Entry One - Part 1 (Chapters 1-36)

After reading the Part one of The Life of Pi, I realized that I made a mistake in skipping the author's note. The book itself is a work of fiction, trying to disguise itseld as non-fiction. The author - Yann Martel - claims to have met an older man in a cafe who told him: “I have a story that will make you believe in God.”. This author's note is really a means of explaining that this novel is a story telling another story - preparing the reader somewhat for the confusion in the following pages. Part one largely consists of introducing the character, Pi. The perspective in which the story is told constantly alternates between the author and Pi himself, I found this very confusing. The first six chapters tell us that Pi is a small, middle-aged man living in Toronto. He is an immigrant from India, and has completed a double major in zoology and religion. Martel draws the reader in with hints of a devastating event in Pi's life - and his missing for Richard Parker. He reccounts his memories of being teased for his first name, Piscine - with his classmates often calling him 'pissing'. He fixed this by writing his name on the chalk board everyday until he 'trained' everybody to call him Pi. Pi was named after a pool in France, and relates his love for swimming to the repition and ritualistic behaviour of it. His father owned a zoo in India, and zoo conduct seems to have manifested itself into Pi's entire lifestyle. He finds happiness through systematic protocol and routine he grew up with at the zoo.

When doing further research on the novel, I came across a very interesting part of the book. Pi makes allusion to his thesis on sixteenth-century Kabbalist Isaac Luria's cosmogony theory. This theory states that God made room for the universe in an action called Tsimstum via five vessels of light. These vessels were destroyed and God reformed the vessels as dimensions of reality. I don't quite fully understand the theory, but it definitely foreshadows the rest of the novel: Pi's boat - also called the Tsimstum - sinks on its way to Canada. The sinking of the Tsimstum creates room for Pi's story. There are five characters in the lifeboat which rescues Pi that parallel the five reformed vessels that make up reality in the theory.

In the spirit of reading too much into things, there was a very long explanation of Pi's name. The most obvious thing to point out is that Pi was named after a pool. This is relavent because Pi grew up as a good swimmer and part two of this novel involves Pi stranded in the ocean. Another thing I noticed as soon as I first saw the title of the novel is the word Pi. I found it odd, and it's what ultimately drew me into choosing this novel to study. Pi is a lowercase Greek letter, and more commonly known as quotient of circumference divided by diameter. It is also a paradox in the sense that it is an infinite constant. It is often trunicated to the value 3.14, but in reality it is a never ending string of numbers with no apparent pattern or end. We cannot comprehend the idea of pi as it is infinitely big with no end. The author could possibly be trying to infer something about the story or character of Pi.

The novel continues on with Pi reccounting the time when his father fed a live goat to a tiger in front of him and his brother to show them how dangerous the animal can be. He was taught while animals are dangerous, they are not evil. They are dangerous when provoked. It continues to tell how Pi has practiced Hinduism, Christianity, and the Muslim religion all together since age 15. I believe that these two ideas are meant to contrast eachother to convey a message in the book. Relgion can be the root of a lot of violence, as can wild animals - they can both be very dangerous things. If time is taken to truely understand an animal, exactly why and how it is provoked through its ritualistic behaviour, there is plenty to learn from it. The same goes for relgion with Pi: Pi takes the time to understand the full meaning behind religion, and understands that the rituals behind them are hollow acts. Without the true understanding of religion, there is nothing to be gained from it. Consequently, Pi has taken a lot of time to understand religions and now practices three of them and boasts a university degree.

The conclusion of part one is largely setting up an explanation for Pi's family's move to Canada from India: politics. This part seems to focus on the importance of imagination and additives. Pi has a hate for agnostics because they do not believe in anything because there is no tangible evidence to prove its existance. Pi surrounds himself with three religions because he likes the imaginative quality of their stories and myths, and their own unique outlook of life and God. This could be a reason why Pi's cooking, and well stocked kitchen is described in such detail. Pi uses a lot of spices and condiments to flavour his cooking. This may represent his take on religion or imagination. Pi believes that everybody wants a story because it helps them get through life. He alludes to the fact that animals will regard other species as their own, even though they know that they are different. Personally, I don't find this idea well put together - I feel like explanations and connections made are a bit scattered.

There is an important scene with Pi standing with his wife an kids. His wife is holding an orange cat. The orange cat symbolizes Richard Parker - the orange bengal tiger that Pi befriends out at sea. This appearance of an orange house cat was actually very heart-warming after reading the novel. This scene also tells the reader that no matter what tradegy Pi will face in part two, the book ends on a happy note.

- Tyler Scott