The Books: “Life of Pi” (Yann Martel)

Daily Book Excerpt: Adult fiction:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

There was a good year when you looked around at people on the subway, and you always knew that at least one of them would be reading Life of Pi. It was everywhere. My sister gave it to me for my birthday a couple years ago – she had loved it.

I finally picked it up in 2006 (I have to be in the mood for fiction – and I have also expressed before my natural – and sometimes unfair – antipathy to really popular books that “everyone” seems to be reading.) – but in 2006 I read a lot of new fiction, popular stuff – and Life of Pi was one of those books. I read it in 3 days. Couldn’t put it down.

To me, the book was really about narrative – how we create our own stories, to survive this life. I wrote about that here. The entire book is a gripping shipwreck tale – a young Indian boy and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker (how much do we love Richard Parker??) – trapped in a lifeboat, hundreds, maybe thousands of miles from land … but there is a twist at the end (I wouldn’t dream of giving it away) that calls it all into question. But it’s not a gimmick, or an M. Night Shamalamayan device – it struck me as totally plausible. Narrative is what we humans have. It is what we have always had. From the first caveman who came “home” and drew pictures on a wall to show his triumph over a woolly mammoth. We tell stories to each other. Some are true, some are lies, some are exaggerations. There are all kinds of reasons for stories. Some people are pathological with their stories, and you can’t tell what is true. Some people THINK they don’t tell stories – they think that there is such a thing as “the way it is”, objectivity, etc. – so they tell their stories in a different manner than the person who tells the story about the biggest fish he caught – where exaggeration is understood, and accepted. But when you get right down to it, each of us are trapped in our own experience – there is only one me, there is only one you … Nobody can tell me what it is like to be ME, and I cannot presume to know what it is like to be you. All we have, as in-roads into each other’s lives, are the stories we tell one another. And each story is basically us saying, “This is who I am. This is what it is like for me.”

Life of Pi, for the most part, didn’t feel like a story, or a tall tale. It is written in unsentimental clear language, and much of it is structured in a “so this happened next”, “and then this happened”. manner, Much of it is nearly unbelievable. I mean, he is on a tiny lifeboat with a Bengal tiger. But the way Yann Martel writes Pi’s experiences … how he figures out how to survive – not just the lifeboat experience – but the lifeboat experience with a dangerous man-eating animal 2 feet away. It is one of the all-time great survival stories. He must figure out the food situation, the water situation – he must somehow feed Richard Parker – so that Richard Parker doesn’t eat HIM – but he also must feed himself. Pi is not a super-human. He is a teenager. But in this particular situation, the life-force asserts himself, and he does what it takes. He has to be very creative. I read the book, and at one point I thought, “My God. What would I do in this situation? Would I give up?” It’s relentless.

One of the things I really loved about the book was that Richard Parker was not anthropomorphized. He obviously had a personality – most animals do – he has reactions to things, he makes eye contact with Pi, he snarls, etc. – and Pi definitely forms a “relationship” to Richard Parker – but it is out of necessity. Or – partly necessity. The excerpt I chose to post today shows that there is a bit more going on there for Pi … but it’s not like Richard Parker is, at heart, a cuddly warm beast just DYING for the chance to “make friends” with an Indian boy. No. He is a ferocious animal. And he always seems dangerous. He always seems “other” – meaning: he does not seem like a human being in a tiger suit. Ever. He is always a tiger. Yann Martel really goes into all of this – what tigers are like, how they behave … Richard Parker, as tiger, totally comes alive. If you’ve read the book, don’t you think that is true? He just seems so alive to me. But still alien.

The “author’s note” at the beginning of the book (which sets up the almost documentary feel to the whole thing … it’s written as though it is non-fiction, or as though it is a journalist’s rendering of this amazing shipwreck story) contains the phrase: “I know a story that will make you believe in God.”

That’s quite a promise.

But it also goes back to what I was saying before – about narrative, and the different purposes of narrative in our lives. It has been with us from the beginning of consciousness. Why do we tell stories? To entertain, to explain, to deflect criticism, to puff ourselves up with importance … there are a million reasons. Life of Pi, from the get-go, is set up as a “story” – many books are not, of course – even though they are, indeed, stories. But other books have a trompe l’oeil feel – it’s a different kind of story. Life of Pi admits, at the beginning, that this is a “story”. The story itself is so gripping that you lose yourself in it (or at least, I did) – and then – at the very end, you are reminded, once again, that this is a story. Story does not equal lie, by the way – although sometimes stories are lies. And sometimes a lie is just as good as the truth, or even better. A lie can help us survive this awful world, with its tragedies and unfairness. And so at the end of Life of Pi, the story re-asserts itself, as STORY – the reader must grapple with the implications of that. And we are faced with a choice: which story do we believe? One is “the better story”. One is (or might be) the truth. We have to choose. Just like Pi had to choose.

If you haven’t read Life of Pi, I highly recommend it.

Here’s an excerpt.

EXCERPT FROMLife of Pi by Yann Martel

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.

He was looking at me intently. After a time I recognized the gaze. I had grown up with it. It was the gaze of a contented animal looking out from its cage or pit the way you or I would look out from a restaurant table after a good meal, when the time has come for conversation and people-watching. Clearly, Richard Parker had eaten his fill of hyena and drunk all the rainwater he wanted. No lips were rising and falling, no teeth were showing, no growling or snarling was coming from him. He was simply taking me in, observing me, in a manner that was sober but not menacing. He kept twitching his ears and varying the sideways turn of his head. It was all so, well, catlike. He looked like a nice, big, fat domestic cat, a 45-pound tabby.

He made a sound, a snort from his nostrils. I pricked up my ears. He did it a second time. I was astonished. Prusten?

Tigers make a variety of sounds. They include a number of roars and growls, the loudest of these being most likely the full-throated aaonh, usually made during the mating season by males and oestrous females. It’s a cry that travels far and wide, and is absolutely petrifying when heard close up. Tigers go woof when they are caught unawares, a short, sharp detonation of fury that would instantly make your legs jump up and run away if they weren’t frozen to the spot. When they charge, tigers put out throaty, coughing roars. The growl they use for purposes of threatening has yet another guttural quality. And tigers hiss and snarl, which, depending on the emotion behind it, sounds either like autumn leaves rustling on the ground, but a little more resonant, or, when it’s an infuriated snarl, like a giant door with rusty hinges slowly opening – in both cases, utterly spine-chilling. Tigers make other sounds too. They grunt and they moan. They purr, though not as melodiously or as frequently as small cats, and only as they breathe out. (Only small cats purr breathing both ways. It is one of the characteristics that distinguishes big cats from small cats. Another is that only big cats can roar. A good thing that is. I’m afraid the popularity of the domestic cat would drop very quickly if little kitty could roar its displeasure.) Tigers even go meow, with an inflection similar to that of domestic cats, but louder and in a deeper range, not as encouraging as one to bend down and pick them up. And tigers can be utterly, majestically silent, that too.

I had heard all these sounds growing up. Except for prusten. If I knew of it, it was because Father had told me about it. He had read descriptions of it in the literature. But he had heard it only once, while on a working visit to the Mysore Zoo, in their animal hospital, from a young male being treated for pneumonia. Prusten is the quietest of tiger calls, a puff through the nose to express friendliness and harmless intentions.

Richard Parker did it again, this time with a rolling of the head. He looked exactly as if he were asking me a question.

I looked at him, full of fearful wonder. There being no immediate threat, my breath slowed down, my heart stopped knocking about in my chest, and I began to regain my senses.

I had to tame him. It was at that moment that I realized 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. He might be killed in an accident, or he could die shortly of natural causes, bt it would be foolish to count on such an eventuality. More likely the worst would happen: the simple passage of time, in which his animal toughness would easily outlast my human frailty. Only if I tamed him could I possibly trick him into dying first, if we had to come to that sorry business.

But there’s more to it. I will come clean. I will tell you a secret: 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 did 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. He kept me from thinking too much about my family and my tragic circumstances. He pushed me to go on living. I hated him for it, yet at the same time I was grateful. I am grateful. It’s the plain truth: without Richard Parker, I wouldn’t be alive today to tell you my story.

I looked around at the horizon. Didn’t I have here a perfect circus ring, inescapably round, without a single corner for him to hide in? I looked down at the sea. Wasn’t this an ideal source of treats with which to condition him to obey? I noticed a whistle hanging from one of the life jackets. Wouldn’t this make a good whip with which to keep him in line? What was missing here to tame Richard Parker? Time? It might be weeks before a ship sighted me. I had all the time in the world. Resolve? There’s nothing like extreme need to give you resolve. Knowledge? Was I not a zookeeper’s son? Reward? Was there any reward greater than life? Any punishment worse than death? I looked at Richard Parker. My panic was gone. My fear was dominated. Survival was at hand.

Let the trumpets blare. Let the drums roll. Let the show begin. I rose to my feet. Richard Parker noticed. The balance was not easy. I took a deep breath and shouted, “Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, hurry to your seats! Hurry, hurry. You don’t want to be late. Sit down, open your eyes, open your hearts and prepare to be amused. Here it is, for your enjoyment and instruction, for your gratification and edification, the show you’ve been waiting for all your life, THE GREATEST SHOW ON EARTH! Are you ready for the miracle of it? Yes? Well then: they are amazingly adaptable. You’ve seen them in freezing, snow-covered temperate forests. You’ve seen them in dense, tropical monsoon jungles. You’ve seen them in sparse, semi-arid scrublands. You’ve seen them in brackish mangrove swamps. Truly, the would fit anywhere. But you’ve never seen them where you are about to see them now! Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, without further ado, it is my pleasure and honour to present to you: THE PI PATEL, INDO-CANADIAN, TRANS-PACIFIC, FLOATING CIRCUUUUUSSSSSSSSSSSS!!! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE!”

I had an effect on Richard Parker. At the very first blow of the whistle he cringed and he snarled. Ha! Let him jump into the water if he wanted to! Let him try!

“TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE!”

He roared and he clawed the air. But he did not jump. He might not be afraid of the sea when he was driven mad by hunger and thirst, but for the time being it was a fear I could rely on.

“TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE! TREEEEEE!”

He backed off and dropped to the bottom of the boat. The first training session was over. It was a resounding success. I stopped whistling and sat down heavily on the raft, out of breath and exhausted.

And so it came to be.

Plan Number Seven: Keep Him Alive.