The Life of Pi by Yann Martel, 2001 Knopf CanadaPiscine Molitor Patel was named after a swimming pool in France. When his schoolmates make a joke of it Piscine becomes Pi. His father owned a zoo in India, but when the political situation in India becomes too unpredictable Pi and his family board a ship to Canada.
Only a few days out of port the ship encounters a storm and an accident in the boiler room breaks the ship apart. Pi manages to survive in one of the ship's lifeboats. It isn't until the next morning that Pi realizes his companions are a tiger, a hyena, an orangutan, and a zebra.
Somehow the boy manages to cross the Pacific Ocean in the rowboat with the animals, even taming the tiger, named Richard Parker. He survives on minimal knowledge about survival, persistence, and trial and error. The survival supplies in the boat don't seem like much, but they become the line between life and death.
Before he washes up on the shores of Central America, Pi has some stunning adventures. He meets another castaway, discovers an island that eats living matter, and tames a wild tiger. When they reach Mexico Japanese officials interview Pi and he tells his story. When they are skeptical Pi repeats the story replacing the orangutan with his mother, the hyena with the ship's cook and the zebra with a sailor.
The fantasy Martel illustrates so vividly allows the reader to imagine that the forces of nature Pi faces are more than just the delusions of a dehydrated mind. Though there is an understandable explanation for the fiction, related at the very end of the book, the elaborate tale describes life more completely. The imagery of Pi's struggle with Richard Parker and against nature describes any individual's struggle with the forces of their life.
The story reminds us that no matter how difficult life becomes, at least we aren't in a twelve foot lifeboat with a ravenous tiger. Life of Pi is directed at an older readership, one that can understand how reality and fantasy can be equally true.
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