| Life of Pi | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Yann Martel |
| Original title | Life of Pi |
| Country | Canada |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Knopf Canada |
| Publication date | September 2001 |
| Pages | 356 |
| 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) |
| OCLC Number | 46624335 |
| Preceded by | Self |
| Followed by | We Ate the Children Last |
Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel by Yann Martel published in 2001. The protagonist, Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck, while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean with a Bengal tiger.
The novel was rejected by at least five London publishing houses[1] before being accepted by Knopf Canada, which published it in September 2001. The UK edition won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction the following year.[2][3][4] It was also chosen for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2003, where it was championed by author Nancy Lee.[5] The French translation, L'histoire de Pi, was chosen in the French version of the contest, Le combat des livres, where it was championed by Louise Forestier.[6] The novel won the 2003 Boeke Prize, a South African novel award. In 2004, it won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Best Adult Fiction for years 2001–2003.[7]
Contents |
Life of Pi is divided into three sections. In the first, the main character, Pi, an adult, reminisces about his childhood. He was named Piscine Molitor Patel after a swimming pool in France. He changes his name to "Pi" when he begins secondary school, because he is tired of being taunted with the nickname "Pissing Patel." His father owns a zoo in Pondicherry, providing Pi with a relatively affluent lifestyle and some understanding of animal psychology.[8]
Pi was born a Hindu, but as a fourteen-year-old he is introduced to Christianity and Islam, and starts to follow all three religions as he "just wants to love god."[9][10] He tries to understand God through the lens of each religion and comes to recognize benefits in each one.
Eventually, his family decides to sell their animals and move to Canada due to political concerns in India. In the second part of the novel, Pi's family embark on a small Japanese freighter to Canada carrying some of the animals from their zoo, but a few days out of port the boat suddenly sinks. Pi ends up in a small lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, a spotted hyena, an injured zebra, and an orangutan. The other humans and animals on the boat all drown.
The hungry hyena tears off the zebra's leg, and spends the next several days eating the zebra bit by bit. The hyena also kills the orangutan. Richard Parker then kills and eats the hyena. Pi is left as the only other survivor. Pi finds food and water supplies on the boat, but as they grow scarce, Pi begins fishing. Pi feeds Richard Parker so that the tiger will not eat him; he also wants to keep the tiger alive to avoid total solitude on the ocean. Pi ensures that the tiger considers Pi the alpha animal and will therefore refrain from attacking him.
Pi recounts that after an indeterminate time at sea, the pair encountered a mysterious island, seemingly constructed of edible algae supporting a forest and a large population of meerkats. Following a period of recuperation, Pi becomes afraid of the island after discovering that it is carnivorous, and leaves with the tiger. In all, Pi survives 227 days in the lifeboat, often half delusional with thirst and hunger. The lifeboat reaches the coast of Mexico and Richard Parker escapes into the nearby jungle, so that rescuers find only Pi.
The third part of the novel is a conversation between two officials from the Japanese maritime department. They seek to ascertain why the ship sank, so they interview Pi, but they do not believe his story. Pi then tells a similar story, but this time without animals. Instead, he recounts a story of human brutality, being adrift on a lifeboat with his mother, a sailor with a broken leg, and the ship's cook, who killed the sailor and Pi's mother and cut them up to use as bait and food. Parallels to Pi's first story lead the Japanese officials to believe that the orangutan represents his mother, the zebra represents the sailor, the hyena represents the cook, and Richard Parker is Pi himself. Pi asks if this new story is acceptable, or if he should change any parts that are still too unbelievable; the officials change the subject back to the sinking of the ship. After giving all the relevant information, Pi asks which of the two stories they prefer. Since the officials cannot prove which story is true and neither is relevant to the reasons behind the shipwreck, they choose the story with the animals. Pi thanks them and says "and so it goes with God".
In a 2002 interview with PBS, Martel revealed his inspiration for his novel, "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."[11] He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life. The novel became that direction and purpose for his life.[12]
He acquires layer after layer of diverse spirituality and brilliantly synthesizes it into a personal belief system and devotional life that is breathtaking in its depth and scope. His youthful exploration into comparative religion culminates in a magnificent epiphany of sorts.
Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel is the narrator and protagonist of the novel. He was named after a swimming pool in Paris, despite the fact that neither his father nor his mother particularly liked swimming. The story is told as a narrative from the perspective of a middle-aged Pi, now married and with his own family, and living in Canada. At the time of main events of the story, he is sixteen years old. He recounts the story of his life and his 227-day journey on a lifeboat when his boat sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a voyage to Winnipeg.
Richard Parker is a 450 pound Bengal tiger that is stranded on the lifeboat with Pi when the ship sinks. The tiger lives on the lifeboat with Pi and is kept alive with the food and water Pi delivers. Richard Parker develops a relationship with Pi that allows them to coexist in their struggle.
Martel named the tiger after a character from Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). However, there were a number of other men named Richard Parker who are relevant to Martel's choice, and that are tied to tales of cannibalism by shipwrecked sailors. Such tales abounded in the 18th and 19th centuries. For instance, in December 1835, the ship Francis Spaight was wrecked in the north Atlantic. Survivors of the wreck were known to have practiced cannibalism in order to survive. In January 1846, a second ship named "Francis Spaight" sank, and took a man named Richard Parker down with it. Another man named Richard Parker was found to be the victim of cannibalism after being set adrift with two other men on a raft in 1884, after a yacht called The Mignonette sank, leaving the crew stranded and starving.[14]
In 1884, 46 years after Poe's novel was published, a new shipwreck shared many similarities with that story: after the sinking of their yacht Mignonette on the way to Australia, Captain Tom Dudley and three sailors were stranded in a dinghy in the Pacific Ocean. They believed they had no choice but to eat one of the party to survive. The victim was a 17-year-old cabin boy named Richard Parker.[15] A.W. Brian Simpson's book on the subject mentions the Francis Spaight and also refers to a boat called Tiger on which a youth was cannibalized in 1766. Having read about these events, Yann Martel thought, "So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something."[16][17]
The novel is a work of fiction set in the summer of 1977 that draws real places and events in India. The Patel household's discussions of the political situation refer to historical events. Pondicherry is a former French colony in India. It does have an Indian Coffee House and Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Garden has a toy train track. It does not have a working train, nor does the garden have a zoo, although it does have a small aquarium. Munnar, the destination for the Patel family's vacation, is a small but popular hill station in Kerala. The town has a church. Madurai, also referenced in the novel, is a popular tourist and pilgrimage site in Tamil Nadu.
In a letter directly to Martel, Barack Obama described Life of Pi as "an elegant proof of God, and the power of storytelling".[18]
Brian Bethune of Maclean's describes Life of Pi as "[a] head-scratching combination of dense religious allegory, zoological lore and enthralling adventure tale, written with warmth and grace".[19] Master Plots suggested the "[c]entral themes of Life of Pi concern religion and human faith in God".[20]
In October 2005, a worldwide competition was launched to find an artist to illustrate Life of Pi. The competition was run by Scottish publisher Canongate Books and UK newspaper The Times, as well as Australian newspaper The Age and Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. Croatian artist Tomislav Torjanac was chosen as the illustrator for the new edition, which was published in September 2007.[21][22][23]
The upcoming film adaptation is directed by Ang Lee based on an adapted screenplay by David Magee. Suraj Sharma, who has no previous acting experience, will play Pi. Life of Pi is scheduled to be released on 21 December 2012.
It has also been adapted as a play by Keith Robinson, artistic director of the youth-oriented Twisting Yarn Theatre Company. Andy Rashleigh wrote the adaptation, which was directed by Keith Robinson. The premier/original cast contained only six actors—Tony Hasnath (Pi), Taresh Solanki (Richard Parker), Melody Brown (Mother), Conor Alexander (Father), Sanjay Shalat (Brother) and Mark Pearce (Uncle).[24] The play was produced at the Alhambra Theatre in Bradford, England, in 2003.[25] The company toured England and Ireland with the play in 2004 and 2007.
Keith Robinson also directed a second version of the play. He brought some of his company to work with students of the Ba Drama, Applied Theatre and Education Course at the Central School of Speech and Drama. The joint production was performed at the Minack Theatre, in Cornwall, England, in late June 2008.[26] It was well received by the press and community.
Many international literature critics have pointed similarities between Life of Pi and the novel Max and the Cats (Max e os Felinos, L&PM, Porto Alegre, 1981, ISBN 8525410489), by Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar, which told of a Jewish-German refugee who crossed the Atlantic Ocean while sharing his boat with a jaguar.[27] On the site Sparknotes,[28] for instance, right on the page from which Life of Pi can be downloaded as an e-book, one can read, after a comparison between Martel's book and Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man and the Sea: "Another, less flattering comparison has been drawn between Life of Pi and acclaimed Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar’s 1981 novel Max and the Cats. In a 2002 interview with Powells.com,[29] Martel discusses reading an unfavorable review of Scliar’s novel in the New York Times Book Review penned by John Updike and, despite Updike’s disparagement, being entranced by the premise. As was later reported, no such review existed, and John Updike himself claimed no knowledge of Scliar’s novel. The similarities between the two novels are unmistakable: in Max and the Cats, a family of German zookeepers sets sail to Brazil. The ship goes down and only one young man survives, stranded at sea with a wild jaguar. Martel claims never to have read Max and the Cats before beginning to write Life of Pi. He has since blamed his faulty memory for the Powells.com gaffe and has declined further discussion on the topic. Scliar considered a lawsuit but is said to have changed his mind after a discussion with Martel. Whatever the real story, Martel mentions Scliar in his Author’s Note, thanking him for “the spark of life.”[30]
What Martel wrote in Powells.com was:
I would guess that most books come from the same mix of three elements: influence, inspiration and hard work. Let me detail how each one came into play in the writing of Life of Pi. [...] Ten or so years ago, I read a review by John Updike in the New York Times Review of Books. It was of a novel by a Brazilian writer, Moacyr Scliar. I forget the title. But one thing about it struck me: the premise. The novel, as far as I can remember, was about a zoo in Berlin run by a Jewish family. The year is 1933 and, not surprisingly, business is bad. The family decides to emigrate to Brazil. Alas, the ship sinks and one lone Jew ends up in a lifeboat with a black panther.—Yann Martel, Powells.com[29]
The New York Times, among other publications, reported that Scliar intended to sue Martel for plagiarism.[30] However, according to Veja, a Brazilian weekly newsmagazine that sells over a million issues per edition, Scliar never considered taking legal action against Martel: " 'For the time being, I am not indignant. I'll wait for more information,' says Scliar".[31] Scliar, who was also a doctor, died on 27 February 2011.
| Awards | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by True History of the Kelly Gang |
Man Booker Prize recipient 2002 |
Succeeded by Vernon God Little |