And at last, I got this novel last Friday from a lending library in my office towers - Suntec city. Usually they would give one month to finish a novel. Since this novel is classified under Serious Read, they gave me 2 months. But you know what, if you seriously read, you could finish the novel in 3 days, I mean 3 working days, say 2 hours a day. I finished like that. But I never returned back, in fact I don’t want to.
This novel is written by Yann Martel a Canadian author, who came to India – with little money and because in India you could do a lot with little Canadian dollar - to write a different novel and heard this unbelievable story in a hotel in Pondicherry. Yann Martel’s story itself is unbelievable, that how he raised from a dish washer to a Man Booker prize winner. Yann Martel is not so successful in his previous writings. His previous works like
Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios - a collection of short stories and Self, a novel are not a great success, commercially.
The story is narrated by Piscine Molitor Patel aka Pi Patel, younger son of Molitor Patel, who owned a zoo in Pondicherry. When I took the novel, I was particularly intrigued about the name PI. I was wondering, if it was the mathematics Pi, equivalent to 3.14. And why his father had given such a unique name. I thought his father could be a mathematics genius. But I was wrong. There is a story narrated by Pi Patel himself, about this weird name. I bet, you’ll laugh.
Pi Patel with his family and some animals – those were to be sent to Canada and those cannot be sold- starts his journey to Canada, in a Japanese ship named tsintsum. I really don’t know what does this word mean. The ship has Chinese and Taiwanese crew. After manila, suddenly the ship breaks and drowns immediately in 20 minutes – later told by Pi Patel, in an investigation by Japanese ship company.
Pi Patel survives the wreck, and gets hold of a life boat. When he boards in there is a zebra and a tiger – weighing 450 pounds. Later an orangutan – named Orange Juice – joins them aboard. Next morning he sees a hyena also in the boat. Hyena, since the tiger is sea-sick, attacks zebra and starts eating it alive, starting from its leg. Pi Patel startled to see this, but gets relieved that he is spared. Orangutan gets restless. Hyena continues to eat zebra alive. Pi Patel and orangutan can do nothing against the spotted hyena, but to just stare.
Later hyena eyes Pi and attacks orangutan. Orangutan, being a female cannot withstand a fight, gets eventually killed by the Hyena. Tiger, called as Richard Parker, gets into movement now. His sea sickness is overridden by his hungriness. He kills the hyena with out any kind of effort. Hyena succumbs meekly to Richard Parker with out a single fight.
Pi Patel and the tiger – Richard Parker; from now on will be referred to as R.P – are left in the boat. Pi Patel, at first thinks of getting rid of this beast out of the life boat, but later he tries to protect R.P, because he knows that RP is the least hope of his life and his only companion, in this never ending land of water, salty water. Since RP was a circus animal in the zoo – in the zoo owned by Pi Patel’s family in Pondicherry – Pi Patel tries to train him and every time Pi gives RP some food – either fish or dorado or turtle- he constantly reminds RP that he is the master, by blowing his whistle attached to his life jacket, orange in color, the color of hope in Hinduism, as he says.
Life rolls out in this ocean for a long time. Pi Patel and RP get weak and RP looses his eye sight, followed by Pi Patel.
And this is where the important part of the novel comes in. This part includes a blurred dialogue between Pi Patel and RP, followed by Pi Patel and another life boat rider, escaped from the ship wreck like Pi Patel. He says he has lost his eye sight like Pi Patel. Pi Patel gets him – the stranger - aboard in his life boat and RP kills him immediately.
Later when Pi Patel gets his sight back, he could see only the remains of the stranger.
Later they – Pi and RP- lands in an island full of algae which Pi finds so delicious. Pi and RP builds their strength. The island is so weird that it does not have any other inhabitant except meerkats – herbivorous version of mangoose –and the same algae everywhere. He also sees some fresh water ponds that had swarms of dead fishes floating. Pi Patel happily feasts over the algae while RP hunts meerkats.
He finds that in the night the rich growths of algae burn the entire island with its acidity.
Pi and RP leaves the island and travels again.
Later they reach the Mexico coast. RP jumps of the coast and disappears. Local tribes find him and take him to their village, bathe him and give him good food and shelter.
A couple of guys from the ship company investigate Pi about the ship wreck. That’s where the other side of the story – rather shocking – comes in to picture.
Altogether the novel is gripping, has a well defined plot, well knitted characters and a surprising end. The author has explained lots of complex things in simple sentences. He constantly reminds us of human characters and the divisions in them, particularly religious.
I would like to quote the words of Yann Martel about fear:
Fear next turns fully to your body, which is already aware that something
terribly wrong is going on. Already your lungs have flown away like a bird and
your guts have slithered away like a snake. Now your tongue drops dead like an
opossum, while your jaw begins to gallop on the spot. Your ears go deaf. Your
muscles begin to shiver as if they had malaria and your knees to shake as though
they were dancing. Your heart strains too hard, while your sphincter relaxes too
much. And so with the rest of your body. Every part of you, in the manner most
suited to it, falls apart. Only your eyes work well. They always pay proper
attention to fear.
Next time when you are gripped with fear, pay close attention to your self.
