Life of Pi: A Beastly Story

How would life be like when a man is tossed in the Pacific? Or better say – how can a man, tossed in the Pacific, survive with an adult Bengal Tiger?

Either ways, life with such damage provides no chance of survival.  I, for one, would call it ‘quit’.

The story starts in extremas res where, Piscine Molitor, the protagonist reminisces his past experience to a novelist. As kid he undergoes mockery from his name as others associate it with piss rather than the elite swimming pool in France where it is derived. In his youth, he faces a labyrinth of belief with plenty of rooms such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and doubt. But his bigger challenge when Piscine is stranded in the ocean with a stripped beast.

Life of Pi gives us a spectrum of man’s survival that results into a web of conflicts. Initially, the protagonist is faced with a name dilemma. His finds a way out by changing his nickname Pi with a mathematical association from π. Pi also anchored faith in different angles which is unrealistically probable. But, as human as possible, he finds a way to reconcile these beliefs even with repeating disapproval from an extensively rational father. His father believes that faith has no stall in a modern enterprise; one that they are currently facing even resembled it to darkness and uncertainty unlike rationalism and western science.

Pi’s childhood is tangled, like most of us, with curiosity. His inquisitiveness makes him trust a tiger named Richard Parker. His father adamantly disapproved this act. In effect, he lets Pi witness a goat’s fate in a Parker’s paws. The scene aligns with Ricky Lee’s “maliit na tao concept” (small person). This suggest that our childish imagination has unlimited spaces but is eventually caged in conventions as parents debunk our manner of thought. The conflict of realism and unconventionalism therefore rises. What is perceived by the intellectual society becomes the convention by which we are subjected to conform with.

As India changes its landscape, Pi’s family zoo is threatened to be shut down. His father resorts to selling the animals in Canada and venture in the same place. Pi waves is disagreement but ends to nothing as he is a son to father. In a ship bound to their ‘soon to be’ new home, the ship is knocked down by a sea storm. The protagonist manages to escape with a life boat.

The story appears to be a story of placements and changes. It baits you to an expecation that in the end is not right much like Pi’s selection of faith that constantly changes through time, experience and circumstance. To wrap it all up the author takes a lot of U-Turns like any others life that branches unexpectedly.

We expect that they find refuge in Canada.

No, his family perished in the ocean only Pi survives.

We expect he lives with a Zebra.

No, an Orangutan sails to accompany him. The Orangutan and he Zebra are murdered by a laughing Hyena.

Pi is accompanied by a Hyena.

No, the Hyena is killed by a Tiger.

Like any other National Geographic coverage, Pi will be eaten by a blood thirsty Parker.

No, they will be friends. And believe me, they will be best friends.

They find refuge on an island.

No, Pi found out the island was a nature trap. Even plants eat human. They leave and end up in a Mexican coast.

Martel brings us to a lot of broken expectation not as twists but as literary twirls – minute surprises that reverses expectation.

But with the story wrapped in twirls, we find a Pi greater that a number and a man not lesser than us. He is a man who has an expansive imagination that transcends rationality. He reconciles water and oil. He has a life that serves as an exemplar to everyman. Despite the heavy conflict, he finds hope to survive, even against natural order and convention.

I am an avid critic of senseless and effortless titles. For example, heading “About Eve” for Eve’s short biography. Or Tale of Adam the Brain crusher as simply Adam and Brain crushing. Life of Pi was not exempted to this. I was partly dismayed by the seemingly effortless title. Yeah, I know. It comes from a story of a man named Pi. But indeed, Life of Pi is a story of twirls that breaks expectations. The title builds its gravity from the story itself unlike films who feed us only from the title or trailer.

Rate: 8/10