Friday, November 27, 2009

Life of Π decoded

I just completed reading this so called fiction Novel Life of PI by Yann Martel and it has provoked enough emotions in me to write a second post on this book.

Every writer has this obsession to resonate with the reader emotionally through his choice of words, language style, facts and details in narration. To a large degree the success of this story could be attributed to this fact.

Despair and Hope were the emotions that transcended in me which were beyond human understanding while I read this book


I started of this book with the thought that this is yet another religious attempt by a shrewd prophet. But this book definitely goes beyond that by widening our perceptional horizons on Religion, Existence of God, Human emotions, Animal psychology, Intricacies of nature. Probably that’s the reason why I was hooked on to this novel so much.

In my opinion, this book is more of a research thesis than a fictional novel. Otherwise, a reader would never have to ponder and introspect so much for a fictional work. Probably thats the reason why this book made me think so much next to Vivekananda’s work. I am sure that it would have taken painstaking research for Yaan Martel while writing this book (I am sure he would have done atleast 100 Google searches or references). I have already done atleast half a dozen Google searches on ( Incidents of animals returning back to Zoo, Tsimtsum, Tigers, Carnivorous algae, Pi, Ship sinking incidents like this in history, Fear, Animal psychology etc.,)

I could see a bit of Charles Darwin (Survival of fittest), Sigmund Freud (Human Emotions), Vivekananda (Need for religions) and Albert Einstein (Time and space) in this work.

I would definitely love to reread this research thesis filled with facts, reasonings and philosophies that are so beautifully concealed or wrapped in a fictional storyline.