Redundancy Rocks

Alliterations do too. Anyway, I finished reading Life of Pi the other night and what an intoxicating read it was. To sum up, the book is about a 16 year old boy named Pi Patel from India.

His father owns a zoo in India so he grows up with a strong love and knowledge of animals.When Pi's father decided to move to Canada, they pack up all their belongings and their animals and hitch a ride on a Japanese cargo ship. The ship sinks during it's voyage with Pi being the only human survivor. Pi ends up aboard a lifeboat, and not alone to his fortune (or misfortune) as a Bengal tiger has climbed aboard with him. The novel continues on for over 300 pages about how Pi used his knowledge and experience to survive his ordeal. I must say, the writing style of Yann Martel is extremely refreshing and overflowing with beautiful metaphors and expressions. The mark of a great author is when they can write in such a way in that the characters feelings become yours. You would think one wouldn't be able to ramble on about the happenings of a boy lost at sea for over 300 pages, however, when a tiger is aboard, fascinating mishaps will occur. Whether half of the things that go on in this novel could conceivably happen in real life is unclear to me, but that is one of the best parts about living in the world of fiction. Mr. Martel has a wonderful gift with words. One of my personal favorite descriptions was his comparison of lightning to a "celestial tree". Just lovely. On top of that, one would think that a book about survival, desperation and fear wouldn't leave much room for humor, but Mr. Martel is expertly able to balance them all out in a neat little stack. Mr. Martel does more than balance out positive and negative emotions, but also religions. Pi Patel is a brilliant young man who loves God deeply, enough to follow three different religions, Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. Not being a religious person myself, I don't want to go too deeply into this topic, but I do find it intriguing that each religion seems to have been assigned a color throughout the novel. Pi associates Hinduism with the color orange, Islamic with green, and I believe (although it is never directly stated) that Christianity is associated with blue. I'll admit, I didn't expect much from this book. I finally succumbed and bought it after seeing it countless times at the book store. I'm so glad I did. With life or death situations being the ice cream, carnivorous plant life and cannibalism being the chocolate syrup and sprinkles, and a 450 pound Bengal Tiger being that oh so delicious cherry on top, Life of Pi makes for one appatizing sundae. Exquisitly written and an enthralling story.

My Rating: 9/10
Re-Read Value: 7/10

"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life."
-Pi Patel.