Yann Martel: Life of Pi

This is the best book I've read so far this year. Even as I was reading it, I understood why it was so widely acclaimed. Up until the last fifty pages, I was convinced that it was a brilliant psychotheological allegory, and treated it accordingly in my mind. After finishing it, however, I was left dumbstruck with the brilliance of its culmination. Without the final few chapters, this book is a wonderful, thought-provoking read. The ending makes it an enduring masterpiece of literature.

To begin with, I related to and agreed with Pi's religious discoveries and conclusions. The way he describes his simultaneous practice of Hinduism, Islam and Christianity reminds me of a set of concentric circles. Christianity is the religion of the self, surrounding which is Islam, the religion of society, which is in turn encircled by Hinduism, the religion of the universe. This model is vaguely mirrored in his description of the carnivorous island later in the book. So much time has elapsed between my reading of the book and writing of this reaction that it is difficult to capture the glow I recieved from it, and I regret that I find myself unequal to the task of relating it to you, gentle reader. Suffice it to say that I found myself reconnecting with my spiritual side after a lenghty period of dulled senses.

In the final analysis, however, the book transformed from a religious allegory to a practical manual on life. I was left wide-mouthed by the realization that Pi and Richard Parker were one and the same. To survive, as we are, adrift in the universe, we must not only be in touch with our profound, spiritual humanity, but with our inner tiger. We must simultaneously be zen and aggresive. Lao Tze and Dr. Phil both have a place in functional humanity. Each needs the other to live, and to believe otherwise can only cause us to hate ourselves.