Life of Pi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Life of Pi
Author Yann Martel
Country Canada
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Knopf Canada
Publication date September 2001
Pages 401
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 novel by Canadian author Yann Martel. The protagonist Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores the issues of religion and spirituality from an early age and survives 227 days shipwrecked in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger.

First published by Knopf Canada in September 2001, the novel won the prestigious Man 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, Histoire de Pi, was also chosen in the French version of the competition, Le combat des livres. An illustrated version of Life of Pi with art by Tomislav Torjanac is also available.[1]

Jean-Pierre Jeunet has been signed to direct the film adaptation of the book.[2]

Contents

[edit] Yann Martel

Yann Martel is a Canadian author who won the Man Booker award for this 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 neither acquired the same national acclaim as Life of Pi. In a November 11, 2002 conversation with PBS,[3] 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 and needing direction to his life. This novel became that direction and reason to his life.[4]

[edit] Plagiarism controversy

“ Also, I am indebted to Mr. Moacyr Scliar, for the spark of life. ”

Martel included this dedication to Moacyr Scliar in the preface of the novel and its appearance drew attention to similarities between Life of Pi and Scliar's Max e os Felinos, published in 1981. Scliar's tale is the 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 about whether his novel was plagiarized.

Martel claimed not to have read Scliar's book, but acknowledged reading a negative review of it that appeared in The New York Times many years prior to writing Life of Pi. Martel said the review was written by John Updike, but Updike never reviewed the book. The Times did run a review of Max and the Cats by Herbert Mitgang on July 11, 1990. When the Man Booker 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.[5]

[edit] Perspective

Martel wrote Life of Pi in a frame narrative. In the novel, Pi, a fictional character, is met by another fictional character, the supposed author of Life of Pi. In the author's note, the fictionalized author tells his own reasoning for recounting Pi's life. This author meets Pi and his family, years after his journey at sea. Interestingly, Martel uses italicized chapters to distinguish the "author's" notes from the continued story of Pi's life. Although somewhat unclear, it is this fictional author who writes the story in Pi's own words.

[edit] Allusions and references

[edit] Actual geography

Though the novel is a work of fiction, much of the setting of the novel 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 as well as the Tata Tea factory mentioned in the novel. Madurai, also referenced in the novel, is a popular tourist/pilgrimage site in Tamil Nadu. Tomatlan, where Pi lands from his journey across the ocean, is an actual town in the state of Jalisco, Mexico, just south of Puerto Vallarta & Cabo Corrientes and south west of Guadalajara. It sits on a small river not too far from the Pacific Ocean.


[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Life of Pi illustrated.
  2. ^ BBC News, October 25, 2005.
  3. ^ Ray Suarez, NewsHour, November 11, 2002
  4. ^ Martel, Y. How I wrote Life of Pi. Powells, Retrieved Jan 20, 2007, from http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html
  5. ^ Scliar, Moacyr. Interview with Eleanor Wachtel. Writers & Company. CBC Radio 1. July 16, 2006. (Interview [.ram]).

[edit] References

[edit] See also

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

[edit] Book reviews

Awards
Preceded by
True History of the Kelly Gang		 Man Booker Prize recipient
2002		 Succeeded by
Vernon God Little