(spoiler alert!)
I’ve read a lot of novels till now, but Life of Pi never fails to amaze me. Even when I watch its film adaptation, it always leaves me wondering what being alive really means. Written by Yann Martel, this book is a unique and interesting narrative about survival and identity. Martel creates a wonderfully curious and clever character in Pi and a whole distinct world of his school life, home dynamics, his views on religion, and his family zoo, all combined making for a brilliant, smart and absorbing novel that has the potential to change your life.
This book has taken philosophical theories and inspirations from some of the most prominent thinkers of all time. For instance, the idea of faith and true religion is taken from the Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard. The concept of death is highly inspired by Martian Heiddager and the concept of morality from Immanuel Kant. This novel teaches us a valuable lesson — death is inevitable.
Everything is shown in a symbolic form — the Tiger (Richard Parker, in all its magnificent glory) isn’t an actual tiger, it’s DEATH itself, face to face with Pi (depicting all humanity) who has lost everything, his family, his country, and who is now torn between his ideals, the religion in which he has a lot of faith, and of course his will to survive.
Richard Parker represents death, implying that we humans have a certain amount of time on this planet and that to live our greatest lives, we must accept and ingest the knowledge that we will all die one day.
It attempts to portray that everyone has a similar experience in their lives when they must choose between survival and morality (referring to the moment where he eats raw fish despite being a committed vegetarian).
Pi’s faith in God grows even greater as a result of all of this.
Now the book ends with an open ending — you may either suffer and eventually decide that there is no God and that you are only alive because of scientific and reasonable parameters OR you can continue to believe in God, as Pi did, thanking God even throughout his time at sea.
In both the stories (one with a tiger and the one without), Pi loses everything and survives in the end, but it’s up to the audience to decide which story do they prefer. To put it in a more philosophical sense, which way do they want to lead their lives?
The author also tries to give a new take on the importance of religion. Contrary to popular belief, which claims that religion paralyzes a human, and restricts him/her to believing in a confined and orthodox sort of reality, here we see that religion is actually what makes a man hopeful and gives him a sense of balance and purpose in life. Also, if truly believing in something can transform you and make you have faith and hope, then what’s wrong with that?
I find this book very intriguing because of its amazing storyline line as well as the surrealness of it all. Pi also comes up with a lot of insightful and philosophical concepts while adrift in the water, which is fascinating to observe from his perspective. It provided me with a new perspective on life, forcing me to look beyond what I had been taught, particularly in the realm of religion and beyond what the world had to say.
Therefore, I encourage all my readers to give this one a try!