Life of Pi: Author

1
Life of Pi Authors Note

• HKASL Literature in English

2
Summary

• The brief, italicized section
• With some background on the books author
• Written himself into the text as a character
• 1996 second trip to India He flew to Bombay to
  rejuvenate his mind after learning about the less
  than favorable response to his first two books
• Plans to write a novel about Portugal
• Failed to materialize the book hopeless and
  dejected about his prospects

3
Summary

• Arrived in the town of Pondicherry after a period
  of wandering
• Pondicherry once controlled by the French
  Empire
• Become self-governing decades ago
• The author met by chance a man named Francis
  Adirubasamy in a local coffee shop
• Francis offered to tell him a story

4
Summary

• The author called up Mr. Patel Pi back in his
  native Canada
• Mr. Patel agreed to meet with him and tell him
  his own version of the story
• Showed the author documents, including his old
  diary and ancient newspaper clippings about his
  ordeal
• Supporting documents received from the Japanese
  Ministry of Transport
• Author to write up Mr. Patels account using Mr.
  Patels own voice and looking through his eyes.
  Any mistakes, he states, are the authors own.

5
Analysis

• It clues us into the books origins
• It blurs the boundary between fact and fiction
• Claim the text is nonfiction
• In the tradition of picaresque novels
• ExampleDon Quixote
• Masquerading as fact even though they are
  obviously works of imagination
• Harsh realities of life poverty, illness, and
  so on are treated in a wry, ironic, and even
  humorous way
• Serious commentary made by the narrator on
  everything, from religion to politics
• Mock-journalistic introduction the intersection
  of fact and fiction in his literary world

6
Analysis

• Central theme of the book storytelling
• Two not-so-successful books before
• Struck by inspiration during a visit to India
• Did Yann Martel really meet Francis Adirubasamy
  in a coffee shop?
• Does Pi Patel really exist?
• No
• Martel creating an imaginary scenario to delight
  and entice his readers
• Foundation for the novels central theme
• Storytelling as a way to get around telling the
  boring or upsetting or uninteresting truth

7
Analysis

• Balanced structurally by Part Three another
  short section concerned with creating the
  impression that this entire book is a work of
  nonfiction
• To suspend our disbelief and invest ourselves
  more fully in the story we are about to read

8
Life of Pi Chapters 1 6
9
Summary

• Beginning Pis declaration his great
  suffering, leaving him despondent
• The nature of his suffering and its source are
  not yet clear to the reader
• Pi as a very good student in his religious and
  zoological studies
• His religious studies thesis aspects of Isaac
  Lurias cosmogony theory
• Pis Speaking about sloths at length and his
  observation
• Their very survival ensured by their slow and
  dull lifestyle
• Disappearance into the background
• Now working, Pi misses India and loves Canada,
  and he misses someone named Richard Parker.

10
Summary

• Pis stay at a hospital in Mexico
• Treated exceptionally well
• His ailmentsanemia, fluid retention, dark urine,
  broken skin
• Up and walking in about a weeks time
• Fainted the first time he turned on a water tap
  and heard the water rushing forth
• How he felt wounded when a waiter in an Indian
  restaurant in Canada criticized him for using his
  fingers to eat.
• Narrative briefly switched to the authors point
  of view
• Describing Pi as a small, gray-haired,
  middle-aged man, who talks quickly and directly

11
Summary

• Pis narrative his reflections on his boyhood in
  India
• Named after a pool
• Learned to swim from a family friend, Francis
  Adirubasamy, whom Pi calls Mamaji
• Mamaji
• A champion swimmer when he was young
• Instilled in Pi a love for the ritualistic nature
  of swimming
• His favorite pool in the world the Piscine
  Molitor in Paris it is after that pool that Pi
  received his unusual name

12
Summary

• Pis father used to run the Pondicherry Zoo
• Pi grew up thinking the zoo was paradise
• The ritualistic habits of zoo creatures
• The alarm-clock precision of the roaring lions
• The howler monkeys
• The songs that are birds daily rites
• Defended zoos against those who would rather the
  animals were kept in the wild
• Wild creatures at the mercy of nature
• Zoo creatures a life of luxury and constancy
• Pondicherry Zoo is now shut down
• Many people now hold both zoos and religions in
  disrepute.

13
Summary

• Teasing Pi received as a child because of his
  full name, Piscine
• Other school children turned into Pissing
• Trained his classmates and teachers to call him
  Pi
• by writing it on the chalkboard of each of his
  classrooms
• Briefly switched back to the voice of the author
  Pis kitchen in Canada is extremely well-stocked

14
Analysis

• Foreshadowing something devastating and
  extraordinary
• Approaching that nameless event from the outside
  in,
• Providing information about Pis life before and
  after before getting to the heart of the tragedy
  itself
• Building up the suspense
• Allowing us to get to know Pi as a normal boy and
  a fully fleshed out character, not just as a
  victim of circumstance
• Drawing readers firmly into the story we want
  to know
• Who is Richard Parker?
• What happened to him?
• Pis memories of India

15
Analysis

• Pis reference of his thesis on sixteenth-century
  Kabbalist Isaac Lurias cosmogony theory very
  important to the book as a whole
• Lurias theory of creation
• God contracted to make room for the universe
• This contraction Tsimtsum
• Followed by light, carried in five vessels
• Shattered vessels causing the sparks of light to
  sink into matter
• God reordered them into five figures, which
  became the dimensions of our created reality
• Foreshadowing the main event to come
• Sinking of the ship, the Tsimtsum
• Giving Pi the room to create his own version of
  the events that follow
• Five figures that make up reality for Luria
  five characters on the lifeboat (including Pi
  himself) shape Pis story reality Vs.
  imagination

16
Analysis

• Zoo an important place in Pis memory
• Pis belief system shaped by growing up in a zoo
• Knowing about animal nature
• Imbued in him the meaning of freedom
• Zoos are places of habit
• Chores that the keepers must perform every day
• Examples feeding and cleaning the animals and
  their cages
• Animal rituals

17
Analysis

• Pi establishes early on the orderliness of the
  zoo and the comforting sense of regularity it
  gives him
• Animals prefer the consistency of zoo life
• Similarly humans accustom themselves to the
  rituals and abundance of modern society their
  own sort of zoo
• Zoo animals rarely run away they enjoy the
  abundant water and food
• Life in the wild a constant battle for survival
  a race against the odds and other creatures
• Death a constant presence and possibility
• All of us living in modern society zoo creatures
• Defanged and protected from the wilderness
  waiting for us beyond the enclosure walls
• Walls from which Pi will soon be freed

18
Analysis

• Explanations of Pis name
• As much text as his philosophizing about zoos
• The watery associations of Piscine Molitors full
  name
• Piscine
• Pool in French
• A derivation with pisces, or fish
• Pi learns how to swim from Francis Adirubasamy
• He gravitates toward water

19
Analysis

• Pis name
• Two functions in the text
• Emphasizing the idea that a very strong swimmer
  like Pi might realistically have survived in the
  ocean after a shipwreck
• Pi as an odd name that is has the ring of
  allegory, positioning Pi as a mythic or fabled
  character
• The literal, mathematic symbol pi
• An almost impossibly long number whose
  combinations never repeat
• Symbolizing Pis long journey, with all its
  variations

20
Analysis

• Amount of energy that Pi devotes to the ideas of
  rituals and routine in the lives of zoo
  creatures
• Repetition he used to train his schoolmates and
  teachers into calling him Pi
• Leaps up during roll call
• Writes his full name on the blackboard
• Underlines his preferred nickname, Pi
• Speaks it aloud
• Carries out this act in each classroom, during
  every roll call
• To the point where his fellow students start to
  follow along
• Indication humans animals
• Repetition proves to be a very effective teacher