Life of 3.14159265

Yann Martel's Life of Pi tells the tale of a precocious Indian boy from Pondicherry who becomes lost at sea when the ship carrying his family to Canada sinks. Unlikely suspects accompany him on his lifeboat: an orang-utan, a hyena, a zebra and a Bengali tiger (three of whom prove rather ephemeral companions).

As I started reading Life of Pi, I mentally prepared myself for an inspirational Mitch Albom-esque tale, one of those that Oprah would wax rhapsodic about on her show. My spirit would be lifted, faith strengthened, and overall outlook on life rendered more positive. Boy, was I in for a rude shock.

The carnage that ensues in the second chapter, which chronicles Pi's fight for survival in the open waters of the Pacific, is a loud contrast to the tameness of the opening chapter describing Pi's life in Pondicherry. Nauseating scenes punctuate his castaway tale: the tiger decapitates the orang-utan and eats the hyena out alive with bloodlust; Pi, formerly vegetarian, butchers turtles and rends them apart, consuming their blood and their raw innards; in an act of desperation, Pi sticks a cup under the anal opening of the tiger, collects its faeces and pops it into his mouth with relish. These violent acts will undoubtedly prove thorny if ever this book were to be adapted into a movie (Incidentally, I caught Five People You Meet In Heaven the TV movie on the Hallmark Channel yesterday. Jon Voight was well-cast, I thought, but I found it amusing he plays a man who's estranged from his father, given his real-life problems with his daughter. Maybe it was an attempt to touch Angelina.)

All in all, I did not find the book inspirational, nor did it infuse in me renewed faith or more life meaning (surprise surprise). But I would read it again just to be jarred once more by Martel's masterfully graphic descriptions.