I often wonder what anticipation does to an event. Most of the time when I am looking forward to a certain affair happening, I end up disappointed in some way. Pi Patel, the protagonist of �The Life of Pi,� was certainty excited about traveling across the Pacific Ocean on a cargo ship.
Unfortunately, Pi’s excitements are dashed from him as soon as he hits the half-unrolled tarpaulin covering the lifeboat.
By Athena Singer,
Senior Staff Writer
I often wonder what anticipation does to an event. Most of the time when I am looking forward to a certain affair happening, I end up disappointed in some way. Pi Patel, the protagonist of �The Life of Pi,� was certainty excited about traveling across the Pacific Ocean on a cargo ship.
Unfortunately, Pi’s excitements are dashed from him as soon as he hits the half-unrolled tarpaulin covering the lifeboat.
Pi, the younger son of a zookeeper in Pondicherry, India, is a highly intelligent boy who shows his love to God by practicing Hinduism, Christianity and Islam.
At the age of sixteen, Pi finds himself, the sole human survivor of the Japanese cargo ship Tsimtsum, on a 26-foot lifeboat with an orangutan, a hyena, an injured Zebra and a 450 pound Bengal Tiger.
Yann Martel’s novel was written in 2001, while in India. He majored in philosophy in university and has since worked as a dishwasher, tree planter and security guard.
�The Life of Pi� is the winner of the Man Booker Prize and is a best-seller for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, San Francisco Chronicle and the Chicago Tribune.
Although a complete work of fiction, this story has the quality of being absolutely believable.
Pi’s courage, wisdom and knowledge of animals learned in the zoo go beyond the sequencing of particular events throughout the incident.
Martel’s knowledge of philosophy shines through as he describes the hardships and tension that is constantly present in the lifeboat.
The necessary but precarious relationship between man and animal is powerful and telling.
As far as anticipation goes, this novel far exceeded anything I had expected. The end of the last page of exactly 100 chapters, I felt sad that I had finished.
Martel leaves the reader wanting to turn the novel back over and start at the beginning immediately.
Pi comes alive in the pages through stark, severe descriptions of his fear, courage, cunning and faith.
A thrilling narrative of survival told by a master storyteller, �The Life of Pi� is a story that simply cannot be missed.
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