I picked up Life of Pi by Yann Martel because everyone raved about it, even my friend’s grandmother. It took me weeks to read, and it was only 200-something pages. Everyone said it was so great and I just found it…I dunno, kind of dull. It wasn’t inspiring at all – I mean, the will to live yeah, I get it, but still. I was only really fascinated with the animals and the tiger, and the end of the tiger in the story was the least satisfying thing ever. The tiger’s name was Richard Parker, but he wasn’t really featured as much as I would have hoped. Yes, he was a constant presence, but he didn’t really do much, nor did he have much of a relationship with Pi. In fact, Pi didn’t really do much.
I can only hope they rectified the overwhelming lack of activity in the film…which I might not ever see, thanks to this book.
Upon reflection, I really should have known better: a guy and a tiger in a rowboat, how much was really going to happen? NOT MUCH. Plus I felt like Martel kept having Pi cover the same ground – yes, it’s hard to catch fish with no rod. Yes, the tiger is scary and Pi didn’t want to get eaten by it. Yes, he was hungry. We get it.
This book really could have been much shorter, and again, it was only 200-something pages.
The only other interesting part of the book besides anything Richard Parker did was the carnivorous island. I tried to find out if such an island really existed, but failed in my searches. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s real.
I had a high school English moment at the end when Pi told the Japanese officials an alternate version of his story and I ended up with the feeling “Uh, unreliable narrator, how did this story actually happen?”
This inspired me to Google the book, and of course I ended up on Wikipedia, which told me nothing about whether Pi was an unreliable narrator but took me to a lot of other Wikipedia pages on disasters at sea where the shipwreck survivors resorted to cannibalism, most notably in the case of the crew of whale ship Essex.
I don’t know why I read about shipwrecks. They freak me out, even while I’m just sitting on my couch. I begin to feel claustrophobic and suffocated. But it turns out a lot of real and fictional people named Richard Parker had ties to stories having to do with ship wrecks, drowning, and cannibalism.
Moral of the story: if your name is Richard Parker, don’t get on a boat.
words in scarlet ink 