Life of Pi

Yann Martel’s Life of Pi is a Canadian philosophical novel and Booker Prize winner published in 2001. Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 to French-Canadian parents but spent his childhood in various countries including Costa Rica, France, Mexico, and Canada. Martel’s father was a diplomat who completed his PhD dissertation on Spanish writer Miguel de Unamuno at the University of Salamanca. Yann Martel studied philosophy at Trent University in Canada before becoming a novelist.

Martel’s global upbringing mirrors Life of Pi’s setting as a trans-Pacific sea journey, which also takes place in Pondicherry, India, Mexico, and Toronto, Canada. The initial setting in Pondicherry, India, is significant for two reasons: First, Pondicherry is unique in Indian colonial history as it was French Indian territory, not British like the rest of the subcontinent, before it transferred to the Indian union in 1954. Second, Pi’s family abandoned Pondicherry to make a sea voyage across the Pacific during the era of Indira Gandhi in which she declared a State of Emergency resulting in the overthrow of the Tamil Nadu government.

Life of Pi incorporates elements of magical realism, philosophy, and religious mysticism. Stylistically, it contains a narrative within a narrative framework and is told from the perspectives of both the fictional author and adult Pi. Thematically, the novel borrows heavily from the Brazilian Jewish author Moacyr Scliar’s Max and the Cats. Despite allegations of plagiarism, which were later recanted, Martel claims to have only read a review of Scliar’s novel. The fictional author of Life of Pi, who is likely a stand-in for Martel, credits Scliar in the acknowledgments for giving him “the spark of life” (xii).

Plot Summary

The fictional author travels to India on a writing retreat where he meets a man named Francis Adirubasamy. Francis tells the author about an extraordinary story that will make him believe in God. The author returns to Canada to track down Pi, the protagonist of the story, to interview him and confirm Francis’s account. The remainder of the narrative is told from Pi’s point of view with intermittent interjections from the author who offers insights into Pi’s character from his interviews.

Pi grows up in the 1970s in Pondicherry, India in the southeastern state of Tamil Nadu. His full name is Piscine Molitor Patel, which derives from a famous Olympic swimming pool in Paris called the Piscine Deligny. His father, Santosh Patel is the founder and director of the Pondicherry Zoo where Pi and his brother, Ravi, are raised among exotic animals and botanical gardens. Pi’s family is culturally Hindu, but Pi considers himself equally Hindu, Muslim, and Christian. His modern secular family is deeply perplexed by Pi’s religious zeal. When not at the zoo, Pi spends much of his adolescence praying and performing religious rituals. Pi’s narration often digresses into pontifications on zookeeping and animal social behavior, which offer parallels to his syncretic religious beliefs. Pi ardently rejects depictions of zoos as places that deprive animals of their natural freedom. He views religion in the same light: as an unfortunate casualty of modern thought, which views religion as antithetical to freedom and reason. Pi shares an intense fondness for both religion and science and later goes on to double major in religious studies and zoology. In his youth, he forms close relationships with two different Satish Kumars. There is Satish Kumar the Sufi Muslim baker and Satish Kumar the atheist, communist biology teacher. Pi refers to both as “prophets.” Indira Gandhi’s State of Emergency disrupts the family’s fortunes, forcing them to sell the zoo animals and flee the country.

Part 2 describes the sudden and chaotic sinking of the Tsimtsum, the boat the family and some of the sold zoo animals, are taking across the Pacific. Pi’s entire family dies along with all the crew members. As the lone survivor, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with a zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan named Orange Juice. A 450-pound adult Bengal tiger named Richard Parker is also on the boat hiding under a tarpaulin. After the hyena eats and kills the zebra and orangutan, Richard Parker kills the hyena, leaving Pi alone with the tiger. Pi creates boundaries between himself and the tiger and eventually learns to tame him using a whistle and his knowledge of animal social hierarchies.

Both Pi and Richard Parker barely manage to stay alive, resorting to eating birds, turtles, fish, and other sea creatures. Pi occupies his time by tending to the boat, writing in his journal, and praying. He loses all sense of time and often digresses into long philosophical musings. After going temporarily blind, Pi encounters another castaway, whom Richard Parker devours alive. Pi steals the castaway’s boat and, along with Richard Parker, stumbles across an algae island full of meerkats. After departing the island, realizing it is carnivorous, Pi and Richard Parker later wash up on a beach in Mexico. Richard Parker runs off and disappears into the jungle while local villagers rescue Pi.

Part 3 consists of a transcription of an interview between Pi and two officials from the Maritime Department in the Japanese Ministry of Transport, Mr. Atsuro Chiba and Mr. Tomohiro Okamoto. They interview Pi about his journey and try to figure out what happened to the Tsimtsum. Pi tells them his story, but they don’t believe him, saying it is not reasonable or factual. Pi then offers an alternative version in which Pi survives on a lifeboat with a French cook, a Taiwanese sailor, and his own mother. The Taiwanese sailor dies, and the cook eats his flesh. Pi’s mother’s remonstrations prompt the cook to kill and behead her before Pi kills the cook. Chiba and Okamoto are horrified, but they find this version of the story more plausible. They note similarities, such as between Pi and Richard Parker, the hyena and the cook, Pi’s mother and Orange Juice, and the Taiwanese sailor and the zebra. Pi asks which version of the story they prefer; Okamoto responds, the one with animals, as it is a “better story.” Later, Okamoto sends a report to the author, who commends Pi for his astonishing bravery and ability to survive such an ordeal alongside an adult Bengal tiger.