Life Of Pi - Story Review

‘Life Of Pi’ is a book written by Yann Martel and published in 2001. The story later went on to be directed as a motion picture in 2012 by director Ang Lee. Yann Martel won the Man Booker Prize for the book, while Ang Lee picked up the Academy Award for the best director for the movie.

In Martel’s own words, it’s a story that will ‘make you believe in God’.

The story explores the travails of a Pondicherry boy named Pi whose father owns a zoo. Pi is curious about understanding God and tries to find him through different religions. He is also curious about animal psychology, and has the opportunity to interact with the zoo animals at different levels. Circumstantial developments necessitate for the family to sell the zoo and most of its animals, and move to Canada. The Japanese freight that is carrying them across the Pacific sinks midway, taking with it Pi’s family and most of the animals making the journey. Pi survives the shipwreck and finds himself on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan and…a Bengal Tiger named Richard Parker. At the end the only ones left on the lifeboat alive are Pi and Richard Parker. Pi must survive the Pacific while keeping the tiger from killing him. And survive he does. After 277 days at sea in a small lifeboat and a raft he builds to protect himself from Richard Parker, both he and Richard Parker reach safe land alive.

At the end, Pi attributes his survival to the tiger. If it wasn’t for Richard Parker, he wouldn’t have survived. In order to protect himself, he had to develop a special relationship with the tiger. Pi uses different techniques to communicate with the tiger, to send across a definite message that he will provide for the tiger and feed him, but he must not be attacked in return. They both must coexist, if they had to survive. The presence of Richard Parker helps Pi find purpose each day at sea, while he discovers and deals with the wonderful and dangerous aspects of it. Stranded in the middle of the uncertainty of the ocean, he finds familiarity in Richard Parker. The story’s crux is about Pi’s complex emotions while stranded at sea, and his relationship with the tiger.

This is a story you will never be able to forget. It’s so fantastic that it will be difficult to believe it, unless you do it from your heart. There are multitudes of interesting aspects to the story, but what captured me most was the final interpretation of what really happened on the lifeboat. Martel leaves that interpretation to you, the reader, with the strong belief that his audience would be intelligent enough to figure it all out. And based on your interpretation of what happened on the lifeboat, you will have to understand Richard Parker - which is what you will take away from this story.

Who is Richard Parker? In Pi’s version he was a Bengal Tiger. Who, or what is he in your version? We all have a survival story. Richard Parker always plays the same part. Someone or something that is so strong that it can destroy us, but if used to good, can help us survive. Without Richard Parker we would not make it. He could be an external or internal force, but we each have one of our own. We all need a Richard Parker, even if he comes in the form of a 450 pound Bengal Tiger.