Life of Pi

BOOK INFO

Original Title- Life of Pi

Author- Yann Martel

Original Published- 11 September 2001

Genre- Novel, Fantasy Fiction, Adventure Fiction, Survival Fiction

Page Count-440

“I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. The pain is like an axe that chops my heart. ”

“Life of Pi” is a fantasy, survival fiction novel written by Yann Mantel. This book is about the conversation of Piscine Molitor Patel or Pi Patel and a writer. In this conversation, Pi tells the writer about some awful incidents of his life. This book consists of three parts which further divides into 100 chapters. Yann Mantle has won the ‘Man Booker Prize’ for this book in 2002. This book is also adapted as a movie in 2010 directed by Ang Lee.

Pi was born in Pondicherry in India. His father was a zookeeper. The first part of this book tells about his birth to the time he turns 16. Pi was a teenage boy and he was interested in animals and different religions and their cultures. In a country like India where there were many religions, Pi decided that he'll follow all the three religions i.e. Hinduism, Christian and Islam. Thus, Pi became a devotee of Vishnu, Allah and Jesus simultaneously and he started to worship them.    

The next part of this book is called ‘The Pacific Ocean’ and it is the most exciting part of this book. It tells the awful journey of Pi Patel. Pi’s family has sailed to Canada through a ship but sadly the ship sank. The only survivors were Pi himself, a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra and a Royal Bengal Tiger. Now Pi is left with some food, a dairy and a pen, a lifeboat, a guide manual, some water cans and some other things left from the sank ship. Sometimes Pi has been attacked by sharks or he has to live for days without food and water. To identify: What happened to Pi in this journey? How he managed to survive in this critical situation? You have to read the book. The third part of this book is all about the actual conversation of a Japanese man and Pi. Yann Martel has translated and written the complete conversation as it was. 

I have written about this book as much as I can without giving any spoilers regarding the plot. Now the question occurs is that should you read this book or not? So the answer is absolutely yes it’s a must-read for everyone. It is as enjoyable and exciting as thoughtful and moral. There is also a movie adapted from this book, and it's also great to watch, but the book is more enjoyable than it's adaption. I’ll recommend that you should read the book and then watch the movie too. Although there are several things which seems illogical like a Tiger accompanied Pi in his journey and it doesn’t harm him at all, but if you overlook them then you’ll enjoy this book more. 

My Ratings- I’ll rate this book A- and highly recommend that you should read this book once. It's a must-read.

A-