Consider Life of Pi as a fictional monster
Intellectual fun coupled with immense power of imagination
makes the novel a real adventure of brutal, tender, expressive and dramatic
force. Life of Pi is an engrossing and
beautifully written meditation on God, man and beast. The novel has a
deceptively simple structure. Unravelling the structure of the novel is as
adventurous as living with a wild animal for several days. The self-reflexive
nature of the novel makes it more a meta narrative. The story within a story and the blurring of
fantasy and realism makes the novel complex nonetheless the narrative appears
to be simple. The life of Pi, itself is adventurous. He follows multiple
religions and also influenced by atheism. The narration moves from existence to
survival and from survival to identity.
Life of Pi is a story that makes one believe in the
soul-sustaining power of fiction and its human creators. Even the most
outrageous scenario can be presented with plausible life. The novel explores
all the fictional possibilities from magic realism to a sea faring likes of
Robinson Crusoe or Treasure Island. The novel has a range extending from Milan
Kundera to Kafka and a Rushdie to Peter Carey. Yet, its amazing simplicity has
made it above the previous stated ones.
From swimming pool ,to the depths of the Pacific Ocean and
from Petit Seminair to St. Michael’s the novel has made a great bound in the narration.
The flow of the narration is sustained throughout. Apart from all the campus
life depicted in the novel with its elaborate details and more facts on
subjects such as Zoology and religion is more astonishing.
The novel is a great study in human relationship along with
animal, nature and God. All the cacophonic elements are yoked in to a
harmonious one in the novel. Such act requires an extraordinary craftsmanship
and ingenuity.
The novel begins in the Coffee House in Pondicherry. It is
named Indian Coffee House and located in Nehru Street. It reminds of the Coffee
House days of Queen Anne. The coffee house
had inspired great writers and it had become the meeting place of the
literateurs. In the same way the author picks a conversation with an elderly
man which results in the writing of Pi’s story.
Placing the novel, historically, politically, spiritually and socially
Yann Martel has made a great fictional adventure.
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