Word: martel
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...party to celebrate the award of this year's Man Booker Prize to Yann Martel for his novel The Life of Pi, the talk among the champagne-fuelled literati wasn't of near-winners, worthy losers or contentious judges. The chatter accompanying the toasts, the hugs and the kisses in the Union, a members-only club in London, was of the unprecedented success of Canongate Books, the small Edinburgh-based house that published Pi. For the first time, the prestigious annual fiction award for Commonwealth writers went to a book published outside the mainstream houses - and outside London...
...Martel, a French-Canadian writer of gentle wit, lets Pi tell his own story in an engaging voice, starting with a wondrous childhood in Pondicherry, India, as the son of zoo owners. In his adolescence, Pi becomes promiscuously religious: he decides he wants to be Hindu, Muslim and Christian, devoutly and simultaneously. His pandit, his imam and his priest are less than pleased. Pi doesn't see the problem. Gandhi, he reminds them, said "all religions are true," and as for himself, he says, "I just want to love...
...Bengal tigers in lifeboats and Indian boys who worship Allah, Jesus and Hindu gods could easily become precious, but Martel saves his novel from saccharine whimsy by grounding it in hard reality. He doesn't stint on the bloody details of a tiger's diet, or the immense physical suffering Pi is forced to endure. Martel has done his homework: if a tiger and an Indian boy found themselves floating in the Pacific, this is how each would respond. Most importantly, Martel doesn't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing his tiger. Richard Parker is an animal and a killer...
...Life of Pi is a bit overballasted by these nautical chapters. "The worst pair of opposites, boredom and terror," writes Martel, stalk Pi throughout his ordeal; inevitably, boredom leaks into his story. Hemingway had his old man stay on the sea for a metaphorically appropriate three days; Pi floats...
...Martel's postmodern frame and half twist of an ending both reinforce his religious themes and inject a bracing dose of uncertainty. Is Pi a trustworthy raconteur? When the story is this satisfying, it doesn't really matter. Martel leaves all claims open-ended, like his protagonist's limitless faith. If Life of Pi is not quite a story to make you believe in God, it may convince you that when it comes to existence, we're all in the same boat...