Review of Life of Pi

Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Harcourt, Inc, Orlando, Florida, 2001     326 pp.

For young adults and older, this book is a fictional account of a shipwrecked 16-yr old young man named Pi.  It's an adventurous story written with wit and humor about the son of a zookeeper who survives on a lifeboat with several wild animals from the ship on which they were traveling to America from India. Particularly interesting is Pi's appreciation of the ways of wildlife, his spiritual open-heartedness drawn to devotional practices across several religions, and his resourcefulness using the emergency supplies on the lifeboat to keep himself and a Bengal tiger alive while afloat for many months.    

Here are a few quotes showing the author's engaging writing style:

"To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation." (p. 28)   - referring to agnostics

" . . . Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians (what his Indian mother thought Hare Krishnas are called), just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims." (p. 50)

"These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. . . For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out.  The main battleground for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart."  (p. 71)

-- submitted by Mona B

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