My perspective of a nice story with questionable inclusions
By David F.
Life of Pi. Where to begin? The main character, Pi (yes, his name is Pi), had three religions. Yep. How? Well, let's see, he's Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, somehow all at the same time(?!?!) because he, I guess, decided to morph all the spiritual teachings and ideas from the three belief systems into one. But how though? How can someone be all three at once, when they all have different interpretations of things? I mean, yeah, they have similarities, but not enough to tie them all into one. Now I'm in no way against any religion; I just don't understand how anybody could be three at once! But it's an important feature of Pi's character. I don't know if I'm clear enough regarding how I just really seriously just DON'T GET how it's possible (seriously he prays to Jesus and Vishnu at the same time I mean WHAT).
And then there's the pacing. Oh, boy. Oh, boy, oh, boy, is it ever slow. That's the problem with the story. It focuses so much on Pi stranded on a boat with a tiger, so reading the book became a task at points. I get it that the story is about Pi's survival, but because he is simply ON A LIFEBOAT for such a long duration of time, there's not much that can be done to make it incredibly exciting. But on the whole, it's a nice story and I'd say that I like it.
The religion thing is confusing to me though. The ending is played like this: Did Pi's story really happen the way he explained it (where he survived through the power of religion), or did he make it up (and the world should be viewed from merely a secular perspective)? There's no clear-cut answer, so all I'm learning is how complicated the idea of religion can be to some people.
Because Pi is Christian, Hindu, and Muslim, it makes me question: What about the other religions? How does this story fare for those? What about atheism (which is an absolute SHOCKER to Pi)? I guess that's the point of the ambiguous ending, but it just leaves me unsure of just what to think.
So that's fun to think about at night.
3 out of 5 stars. It's still a good story, just lengthy at times.
Photo Credit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi
