Reading a review

Reading a review

Hello! Today I'm going to look through some reviews of this book to know what other people think of this book, whether they like it or not. And I saw the review appeared in the journal  "Canadian Literature" #177 (Summer 2003).
Yann Martel (Author)
Life of Pi.
Reviewed by Linda M. Morra

"The tripartite structure of Life of Pi, Yann Martel’s second novel and winner of the 2002 Booker Prize, corresponds to three major periods of the protagonist’s life: his adult life in Canada where he meets the narrator and divulges his life-story; his childhood in India followed by a traumatic experience at sea; and his rescue and recovery in Mexico. Initially, some cursory narrative details of the second and third of these parts suggest parallels with Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe. Pi—whose equally resonant birth name, Piscine Molitor, is derived from the "crowning aquatic glory of Paris"—is lost at sea after a shipwreck. Like Crusoe, he survives the cruelties of starvation, isolation, loneliness (if one disqualifies the presence of Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger), and the elements, as he also becomes preoccupied with making a raft and the tools and means upon which his survival depends.
Martel’s novel, however, is no simple variant of the Crusoe adventure story. In fact, Life of Pi seems designed to impugn the bourgeois Puritan ideology that underlies Robinson Crusoe. An examination of the protagonists and their respective circumstances demonstrates this significant difference. Crusoe, the son of a wealthy merchant, initiates a sea voyage of his own volition rather than entering into business, as his father desires. No such option is given to Pi, whose sea voyage is born of necessity, not whimsical inclination. Notwithstanding the series of misfortunes he encounters, Crusoe is adept at duplicating his father’s business practices: he not only survives the shipwreck, but also applies the work ethic he has inherited from his father and amasses a small fortune. In contrast, Pi is obliged to relocate to Canada from Pondicherry, India, with his family and their menagerie of animals (which were part of a zoo, the family business) because of the country’s economic instability and political turmoil. No amount of hard labour would have transformed the zoo into a lucrative business since, as the narrator observes, "the Greater Good and the Greater Profit are not compatible aims."
The shipwreck is purportedly caused by a combination of bad weather and a mechanical failure; however, the shipping company demonstrates an utter lack of concern for its missing passengers, including Pi’s family, "a lowly Indian family with a bothersome cargo," and for its ship, a "third-rate rustbucket," because both were deemed economically insignificant. Within the ship itself, a hierarchy exists: there are the offi cers, who had "little to do with us," and the passengers, whose physical containment at the bottom of the ship’s hold indicates their social position. If social rank, as Martel observes about the animal kingdom, "determines whom [one] associates with and how," then it also determines one’s significance and worth: not only are Pi’s parents obliged to relocate from India as the result of their dire financial situation, their disappearance is virtually overlooked because of their low social status.
Martel’s novel is a kind of fictional biography, and, as such, displays certain hagio-graphical tendencies: presumably, Pi’s life is meant to be regarded as an exemplar. In this respect, the book also seems to critique the confessional, instructional facet of Defoe’s book, which derives its moral orientation from its resemblance to Puritan moral tracts. The autonomy and economic rewards that Crusoe and an upwardly mobile middle class enjoyed may have been the result of a solid work ethic, but they were also the product of imperial exploitation. Martel’s choice of an impoverished Indian for his protagonist seems implicitly to make this point about Crusoe’s position in the world. Moreover, if Crusoe himself discovers religious belief and experiences a conversion because of his hardships, Pi demonstrates a kind of spiritual precocity since he has explored—even celebrated—three major religious belief systems in advance of his ordeal at sea. A religious conversion is not engendered by his sufferings; instead, religious beliefs and rituals sustain him throughout his perils. Narrative itself becomes a means of sheltering from the cruelties of survival. The two versions of Pi’s life conveyed to the Japanese investigators at the end indicate that narrative, like religion, renders the cruelties of survival more tolerable.
Still, the narrator’s claim at the opening of the book is somewhat overwrought: that this is a "a story that will make you believe in God" seems to suggest a level of profundity and sophistication that the novel does not quite attain. The expectation built into Martel’s fiction is that it will transform reality in order to effect a transformation in its readers, but that expectation overestimates the power of the story. While Life of Pi is, at turns, interesting, clever, and layered, it is also inconsistently compelling and occasionally contrived."


So, I've read the article by Linda M. Morra. She is an associate professor at Bishop’s University, specializes in Canadian studies and literature, with a particular focus on twentieth-century Canadian writers.
The author expressed her impressions of the book and she thinks that it is very attractive and interesting book. In her opinion it's not a simple variant of Crusoe adventure novel or something similar to it. It's more more thought-out story, full of deeper meaning than just survival in the ocean, in the absence of conditions for life. This novel is more psychologically filled with thoughts about the meaning of existence, the struggle against their own will. In spite of Crusoe, who discovered religious belief and experiences a conversion because of his hardships, Pi demonstrates a kind of spiritual precocity since he has explored—even celebrated—three major religious belief systems in advance of his ordeal at sea. So, these book are radically different and can not be compared.
Also the author shows her idea, that nowadays people became more selfish, nobody will care if you are lost, that proves the situation in the novel, as the shipping company demonstrates an utter lack of concern for its missing passengers, including Pi’s family, because they were deemed economically insignificant.
In the author's opinion the choice of an impoverished Indian for his protagonist seems not accidental. He shows the status of poor people in the world. I can prove the words of the other with thee frases from the book: "a lowly Indian family with a bothersome cargo,", a "third-rate rustbucket,", etc.
I agree with Linda, I think that the book is with a deep sense. Each reader could spend quite a bit of time pondering the spiritual implications of the deep relationship that develops between Pi and Richard Parker over the course of their confinement together. And each can find their own understanting of some thoughts of the author of the book. This novel can show how close can be animals and humans.
In conclusion, I can say that many people like this book, mostly everybody call it the best book ever, all the readers, who wrote their comments said that they could not give up reading and be away of this book.