The Power of the Human Spirit: A Review of Life of Pi by Yann Martel

ByPeter Joeseph 'Briefcase Maker' Kalafatis
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At least five London publishers turned down Life of Pi. The book they passed on went on to win the 2002 Booker Prize and, according to Wikipedia, has sold more than ten million copies. That gap between a cold reception from editors and a long run with readers is part of why Yann Martel’s novel is still argued over a quarter-century after Knopf Canada first printed it.

On the surface it is a survival story: a teenage boy, a lifeboat, a Bengal tiger. Underneath, it is an argument about belief and about who gets to decide which version of events is true. The last section settles whether a reader finishes it as an adventure or as a puzzle. What follows covers how the book came to print, how it is built, where critics split, and what the 2012 film and the stage play did with it.

The Author and How the Book Reached Print

Martel was born in 1963 in Salamanca, Spain, to French-Canadian parents who were studying there. His father’s academic posts, and later his parents’ diplomatic careers, kept the family moving between Spain, Portugal, Alaska, British Columbia, Costa Rica, France and Ottawa. Martel studied philosophy at Trent University in Ontario. Before Life of Pi he had won the Journey Prize in 1991 for a short story, published a story collection in 1993, and brought out a first novel, Self, in 1996 (Yann Martel on Wikipedia). He has lived in Saskatoon since 2003.

Life of Pi was his third novel and came out from Knopf Canada in September 2001. The first UK edition followed from Edinburgh’s Canongate in 2002. Prizes stacked up: the Hugh MacLennan Prize for Fiction in 2001, the Booker in 2002, South Africa’s Boeke Prize in 2003 and the Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature in 2004 (The Canadian Encyclopedia). Martel has said the seed was a trip through India, where he went looking for a story and was struck by how many animals and how much religion he met. A religious boy in a lifeboat with a wild animal, he told PBS, was “a perfect metaphor for the human condition” (also reported by the same encyclopedia entry).

How the Book Is Built

The novel runs in three parts. Part one is Pi Patel’s boyhood in Pondicherry, where his father runs a zoo and where Pi practises Hinduism, Christianity and Islam at once. Part two is the Pacific: the family’s freighter sinks, and Pi spends 227 days on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Part three is a hospital room in Mexico, where two officials from Japan’s Ministry of Transport question him about the wreck. An Author’s Note up front, mostly invented, frames the whole thing as a story someone told the narrator (plot summary on Wikipedia).

Spoiler warning: the next paragraph gives away the ending.

The officials do not believe the animal story, so Pi gives them a second one. In it there are no animals on the boat. There is a sailor, the ship’s cook, Pi’s mother and Pi, and the cook kills two of them before Pi kills the cook. The investigators can line the two versions up: the hyena is the cook, the zebra the sailor, the orangutan Pi’s mother, the tiger Pi himself. Pi points out that neither version can be proved and neither explains why the ship went down. The officials write the animal story into their report, and Pi answers by tying that choice to belief in God.

Plain hospital interview room with a tape recorder and two empty chairs

What Martel Says It Means

“A story with God is the better story.”

Martel’s own summary of the novel, as recorded on Wikipedia

Martel boils the book down to three claims: life is a story, you can choose your story, and the one with God in it is the better one. That makes the ending a wager rather than a twist. The novel does not say which account happened. It asks what each account lets the person who tells it live with.

Readers have taken the religious thread in different directions. Gordon Houser reads the book as being about interdependence and about the way people breathe through belief. Phoebe Kate Foster, writing in PopMatters, admired how Pi stitches several traditions into one private faith (both readings are summarised on the Wikipedia page linked above). Martel’s own summary claims less than either reading: it does not say faith is proved, only that the version with God is the one to prefer.

Why the Tiger Is Called Richard Parker

The name is not random. Per Wikipedia, Martel borrowed it from three sources: a mutineer who is killed and eaten in Edgar Allan Poe’s 1838 novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket; a cabin boy of that name who was killed and eaten in a lifeboat in the 1884 case R v Dudley and Stephens; and a man named Richard Parker who died when the Francis Spaight sank in 1846. Cannibalism in a lifeboat, in other words, was already a recurring story with that name attached to it, which sits uneasily close to the novel’s second version.

Critics: The Praise, the Complaints and the Scliar Question

The Booker judges called the book “a breath of fresh air,” singling out its meandering, plot-defying structure (Booker Prizes). On the same page, James Wood of the London Review of Books is quoted saying the novel is proud to be a delegate for magic realism. Brian Bethune of Maclean’s praised its warmth and grace, as Wikipedia records.

The complaints are specific. Gary Krist, reviewing it for the New York Times, liked the book but felt Martel pushes the religious argument harder than the story needs (as summarised on Wikipedia). In the Telegraph, Jane Shilling called it “a flawed, if fascinating novel” (Complete Review). Iris Radisch of Die Zeit was blunter and likened the book to Legoland, according to the same Complete Review roundup.

There is also the Brazilian novella. Martel has acknowledged that a review of Moacyr Scliar’s 1981 Max and the Cats helped give him the premise, and the Author’s Note thanks Scliar for the spark that started it. Scliar said he was puzzled that the idea was used without anyone asking him. After talking with Martel he chose not to pursue it, and many reviewers have judged the resemblance superficial, since Martel’s three-part structure does not appear in Scliar (Wikipedia).

Weighed together: the book earns its place on the strength of its premise, the cold detail of the lifeboat chapters, and an ending that keeps people talking. Against it, the opening section is patient going for anyone who wants the ship to sink sooner, and the argument about God is stated more often than it needs to be.

Small wooden lifeboat drifting alone on a glassy ocean at dawn

The 2012 Film

Film rights moved through some famous hands first. Fox 2000 partnered with M. Night Shyamalan around 2003, but he walked away to make Lady in the Water, saying he was worried about the book’s twist ending. Alfonso Cuarón talked to the studio in 2005 and chose Children of Men instead. Jean-Pierre Jeunet was hired in October 2005, co-wrote a screenplay and eventually left. Ang Lee came aboard in February 2009 (Wikipedia).

Lee directed from a screenplay by David Magee, with Suraj Sharma, in his first film, as Pi and Irrfan Khan as the adult Pi. The ocean scenes were shot in a purpose-built wave tank in an abandoned airport in Taichung, Taiwan, and Rhythm & Hues spent a year of research and development on the computer-generated Richard Parker. The budget was about $120 million and the worldwide gross about $609 million. The film took four Academy Awards from eleven nominations: Best Director, Cinematography, Visual Effects and Original Score.

Watch: The International Trailer

“I have decided it is one of the best films of the year.”

Roger Ebert, in his review of the film

Reception was not unanimous. Ebert loved it and wrote that he had never seen 3D used better. A.O. Scott of the New York Times faulted the film’s narrative frame and argued it represses the story’s darker themes, and Peter Bradshaw of the Guardian gave it two stars out of five and found it shallow (reception summary on Wikipedia). The split is familiar: the film is the most spectacular version of the lifeboat story and the least comfortable with the cannibalism in the second one.

On Stage

Lolita Chakrabarti’s adaptation opened at the Crucible Theatre in Sheffield in June 2019 and reached the West End’s Wyndham’s Theatre in November 2021. At the 2022 Olivier Awards it won five prizes, including Best New Play. Puppets play the animals. Chakrabarti has said she cut animals such as the flamingos and the rhinoceros because “they have to earn their place” in the story, gave Pi’s parents more to do, and turned his older brother into a sister (Playbill). The Broadway run closed earlier than first expected and won three Tony Awards, all for design.

Bengal tiger in profile in low golden light with salt spray

Frequently Asked Questions

Is Life of Pi a true story?
No. It is a novel, and the Author’s Note that makes it sound like reportage is mostly invented. The one documented source of inspiration is Moacyr Scliar’s novella Max and the Cats, which Martel has acknowledged (The Canadian Encyclopedia).

What does the ending mean?
The book leaves it open. Pi gives two accounts, neither can be proved, and the story he ends up preferring is the one with the animals. Martel sums the book up as the case that the story with God is the better one.

Why is the tiger named Richard Parker?
Martel took the name from three real or fictional Richard Parkers connected to shipwreck and cannibalism: one in Poe’s 1838 novel, one in an 1884 court case and one lost in 1846.

Did Life of Pi win the Booker Prize?
Yes, in 2002, the first year the prize was sponsored by the Man Group (Booker Prizes).

How long is Pi at sea?
The novel counts 227 days on the lifeboat, apart from one stop on a floating island of carnivorous algae, before he is rescued.

Where to Read It

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is the novel in full, with the Author’s Note and all three parts. See it on Amazon (affiliate link)

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. A commission may be earned if you buy through this link, at no extra cost to you.

Further Reading

The blog Books: A true story reviewed the novel in 2012 and put its verdict briefly: “The writing is stunning and flows very well.” For the author’s background, awards and the book’s Canadian setting, The Canadian Encyclopedia entry is the best single page, and the Booker Prizes library page has the judges’ comments.

More from this shelf: Animal Farm: A Political Allegory of Totalitarianism and The Power of Knowledge: A Review of Fahrenheit 451.

Sources

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