Life of Pi by Yann Martel

2nd reading; first read about 2004.

Being currently all out of unread books, I decided to read this one again, since I recently saw that a movie has been made.

It will be interesting to see what slant the movie takes. The novel itself can be read simply as an interesting tale of shipwreck survival, in the vein of The Swiss Family Robinson, just with a little twist at the end. Perhaps the filmmakers will settle for this.

But the author intended that the reader would get more than plot, however absorbing. The novel is also an allegory about the nature of religion and of story telling, and of the relationship between the two. As I interpret it, the author is saying that we all choose the stories which we will believe in order to deal with the world. Some of us choose stories which cannot be verified, which take a leap of "faith," because they are not realistic as to life as we have perceived it with our senses and our intellect. Others of us choose to tell ourselves only stories which can be verified or which seem to us to be realistic. Pi, the protagonist, says of these kinds of people, "You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently."

This novel is absorbing and quick and fun to read. The writing is vivid and immediate. The underlying allegorical material seems to me to be rather thin and contrived and pretty much a new-age way of looking at religion. I found the criticism of agnostics to be disturbing, as it seems to me that having an open mind is the best way to face the world, rather than deciding for all time what the "story" will be.

I realize I have neglected to summarize the plot, for those who have not read the book or seen the movie. A teenage boy from India is on board a ship carrying his family zoo to Canada, and the ship sinks. He shares a lifeboat with an adult male Bengal tiger. This is his journey.

This novel won England's Booker Prize. Recommended in spite of flaws.