Life of Pi By Yann Martel The Authors

Life of Pi By Yann Martel

The Author’s Note ▪ An author’s note is normally factual and sets us up for what is to come. We believe that it is completely true…however, Martel’s note is actually partly fictional. ▪ He blurs the boundary between fact and fiction ▪ He makes up the references to Adirubasamy and the story of finding Mr Patel in Canada… ▪ Why does he do this? ? ▪ By doing this, he lays the foundation for theme of storytelling ▪ He hints that this might not be true when he says, ‘That’s what fiction is about, isn’t it, the selective transforming of reality? The twisting of it to bring out its essence? ’ ▪ This is exactly what Martel does with his introduction, and yet he fools his readers because we are programmed into thinking that the Author’s Note is always true.

3 questions… ▪ What is faith? ▪ What is friendship? ▪ What is fiction? ▪ …. Life of Pi explores these three questions…

Martel’s Real Influence… ▪ Martel reminisces about the first spark of inspiration for his novel: a chance encounter way back in 1990. He vividly remembers reading a review of a Portuguese book that had just been translated and become newly available in English: Max and the Cats (1981) by Moacyr Scliar. The critic, prolific American writer John Updike, wasn't much of a fan of this novel. His review panned Max and the Cats. ▪ Updike also included a general description of the plot in his review. Sclair's novel follows Max, a 21 - year-old Jewish boy. In 1933 Berlin, Max has an affair with a married woman and is subsequently forced to flee the country. Max boards a ship bound for Brazil. But when the ship sinks in the Atlantic Ocean, Max ends up in a life raft with a panther. ▪ Updike's negative review didn't inspire Martel to read Max and the Cats. What struck Martel was the novel's premise, the kernel or seed behind a story, its essential plot. It was beautifully simplistic, stark, and compelling. Martel never got around to reading Max and the Cats. But its central idea stuck with him.

Why did Yann Martel write Life of Pi? ▪ Martel had written an unsuccessful story: ‘To have a story die in your hands is to witness the death of a small god. I experienced some harrowing days. "Harrowing" may seem too strong a word, but that's how it felt, to have so much future to account for and no idea how to live it. (No wonder I came to write a novel set in a lifeboat. )’ ▪ He went on a trip to India and noticed all the animals and gods that were in Hindu temples, Muslim mosques and Christian churches: ▪ For the first time in my life I took both of them seriously. I looked into the eyes of animals and I looked into the eyes of gods, trying to understand each on its own terms. I visited all the zoos of south India. I bought a copy of the Bhagavad Gita and of the gospels. I camped near cows and observed them at length. I started attending masses, pujas and Friday prayers. ▪ That is how I stepped into Pi's lifeboat. I simplified the setting, brought together the extremes of existence on Earth - the animal and the divine - and let the story carry me where it might. Readers must decide on their own what Pi's trip across the Pacific means to them. For me, it has meant an end to the voids.

▪ ‘But I do now have the abiding feeling that this entire planet is a lifeboat and it is drifting across a cosmic Pacific. Every day I encounter a Richard Parker of sorts, sometimes a source of comfort, sometimes a source of distress. Together we scour the horizon, on the lookout for some salvational shore. ’ ▪ “…India, where there are so many animals and religions, lent itself to such a story. That tensions simmering just below my level of consciousness were probably feverishly pushing me to come up with a story. But in truth I don't know. It just happened. Some synapses in my brain started firing off and I came up with ideas that were not there a moment before…. it helped me understand my world a bit better. ” ▪ ‘In contrast to his secular, capitalist upbringing in Canada, Martel now came in contact with a profoundly different perspective on life. Indian society and religion opened his eyes to the immense cultural value of art, the political significance of citizenship and, above all, the emotional and spiritual value of religion. ’

The Zoo ▪ Yann Martel found inspiration for his Booker prize winning book Life of Pi at Trivandrum Zoo (Thiruvananthapuram Zoo) in south India. No wonder it sparked his imagination, says Luke Harding; it is a place of wonder and delight ▪ Martel’s compelling descriptions of quirky animal behaviour are based on genuine research. He spent a lot of time at Trivandrum Zoo. ▪ With one failed book behind him, Martel - then merely an aspiring writer - spent six months in south India in 1996. He visited Trivandrum Zoo, where he interviewed its director, observed the tigers, and ate French toast in the Indian Coffee House just across the road. The Life of Pi started to emerge in a "smashed up, kaleidoscopic" way. ▪ The zoo was founded in 1857, and is unchanged since the days of the Raj. ▪ Most of Trivandrum Zoo's visitors appear to agree with Martel's main conclusion: that, at the end of the day, animals are more terrified of humans than humans are of animals. It is that appears to explain the narrator's improbable survival. ▪ Taken from: https: //www. theguardian. com/world/2002/oct/29/india. bookerprize 2002

Martel and Animals ▪ I like using animals because I find that they help me tell my stories. We’re very cynical about our own species, we’re less cynical about wild animals. I noticed that with “Life of Pi” that people were taken in by the animals. It’s strange, I don’t know why, but in adult fiction, there aren’t very many animals. We seem to confine animals to the world of children’s literature. Their symbolic potential to me is infinite. An animal can be exactly what it is, so in “Life of Pi, ” it could just be a tiger in a lifeboat, nothing else, but it can also be many, many other things. There’s a symbolic wealth to animals that sometimes in some ways is lacking in human beings.

Martel and Religion ▪ Interviewer: Do you consider yourself religious? ▪ YM: I would say yes, in the broadest sense of the term, in the sense that I choose to believe that all this isn’t just the result of happenstance and chemistry. I find faith is a wonderful respite from being reasonable. We’re so trained in the West to be reasonable. It’s yielded great things—it’s resulted in these great technical prolepses that are very impressive, but they in and of themselves don’t give us a reason to live. In the modern Western technological society, it’s very hard to have any kind of faith. And so I took on religious faith and I finally came to agree with what I was discussing in the book. Religious faith makes life interesting.

The novel is “a mixture of theology and religion” ▪ Theology = the study of religious faith, practice, and experience; especially the study of G-d and of G-d’s relation to the world. ▪ Martel: “There is a theological dimension to storytelling. All religions tell stories…Why is that? I think it is because stories involve imagination…” ▪ Why did Martel choose to use three religions in his book? ▪ “…three religions because I wanted to discuss faith, not organized religion, so wanted to relativize organized religion by having Pi practice three. I would have like Pi to be a Jew, too, to practice Judaism, but there are two religions that are explicitly incompatible: Christianity and Judaism. Where one begins, the other ends, according to Christians, and where one endures, the other strays, according to Jews. ” ▪ ‘Pi sees no contradictions between any of these religions. He accepts them all as part of one divine reality, a belief that some would call pantheism, or the idea that the whole world is a manifestation of G-d.

“Humans aspire to really high things. . . like religion, justice, democracy. At the same time, we're rooted in our human, animal condition. And so, all of those brought together in a lifeboat struck me as being. . . a perfect metaphor. ” – Yann Martel

Key Themes ▪ Religion/belief in G-d ▪ ‘I have a story that will make you believe in God’ this quote immediately establishes faith and religion as a key theme of the novel. ▪ The Power of Storytelling ▪ Stories in religion ▪ Pi’s story: ‘But he wants to tell me his story. He goes on. After all these years, Richard Parker still preys on his mind. ’ (p. 49) ▪ The Will to Survive/Survival ▪ ‘Life will defend itself no matter how small it is. ’ (p. 44)

Pi’s understanding of animals Chapters 8 -14: ▪ Pi has an intimate knowledge of animals this allows us to believe his story of survival with a tiger. . ▪ The information we get about the animals in the zoo allows the reader to become familiar with the nature of animals so that we can understand more of Pi’s story on the boat. ▪ The lesson his father teaches him with Mahisha, a Bengal tiger, foreshadows Pi’s later experience on the lifeboat. ▪ ‘Tigers are very dangerous…you are never – under any circumstances – to touch a tiger. . ’ (p. 40) ▪ ‘It was enough to scare the living vegetarian daylights out of me. ’ (p. 42) ▪ These chapters also introduce theme of survival: ▪ ‘Life will defend itself no matter how small it is…. ’ (p. 44)

▪ The relationship between man and animals (foreshadowing Pi and Richard Parker) ▪ ‘Getting animals used to the presence of humans is at the heart of the art and science of zookeeping’ (p. 45). ▪ P. 47: ‘Animals that escape go from the known into the unknown – and if there is one thing an animal hates above all else, it is the unknown’ foreshadowing of the animals on the lifeboat ▪ P. 48: ‘escaped zoo animals are not dangerous absconding criminals but simply wild creatures seeking to fit in. ’ ▪ Pi explains how a circus trainer must always establish himself as the ‘super-alpha male’ by entering the lion ring first: ‘he establishes that the ring is his territory’ (p. 49) ▪ ‘Social rank is central to how it leads its life. Rank determines whom it can associate with and how…until it knows its rank for certain, the animal lives a life of unbearable anarchy’ (p. 50)

Pi’s Religions ▪ Pi looks to the stories in religions in order to find out who he is ▪ Chapter 15: ▪ Pi’s home in Canada clearly has all three of his religions equally on display: Christianity, Hinduism, Islam. ▪ ‘We are all born like Catholics, aren’t we – in limbo, without religion, until some figure introduces us to G-d? ’ (p. 53) ▪ 1: Hinduism: ▪ Pi’s first encounter with religion: his Auntie Rohini takes him to a Hindu temple when he was a small baby. ▪ ‘A germ of religious exaltation, no bigger than a mustard seed, was sown in me and left to germinate. It has never stopped growing since that day. ’ ▪ ‘I feel at home in a Hindu temple. I am aware of Presence…’ ▪ ‘But religion is more than rite and ritual’

▪ ‘…This, in a holy nutshell, is Hinduism, and I have been a Hindu all my life. With its notions in mind I can see my place in the universe’ (p. 56) ▪ NB: ‘But we should not cling! A plague upon fundamentalists and literalists!’(p. 56) ▪ Fundamentalist = a person who believes in the strict, literal interpretation of scripture in a religion. ▪ ‘I owe to Hinduism the original landscape of my religious imagination’ (p. 57) ▪ 2: Christianity: ▪ Pi met Jesus when he was 14, in a church in Munnar (p. 57) ▪ ‘I was filled with a sense of peace’ (p. 58) ▪ Pi is attracted to the idea of the priest waiting for anyone to come and talk to him, ‘a problem of the ▪ ▪ soul, a heaviness of the heart, a darkness of the conscience, he would listen with love’ (p. 58 -59) ‘I was moved. What I had before my eyes stole into my heart and thrilled me. ’ The priest (Father Martin) explains the story of Jesus dying on the cross to pay the price fro humanity’s sins. Pi struggles to understand why G-d would do this, and all Father Martin answers is ‘Love’. ‘The more [Jesus] bothered me, the less I could forget Him. And the more I learned about Him, the less I wanted to leave Him. ’ (p. 63) Pi becomes a Christian – ‘I entered the church, without fear this time, for it was now my house too. ’ (p. 64)

▪ 3: Islam ▪ Pi is 15 when he discovers Islam he meets Mr Satish Kumar, a baker, and a Sufi (p. 67) ▪ ‘I challenge anyone to understand Islam, its spirit, and not to love it. It is a beautiful religion of brotherhood and devotion. ’ (p. 67) ▪ Pi is inspired by both the Mr Kumars in his life: he studied religious studies and zoology because of them. ▪ ‘Mr and Mr Kumar were the prophets of my Indian youth’ (p. 68) ▪ Mr Satish Kumar teaches Pi how to pray. ‘I described Mr Kumar’s place as a hovel. Yet no mosque, church or temple ever felt so sacred to me’ (p. 69) ▪ Pi’s religions all represent something different to him: ▪ Hinduism = faith ▪ Christianity = love ▪ Islam = unity/brotherhood ▪ Pi’s parents don’t know about his three religions, and when they find out (chapter 23), they are not impressed. ▪ But Pi defends himself as to why he can be Christian and Muslim: ‘They both claim Abraham as theirs. Muslims say G-d of the Hebrews and Christians is the same as the G-d of the Muslims. They recognise David, Moses and Jesus as prophets. ’ (p. 78) ▪ ‘All religions are true. I just want to love G-d’ (p. 73)

Mr Kumar meets Mr Kumar ▪ Chapter 31 ▪ The baker and the teacher meet at the zoo: science meets religion ▪ Mr Kumar sees the zebra as a scientific wonder – ‘the Rolls-Royce of equids’ (p. 88) ▪ “Equus burchelli boehmi” = Latin – scientific terminology ▪ Kumar sees the zebra as a ‘wondrous creature’ (Islam places emphasis on the miracle of existence) ▪ “Allahu akbar” = Arabic – religious saying.

Leaving India (chapters 29, 32, 3436) ▪ ‘People move in the hope of a better life’ (p. 83) ▪ Mid-1970 s were troubled times in India, and a zoo is a risky business if the government is not peaceful. ▪ ‘Long-term, bad politics if bad for business. ’ ▪ ‘People move because of the wear and tear of anxiety. ’ ▪ ‘Canada meant absolutely nothing to us. It was like Timbuktu, by definition a place permanently far away. ’ (p. 84) ▪ They sell the animals to American zoos who will give them more money (chapter 34) ▪ 21 June 1977 – the Patels leave India for Canada on a Japanese cargo ship Tsimtsum. ▪ Pi is ‘terribly excited’ ▪ ‘Things didn’t turn out the way that they were supposed to, but what can you do? You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it. ’

▪ ‘I was not wounded in any part of my body, but I had never experienced such intense pain, such a ripping of the nerves, such an ache of the heart. ’ (p. 100) ▪ ‘Every single thing I value in life has been destroyed’ (p. 100) ▪ Survival: ▪ ‘Something in me did not want to give up on life, was unwilling to let go, wanted to fight to the very end…’ (p. 101) ▪ Reason vs faith/hope ▪ ‘I was alone and orphaned, in the middle of the Pacific, hanging on to an oar…had I considered my prospects in the light of reason, I surely would have given up and let go of the oar, hoping that I might drown before being eaten. ’ (p. 108)

The Animals on the raft ▪ #1: The Zebra ▪ Thrown onto the lifeboat by some Chinese officers and has a ‘badly broken rear leg’ (p. 110) ▪ #2: Richard Parker ▪ ‘I had a wet, trembling, half-drowned, heaving and coughing three-year-old adult Bengal tiger in my lifeboat’ (p. 101). But Pi later thinks Richard Parker must’ve drowned because he can’t see him. ▪ #3: The Hyena ▪ P. 111 ▪ ‘a maniacal beast’ (p. 117) ▪ ‘an animal to pain the eye and chill the heart’ (p. 118) ▪ #4: The Orangutan ‘Orange Juice’ ▪ P. 113: ‘She came floating on an island of bananas in a halo of light…’ ▪ ‘It’s not right that gentleness meet horror’ ▪ ‘She was in a state of profound shock’ (p. 114) ▪ {Pi deeply regrets not saving the bananas that Orange Juice arrived on: ‘this colossal waste would later weigh on me heavily. I would nearly go into convulsions of dismay at my stupidity’ (p. 114}

▪ ‘When your own life is threatened, your sense of empathy is blunted by a terrible, selfish hunger for survival. It was sad that it was suffering so much, , but there was nothing I could do about it…I have not forgotten that poor zebra and what it went through. Not a prayer goes by that I don’t think of it’ (p. 121) ▪ ‘I have had so many bad nights to choose from that I’ve made none the champion. Still, that second night at sea stands in my memory as one of exceptional suffering…the broken-down kind consisting of weeping and sadness and spiritual pain’ (p. 124). ▪ P. 125: the hyena attacks the zebra ▪ The zebra is eaten alive by the hyena. ▪ Orange Juice tries to defend the zebra (p. 126 -127) ▪ P. 128: Pi thinks that the zebra died: ▪ NB: ‘When the sun slipped below the horizon, it was not only the day that died and the poor zebra, but my family as well. With that second sunset, disbelief gave way to pain and grief. They were dead; I could no longer deny it. What a thing to acknowledge in your heart!. . . ’ ▪ The zebra dies at noon the next day… ▪ Next to die is Orange Juice, killed by the hyena, but not without a fight… (p. 129 -131)

Richard Parker ▪ Pi discovers that Richard Parker is on the lifeboat…’I collapsed’ ▪ P. 133: history of Richard Parker’s name. ▪ ‘The feat surely made Richard Parker the largest stowaway, proportionally speaking, in the history of navigation’ (p. 135) ▪ ‘It seemed the presence of a tiger had saved me from a hyena’ (p. 138)

▪ - Chapters 49 -52 - Survival p. 135: ‘With a tiger aboard, my life was over. That being settled, why not do something about my parched throat. ’ - P. 138: ‘It seemed the presence of a tiger had saved me from a hyena…’ - P. 139: ‘ It seems orange – such a nice Hindu colour – is the colour of survival…’ - P. 142: Pi discovers the supplies on the lifeboat. - NB: ‘My feelings can perhaps be imagined, but they can hardly be described’ (p. 143) - P. 145: Pi has enough food rations to last him 93 days, and enough water to last 124 days…. ▪ - Chapter 52 = a complete list of Pi’s supplies – he includes G-d on his list (p. 147)

▪ Pi is stuck: ‘to leave the boat meant certain death. But what was staying aboard? He would come at me like a typical cat, without a sound. ’ (p. 148) ▪ ‘I was giving up. I would have given up – if a voice hadn’t made itself heard in my heart. The voice said, “I will not die. I refuse it…Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as G-d is with me, I will not die. Amen. ’ (p. 148) ▪ Pi is a fighter – ‘I have a fierce will to live’. ▪ Pi builds a raft (p. 149; 153) ▪ Richard Parker kills the hyena (p. 151) ▪ Description of Richard Parker – p. 151 ▪ ‘But when Richard Parker’s amber eyes met mine, the stare was intense, cold and unflinching…Every hair on me was standing up, shrieking with fear’ (p. 152) ▪ Pi’s raft floats – ‘I felt like a prisoner being pushed off a plank by pirates’ (p. 154) ▪ ‘I stayed on the raft. I didn’t see what else I could do. My options were limited to perching above a tiger or hovering over sharks…’ (p. 155) ▪ Pi hatches several plans to get rid of Richard Parker (p. 158 -161) – but he eventually decides that none of these plans will work…

Fear ▪ NB: ‘I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. ’ (p. 161) ▪ Hope and trust are your allies (p. 162) ▪ Pi says you need to face your fears or else they will defeat you: ▪ ‘So you must fight hard to express [fear]. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you. ’ ▪ Richard Parker becomes key to Pi’s survival: ▪ ‘It was Richard Parker who calmed me down. It is the irony of this story that the one who scared me witless to start with was the very same who brought me peace, purpose, I dare say, even wholeness’ (p. 162 -163). ▪ ‘I had to tame him. It was at that moment that I realised this necessity. It was not a question of him or me, but of him and me. We were, literally and figuratively, in the same boat. We would live – or we would die – together. ’ (p. 164) ▪ ‘A part of me was glad about Richard Parker. A part of me did not want Richard Parker to die at all, because if he died I would be left alone with despair, a foe even more formidable than a tiger. If I still had the will to live, it was thanks to Richard Parker’ (p. 164)

▪ ‘I looked at Richard Parker. My panic was gone. My fear was dominated. Survival was at hand. ’ (p. 165) ▪ Pi decides on Plan Number Seven: Keep Him Alive (p. 166) ▪ Pi trains Richard Parker and establishes himself as the alpha male. ▪ NB: ‘Remember: the spirit, above all else, counts. If you have the will to live, you will. ’ (p. 167) ▪ ‘I should not count on outside help. Survival had to start with me. In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little’ (p. 168 -169) ▪ ‘Richard Parker’s territorial claims seemed to be limited to the floor of the boat. This held promise. If I could make the tarpaulin mine, we might get along’ (p. 171). ▪ P. 177: ‘For the first time I noticed – as I would notice repeatedly during my ordeal, between one throe of agony and the next – that my suffering was taking place in a grand setting. I saw my suffering for what it was, finite and insignificant, and I was still. ’ ▪ Fishing for Richard Parker makes sure that Pi also has food. – ‘I wept heartily over this poor little deceased soul. It was the first sentient being I had ever killed. I was now a killer. I was now as guilty as Cain’ (p. 183 ▪ P. 185: ‘It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing. ’

▪ ‘I survived 227 days. That’s how long my trial lasted, over seven months. I kept myself busy. That was one key to my survival’ (p. 188) ▪ P. 189: Details of Pi’s average day – he prays throughout the day ▪ ‘I also spent hours observing him because it was a distraction. A tiger is a fascinating animal at any time, and all the more so when it is your sole companion’ (p. 190) ▪ ‘I survived because I made a point of forgetting’ (p. 190) ▪ ‘My story started on a calendar day – July 2 nd, 1977 – and ended on a calendar day – February 14 th, 1978 – but in between there was no calendar. ▪ ‘I survived because I forgot even the very notion of time’ (p. 190). ▪ Pi’s clothes disintegrate – ‘victims of the sun and the salt’ (p. 191) and he develops salt-water boils ▪ He doesn’t have sufficient knowledge of the latitude and longitude, so he simply drifts – ‘I found out later that I travelled a narrow road, the Pacific equatorial counter-current. ’ (p. 192) ▪ ‘I descended to a level of savagery I never thought possible’

▪ Pi’s sleep pattern changes, and he gets by with very little sleep (p. 196 -197) ▪ ‘In time I gave up entirely on being saved by a ship…No, humanity and its unreliable ways could not be counted upon. It was land I had to reach, hard, firm, certain land. ’ (p. 197198) ▪ Pi needs to take control of the lifeboat so that he can access it whenever he needs to. Chapter 71 (p. 200 -203): Pi details how to fully train an animal into submission. ▪ ‘Either I tamed him, made him see who was Number One and who was Number Two – or I died the day I wanted to climb aboard the lifeboat during rough water and he objected. ’ (p. 204)

Words – Chapter 73 ▪ ‘My greatest wish – other than salvation – was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and a fresh understanding each time’ (p. 205) ▪ Does this quote reflect Life of Pi - a novel that you could read over and over again with fresh understanding each time? ▪ Pi keeps a diary, but there’s not much to it ▪ ‘Words scratched on a page trying to capture a reality that overwhelmed me’ (p. 205) ▪ Significance of the fact that Pi wrote ‘all very practical stuff’ in his diary and not emotional ‘stuff’? (p. 206)

Pi’s religion and faith on the raft ▪ Chapter 74 (p. 206 -207) ▪ Pi practices his religious rituals ▪ ‘They brought me comfort, that is certain. But it was hard, oh it was hard. ’ ▪ NB: ‘Faith in G-d is an opening up, a letting go, a deep trust, a free act of love – but sometimes it was hard to love…’ ▪ Pi reminds himself of his place in G-d’s creation ▪ Importantly – Pi does not give in to his desperate despair ▪ ‘The blackness would stir and eventually go away, and G-d would remain, a shining point of light in my heart. I would go on loving’ (p. 207)

Being a castaway… ▪ ‘To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the centre of a circle’ (p. 213) ▪ ‘To be a castaway is to be caught up in grim and exhausting opposites. ’ ▪ ‘You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish’ (p. 215). ▪ Chapter 83: The storm ▪ ‘I felt death was upon us. ’ ▪ Pi loses his raft in the storm – the loss ‘felt fatal to my spirits’ (p. 224) ▪ Much of his food is gone after the storm ▪ Pi rescues one of the orange whistles! Orange = colour of survival for Pi (p. 225) ▪ Chapter 84: The whale and other visitors ▪ Chapter 85: A lightning storm replenishes Pi’s faith – ‘It was something to pull me out of my limited portal ways and thrust me into a state of exalted wonder. ’ (p. 228) ▪ I felt genuine happiness’ (p. 230)

▪ Chapter 86: A ship passes Pi ▪ “Richard Parker, a ship!” I had the pleasure of shouting that once. I was overwhelmed with happiness’ (p. 230) ▪ But the ship does not see them and almost goes straight over the lifeboat… ▪ Richard Parker once again gives Pi a reason to live after this huge disappointment: ▪ “I love you!” The words burst out pure and unfettered, infinite…”If I didn’t have you now, I don’t know what I would do. I don’t think I would make it. No I wouldn’t. I would die of hopelessness. ” (p. 232 -233) ▪ P. 234: Pi puts a message in a bottle in the hope of being found… ▪ P. 235 -236: the last pages of Pi’s diary – ‘Will die soon. R. P. breathing but not moving. Will die too. Will not kill me. ’ ▪ Pi stops noting down his endurance. The paper doesn’t run out but the pens do. ▪ Chapter 90: Pi goes ‘blind’ ▪ ‘I would rate the day I went blind as the day my extreme suffering began…’ (p. 237) ▪ P. 238 -249 – Pi’s conversation with the Frenchman (is this really happening? ) – what does this encounter tell us about Pi’s character? ▪ Richard Parker saves Pi from this Frenchman who was about to kill and eat Pi… (p. 249) ▪ ‘He gave me a life, my own, but at the expense of taking one. ’ ▪ Pi eventually eats some of this man’s flesh… ‘You must understand, my suffering was unremitting and he was already dead’ (p 250)

Chapter 92 – The Island

▪ Do we believe Pi’s story about the island? Is there any way to disprove it? ▪ ‘Still I give it to you now because it’s part of the story and it happened to me. ’ (p. 250) ▪ Pi eats the algae – ‘ the algae had a sweetness that outdid in delight even the sap of our maple trees here in Canada. ’ (p. 253) ▪ After a few days, when Pi is strong enough, he explores the island discovers ‘a million’ meerkats (p. 259) ▪ He finds freshwater ponds, with sea fish that are already dead (p. 261) ▪ Richard Parker kills more meerkats than he eats. ▪ Pi cleans the lifeboat – ‘I won’t describe what the accumulation of human and animal skeletons, miced in with innumerable fish and turtle remains, looked like’ (p. 262) ▪ ‘Harder to understand was the island’s complete desolation’ (p. 264) ▪ ‘Just as I returned to life, so did Richard Parker’ (p. 265) ▪ Pi might have stayed on the island for much longer had he not discovered the tree (p. 271)

▪ ‘Ah, how I wish that moment had never been! But for it I might have lived for years – why, for the rest of my life – on that island’ (p. 272) ▪ ‘If that fruit had a seed, it was the seed of my departure. ’ ▪ Pi discovers a full set of human teeth inside the ‘fruit’ of that tree. ▪ ‘I did not scream. I think only in movies is horror vocal. I simply shuddered and left the tree’ (p. 273) ▪ Pi realises that the island is ‘carnivorous’ (p. 274) ▪ He decides to leave the island takes supplies (meerkats, freshwater, etc) (p. 275) – he waits for Richard Parker to return to the boat in the evening and they set off. ▪ ‘The rest of this story is nothing but grief, ache and endurance’ (p. 276) ▪ Chapter 94: Mexico ▪ Pi finally reaches land ▪ Richard Parker walks away without looking at Pi – ‘then Richard Parker, companion of my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my life’ (p. 277) ▪ ‘I wept like a child…. because Richard Parker had left me so unceremoniously’ (p. 278) ▪ ‘It’s so important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go…’ ▪ ‘I was overwhelmed by the generosity of those who rescued me…’ (p. 279)

Part Two ▪ ‘To understand the jewel of wisdom buried deep within the story – which is pronounced to be “a story that will make you believe in God” – we need to understand that the story is actually about wrestling not with a physical tiger, but metaphoric one. . . with questions of meaning and faith. This story is a gedanken experiment for the worst case scenario, a modern day story of Job, all about how you can find spirituality and the meaning of life in the throes of all that is horrible and terrible in the world today. It is by surviving and making sense of all that goes wrong in the world, that uncovers the meaning of man. ’

Part Three ▪ The fictional author writes out the interview between the Japanese Ministry of Transport and Pi ▪ ‘Mr Patel, we don’t believe your story’ (p. 284). ‘These things don’t exist’ (p. 286) ▪ ‘Only because you’ve never seen them. ’ (p. 286) ▪ NB: “Don’t you bully me with your politeness! Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. G-d is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe? ” (p. 289) ▪ Theme of Storytelling ▪ “For the purposes of our investigation, we would like to know what really happened. ” ▪ “So you want another story? ” ▪ “Doesn’t the telling of something always become a story? ” (p. 293) ▪ “You want a story that won’t surprise you. That will confirm what you already know…You want a dry, yeastless factuality’ (p. 293)

‘The other story’ (p. 294 -305) ▪ This story is gruesome and hard to read… ▪ The hyena = the French cook ▪ Zebra = young Chinese sailor ▪ Orangutan = Pi’s Mother ▪ Therefore, Richard Parker = Pi ▪ He is the animalistic side of Pi. Pi grows more and more animalistic as time goes on. ▪ Pi has to perform many actions that are considered horrific and unimaginable in ‘normal life’ in order to stay alive ▪ Pi can’t cope with the brutality and the fact that he killed his mother’s murderer ▪ ‘He was such an evil man. Worse still, he met evil in me – selfishness, anger, ruthlessness. I must live with that. ’ (p. 301) ▪ Pi separates himself from this by creating an external character that embodies it. ▪ The symbol ‘Pi’ contains both alpha and omega Pi contains both the carnivore (Richard Parker) and Piscine (the peaceful vegetarian)

▪ Training R. P means that Pi is able to control the beast within himself, but he has to continue to do this so he is not overwhelmed… ▪ The Island represents Pi’s two sides: peaceful vegetarian and vicious carnivore ▪ Could the teeth he finds on the island be the teeth of the Frenchman? If so, Pi realises in horror that he needs to escape and distance himself from this amoral, uncivilised way of living… ▪ Pi tells the Japanese men that they won’t find Richard Parker in the jungles: “He’s hiding somewhere you’ll never find him” (p. 306) ▪ Storytelling helps Pi deal with his trauma. ▪ He can try make sense of what happened to him by using imagination… ▪ But ultimately, Yann Martel leaves us with no answers…Richard Parker could be a real tiger…he could be an extension of Pi…he could be in Pi’s imagination… ▪ “You can’t prove which story is true and which is not. You must take my word for it. ” ▪ “So tell me…which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without animals? ”…”The story with animals” (p. 306). ▪ “Thank you. And so it goes with G-d. ”

Story telling – a story within a story • Pi’s story is made to seem very real – there is a suspension of disbelief. We need to believe that each moment in the novel is ‘true’ Fictional author’s story of Pi Pi’s story (the ‘better’ story) The ‘good’ story

‘…his story is unparalleled in the history of shipwrecks. Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal tiger. ’ (p. 308)

The film – Opinions of Yann Martel ▪ "I was confident that he would make a great movie, so I stepped back, " Martel explains. "They flew me over to New York to meet Ang -- we had a long talk together, and twice, I read his screenplay and gave him detailed feedback. And after that, they took it and they ran. ▪ “I think the worst kind of thing when you’re trying to do something is to have some author saying, 'Well, wait a second -- you didn’t do it this way, you should do it that way, ' " he continues. "I gave my feedback: 'You’re the filmmaker, you're a brilliant filmmaker. I trust you. You do what you want. ' " ▪ He adds: "The funny thing is that with that attitude, he ended up doing a movie that was incredibly faithful to the book -- the storyline but also the idea, the intent. To trust him that it’s a better story, and sure enough, he pulled off a brilliant movie. “ ▪ As Martel told The Guardian, changes are inevitable. “You have to let go, " he said. "You have to trust. And it was a crazy and fun ride. ”

Director: Ang Lee ▪ “Cinematically speaking, it was the most difficult movie I ever made". ▪ Critic Roger Ebert has called the film a "miraculous achievement of storytelling and a landmark of visual mastery" while another critic suggested that Lee's adaptation means nothing is unfilmable anymore. ▪ “I loved the book, ” he said, “but it’s very hard to crack. I thought you can’t make a movie about religion but it can be a movie about the value of storytelling and how that brings structure and wisdom to life. This is a coming-of-age story. It’s about taking a leap of faith. ”

Animation ▪ The Water: Lee and his team decided to create a massive wave tank. It was built on an actual runway at a Taiwan airport — in fact, it was carved into the middle of the runway. After spending four months to develop, a 250 -foot-long, 100 -foot-wide and 9 -foot-deep tank was able hold up to 1. 7 million gallons of water. One wall was even movable, so they could take advantage of sunlight ▪ After filming, the visual effects team then had to work their magic to turn the tank's surface into one that looked like the ocean ▪ The film also used animated technology to create the animals and insert them into scenes. Only one animal — a hyena, which was used in about seven shots — was on set. Everything else, including the Tiger, was designed in a studio. But Sharma had to act as though they were in the boat, and remember not to walk on certain parts of the vessel if an animal was supposed to be there. The writers also worked alongside the production team and continually changed the script to make it work.

Differences/points of interest…?

Retaining the author’s intention: ▪ Martel said: ““To me, the greater challenge was how Ang Lee would translate the book’s three unities of time, action and place — the zoo in India, being adrift in the Pacific and the aftermath of Pi’s adventure — without words. A lot of thinking goes on in the book and that’s one thing film can’t do. You can’t film someone thinking without externalizing the process via images and sound. ” ▪ “But he pulled it off and I’m happy it works so well as a film. Even if the ending is not as ambiguous as the book’s, the possibility that there might be another version of Pi’s story comes at you unexpectedly and raises the same important questions about truth, perception and belief. ” ▪ "It's very faithful to the book, not only in what happens, but in what the book tries to do — tries to say that reality is not a fixed thing, it's open to interpretation. That the movie does very well, " he said.

Major Differences ▪ The Opening: whereas the novel starts with a long fictitious author’s note, the film starts with wandering through the zoo and then cuts to adult Pi in Canada telling his story to ‘The Writer’. This allows the film to jump right into the story and avoids confusing the reader as the author’s note might do in the novel. ▪ The film leaves out all Pi’s opinions about the ethics of zoos… ▪ The Mr Kumars (the teacher and the Muslim baker) are left out even though Pi says in the novel that ‘Mr and Mr Kumar were the prophets of my Indian youth’ (p. 68) ▪ The character of the atheist teacher is somewhat incorporated into Pi’s father’s character. ▪ Pi’s religious experiences are shortened (understandably). We do not receive his views of atheists and agnostics. Pi is more curious and cautious about religion in the novel than in the film. ▪ The film doesn’t allow for much time to linger on Pi’s religious experiences. ▪ The film excludes the fact that Pi studied zoology and theology. ▪ The lesson Pi’s father teaches him is approached differently: Pi feeds the tiger (Richard Parker) in the film this makes him seem reckless/ignorant, which is very different to the Pi in the novel.

▪ Pi doesn’t have a girlfriend (Anandi) in the novel – this may make Pi’s experience seem more cliché/normal. There must have been a reason why Martel didn’t add a romantic aspect to his novel…but it makes Pi’s departure from Pondicherry all the more difficult and sad. ▪ Big difference: the novel introduces Richard Parker slowly – the reader thinks Richard Parker is a person for a good while into the novel (perhaps because ultimately Richard Parker is human, being the other side of Pi’s character? ). The film immediately tells the viewer that Richard Parker is a tiger… ▪ The conflict on the lifeboat between zebra-hyena-Orangejuice is condensed in the film and less horrific than in the novel – it all seems to take place on the first day. ▪ Pi puts much thought in the novel into how to deal with Richard Parker and whether to kill him. In the film he seems to adapt quickly to the idea of having to survive with a tiger. Although there is a glimpse of Pi thinking of letting Richard Parker die when he jumps into the sea and can’t get back onto the lifeboat…(which doesn’t happen in the novel). ▪ Pi’s reasons for wanting to save Richard Parker and keep him alive are left out of the film and these reasons contribute greatly to the idea of survival in the novel. ▪ Richard Parker is ferocious enough in the film. But why would they have Pi pat Richard Parker when they’re near death? ▪ Pi manages to successfully tame Richard Parker in the novel, but in the film it seems that he does not feel truly in control/gives up. The film also leaves out Parker’s prusten noise, which signals his non-aggression in the novel…

▪ The whale jumping out of the water at night is cinematically beautiful and impressive. ▪ The film leaves out the oil-tanker that almost goes right over Pi. This is significant as it was a great symbol of hope for Pi that turned into heart-breaking disappointment. ▪ Pi’s suffering is toned down in the film. ▪ Pi does not seem to lose his mind as much in the film as he does in the novel. This is perhaps somewhat unrealistic, as Pi is bound to lose his mind at some point after spending 227 days on a lifeboat. ▪ The film leaves out his extended hallucination where Pi is blind and has a conversation with a blind Frenchman… ▪ Pi is on the island for about one day in the film, whereas he spends enough time on this island in the novel for both him and Richard Parker to regain their strength and replenish themselves. ▪ The conversation with the Japanese investigators is condensed (understandably) – but the film leaves out Pi’s odd behaviour which shows how traumatised he is (such as taking biscuits and keeping them under his bed). ▪ The film does not necessarily portray Pi as a deep thinker which he clearly is in the novel. ▪ Overall, the film is a tamer version of the story – most of the violent scenes are removed.

What does ‘Life of Pi’ mean to you?

1. Have the directors remained true to the key themes of the novel? 2. Does the film adaptation convey the novel’s messages?