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In one sentence, "Life of Pi" is the story of an Indian boy named Pi and his journey with a Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, aboard a life raft. Pi’s zoology background helps him to gain dominance over the tiger, and his religious faith (in Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity) keep his motivation high. We learn briefly about Pi’s childhood in India, learning that his father was a zookeeper, and also that his name, Piscine, came from a famous swimmer. The story branches out to make many points other than the classic “man vs. nature� story. One overlying theme of the story is the strong will to live by all beings, embellished largely by the fact that a 15-year-old boy managed to survive and coexist with a ferocious being for 227 days. Another instance of Pi’s resilience and craftiness is when he learns 12 ways to distil salt water into fresh water using the Sun. The book also touches on faithfulness, which in the opinion of Pi and the author requires one to go out on a limb to accept some of the farfetched stories. Martel’s untold message about stories is that they are how we distinguish moments from the long stream of reality which we experience everyday. The last point largely conveyed by the author is that fiction is what makes things interesting, which requires a reader or listener to take risks in accepting what they're told. This point makes a lot of sense in the context of this book, as I'm sure some of the details used by Martel were made up, but still made for a darn interesting story. Pi’s descriptions of his journey were filled with vivid and brilliant detail, keeping the reader hooked through his hardships. While reading the book, I never thought about any of the deeper messages of the story, and rather focused on the “man vs. nature� element of it, but accessing it now, it is a story full of metaphors and interesting messages. Overall the book was a good read and certainly kept me drawn in the whole time.

isn't this more a review than a discussion?