Printed from JarlenCaden.com

Ancient ruins with pyramid
Ancient ruins with pyramid in Memphis

Partly Cloudy

13°C, Partly Cloudy

Toronto, ON [edit]

Life of Pi

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
  (Redirected from Life of pi)
Jump to: navigation, search
Life of Pi  
Life of Pi cover.png
Author Yann Martel
Original title Life of Pi
Country Canada
Language English
Genre(s) Novel
Publisher Alfred A. Knopf Canada
Publication date September 2001
Pages 356
ISBN

ISBN 0-676-97376-0 (first edition, hardcover) ISBN 0-15-602732-1 (US paperback edition)

ISBN 1-565-11780-8 (audiobook, Penguin Highbridge)
OCLC Number 46624335
Preceded by Self
Followed by We Ate the Children Last

Life of Pi is a fantasy adventure novel written by Yann Martel. The protagonist Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel, an Indian boy from Pondicherry, explores issues of spirituality and practicality from an early age. He survives 227 days after a shipwreck, while stranded on a boat in the Pacific Ocean. Martel brought the idea of rituals many times throughout the novel as well as storytelling. Rituals give structure to abstract ideas and emotions—in other words, ritual is an alternate form of storytelling. It was rituals and storytelling that kept Pi Patel sane.

The novel was first published by Knopf Canada in September 2001, and the UK edition won the Man Booker Prize for Fiction the following year.[1] It was chosen for CBC Radio's Canada Reads 2003, where it was championed by author Nancy Lee. It won the 2003 Boeke Prize, a South African novel award. In 2004, it won the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in Best Adult Fiction for years 2001-2003. Its French translation, L'Histoire de Pi, was also chosen in the French version of the reading competition, Le combat des livres.

Contents

Plot

Life of Pi has three parts. In the first main character, Pi, an adult, looks back upon his childhood. Piscine Molitor Patel ("Pi") was named after a swimming pool. He changed his name to Pi when he started to attend secondary school, because he was tired of being mistakenly called "Pissing Patel." His parents owned a zoo. He was born a Hindu, but as the fourteen-year-old came into contact with Christianity and Islam he started to follow three religions. He tried to understand God through the lens of each religion, and came to recognize the benefits of each. Eventually, his family decided to move to Canada for political reasons.

In the second part, the boat carrying Pi and his family plus most of the animals in their zoo to Canada sinks and Pi ends up with a bengal tiger named Richard Parker, a hyena, a zebra and an orang-utan in a small lifeboat. The bengal tiger is named so because of a freak accident of sorts. The tiger was actually caught by a British National called Richard Parker, but while documenting it, the zoo worker notes down that as the name of the tiger. All the other humans and animals that were on the boat drown in the ocean. The zebra's leg is broken when it jumps into the lifeboat from the sinking ship and hence is unable to move. The hungry hyena tears off the zebra's leg and spends the next several days eating the zebra bit by bit. Then the hyena kills the orang-utan named "Orange Juice", even though she was not a natural prey of the hyena. Eventually Richard Parker kills the hyena after a fierce battle for territory. The hyena is eaten by the tiger. This leaves Pi as the only other survivor along with the tiger. Food and water supplies start running low after a month since the lifeboat was designed to sustain 32 people for a day or two. Pi starts fishing to get food for him as well as Richard Parker, whom he keeps fed so that he won't eat him alive. He also wants to keep him alive so that he will not be all alone on the ocean. "The very thought of being alone is worse than being stranded on a lifeboat with a 450-pound tiger" he thinks. Pi ensures, with his knowledge as the son of a zoo-keeper, that Richard Parker believes Pi is the alpha animal and therefore doesn’t attack the boy. 227 days pass and Pi manages to stay alive. Pi is sometimes half in delusion, and thirst and hunger are ever-present. He's forced to eat cigarettes, turtle and even a shoe. After 227 days the lifeboat reaches the coast of Mexico.

The third part is a conversation between two people from the Japanese maritime department. They want to know what might have gone wrong with the ship, so they ask Pi for his story, but they don't believe it. He tells another story, in which the orang-utan is his mother, the zebra is a sailor with a broken leg, and the hyena is a cook who killed Pi's mother and ate the sailor. Richard Parker is Pi himself.

Pi asks the two people which of the two stories they prefer. The people say they prefer the story with the animals.

Origin

On November 11, 2002, in an interview with PBS,[2] Martel revealed his inspiration and motives for his novel. He said, "I was sort of looking for a story, not only with a small ‘s’ but sort of with a capital ‘S’ – something that would direct my life." He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life. This novel became that direction and purpose for his life.[3]

Characters

Piscine Molitor Patel

Piscine Molitor "Pi" Patel is the narrator and main character of the story. He was named after a swimming pool in Paris, despite the fact that neither his father or mother particularly liked swimming. The story is told as a narrative when Pi is much older and living in Canada. At the time of the story, he is sixteen years old. He recounts the story of his life and his 227-day journey on a lifeboat when his boat sinks in the middle of the Pacific Ocean during a trek to Winnipeg.

Richard Parker

Richard Parker is the Bengal tiger that is stranded on the lifeboat with Pi Patel when the ship sinks.

Martel named the tiger after an Edgar Allan Poe character from his The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket (1838). Richard Parker lives on the lifeboat with Pi and is kept alive with the food and water Pi delivers. Richard Parker develops a relationship with Pi that allows them to co-exist together in their struggle.

See also: Richard Parker (shipwrecked)

Tales of cannibalism by shipwrecked sailors were not uncommon in the 19th century. For instance, in December 1835, the ship Francis Spaight was wrecked in the north Atlantic. Some survivors of that wreck were known to have lived by cannibalism. In January 1846, a man named Richard Parker died when his ship, another Francis Spaight, sank.

In 1884, forty-six years after Poe's novel was published, a new shipwreck reflected many similarities to that story. After the sinking of their yacht Mignonette on the way to Australia, Captain Tom Dudley and three sailors were stranded in a dinghy in the Pacific Ocean. They believed they had no choice but to eat one of the party to survive. The victim was a 17-year-old cabin boy named Richard Parker.[4] A.W. Brian Simpson's book on the subject mentions the Francis Spaight and also, interestingly, refers to a boat called Tiger on which a youth was cannibalized in 1766. Having read about these events, Yann Martel said,

“ So many Richard Parkers had to mean something. ”

Setting

The novel is a work of fiction that draws from historical events and places in India. The Patel household's discussions of the political situation refer to historical events. Pondicherry is a former French colony in India. It does have an Indian Coffee House and Botanical Gardens. The Botanical Garden has a toy train track. It does not have a working train, nor does the garden have a zoo, although it does have a small aquarium. Munnar, the destination for the Patel family's vacation, is a small but popular hill station in Kerala. The town has a church. Madurai, also referenced in the novel, is a popular tourist/pilgrimage site in Tamil Nadu.

The illustrated edition

In October 2005, a worldwide competition was launched to find an artist to illustrate Life of Pi. The competition was run by Scottish publisher Canongate Books, UK newspaper The Times, Australian newspaper The Age, and Canadian newspaper The Globe and Mail. Croatian artist Tomislav Torjanac was chosen as the illustrator for this new edition, which was published in September 2007.[5][6][7]

Film and theatrical adaptations

In 2002, M. Night Shyamalan became attached to write and direct a film version of the novel, but dropped the project due to its twist ending (a common feature of Shyamalan's films). He told Entertainment Weekly magazine:

"I was concerned that as soon as you put my name on it, everybody would have a different experience. Whereas if someone else did it, it would be much more satisfying, I think. Expectations, you've got to be aware of them."

Alfonso Cuarón was attached to direct a film version for a 2007 release, but due to schedule conflicts with Children of Men, he had to step down from the director's chair. Jean-Pierre Jeunet replaced Cuarón soon after, but pulled out due to budget reasons, leaving the production in development hell.

Keith Robinson, artistic director of the youth-oriented Twisting Yarn Theatre Company, received the exclusive UK rights from Yann Martel to adapt the novel into a play. The Twisting Yarn promotes theatre in education, with funding by the Bradford Council in England. Andy Rashleigh wrote the adaptation, which was directed by Keith Robinson. The Premier/original cast featured Tony Hasnath (Pi), Taresh Solanki (Richard Parker), Melody Brown (Mother), Conor Alexander (Father), Sanjay Shalat (Brother) and Mark Pearce (Uncle). The play was produced at the Alhambra Theatre, Bradford, England in 2003. The company toured England and Ireland with the play in 2004 and 2007.

Keith Robinson also directed a second version of the play. He brought some of his company to work with students of the Ba Drama, Applied Theatre and Education Course at the Central School of Speech and Drama in Cornwall, England. The joint production was performed at the Minack Theatre in late June 2008. It was well received by the press and community.

Ang Lee will be directing the adaptation as per his comments on the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. It is due to be released sometime in the year 2011; it is being filmed in 3D [8]

Allegation of plagiarism

When the Booker Prize was awarded to Martel in 2002, Brazilian author Moacyr Scliar said that he was considering taking legal action for plagiarism against Martel. He contended that there was too much similarity between the premise of Life of Pi and that of his own 1981 novel, Max and the Cats (Max e os Felinos), published in Brazil in Portuguese and in English in 1990, translated by Eloah F. Giacomelli. It told of a Jewish-German refugee who crossed the Atlantic Ocean while sharing his boat with a jaguar.[9] Scliar said that he was perplexed that Martel "used the idea without consulting or even informing him." After talking with Martel, Scliar elected not to pursue the matter.[10]

Martel said that he did not read Scliar's book, but did read a review of it many years prior to writing Life of Pi. A dedication to Scliar "for the spark of life" appeared in the author's note of Life of Pi.[11]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "The Life of Pi", The Man Booker Prize website
  2. ^ Ray Suarez, The News Hour with Jim Lehrer, November 11, 2002
  3. ^ Yann Martel, "How I wrote Life of Pi", Powells Bookstore, Retrieved Jan 20, 2007
  4. ^ The Queen v. Dudley and Stephens; L.R. 14 Q.B.D. 273
  5. ^ Life of Pi: The Illustrated Edition by Yann Martel and Tomislav Torjanac, The Times, 15 September 2007
  6. ^ A brush with the art of Pi, The Times, 15 April 2006
  7. ^ In Pictures: The Illustrated Life of Pi, The Guardian, 27 September 2007
  8. ^ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0454876/
  9. ^ Mitgang, Herbert. "Books of The Times; Fleeing the Nazis With a Jaguar That May Be Real", The New York Times, July 11, 1990.
  10. ^ Scliar, Moacyr. Interview with Eleanor Wachtel. Writers & Company. CBC Radio 1. July 16, 2006. (Interview [.ram]).
  11. ^ Rohter, Larry. "Tiger in a Lifeboat, Panther in a Lifeboat: A Furor Over a Novel", The New York Times, November 6, 2002.

References

Text document with red question mark.svg
 This article includes a list of references, but its sources remain unclear because it has insufficient inline citations. Please help to improve this article by introducing more precise citations where appropriate. (April 2009)

External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Life of Pi
General
Book reviews
Awards
Preceded by
True History of the Kelly Gang		 Man Booker Prize recipient
2002		 Succeeded by
Vernon God Little
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi"
Namespaces
Variants
Actions