much a unique and visionary book as it is a great old idea repackaged and re-spun—and with a bit more religion than normal.

Conclusion

I really did enjoy the book, and obviously the final section about Pi’s interview with the Japanese investigators is as eye-opening as anything. He tells a second, much darker story in this interview, and we readers are challenged to wonder which of his stories is true. I have my own theories, of course, which I won’t share here. All I’ll say is that: I already believed in God when I picked up this book, so this novel didn’t fulfill that initial promise. But it has gotten me thinking, and that’s exactly what a good novel should do.

©2024 E.T.