life of pi
Life of Pi was rather monotonous for me -- up until the last few chapters -- specifically, when the interview begins. The novel itself I disliked stylistically (I felt it was dry), not to mention the plot was terribly straightforward -- childhood, ship sinks, oh shit a tiger, food, foodfood, tiger is scary, food, tiger...it lacked intrigue. Pi's religious/zoological/etc observations were mildly interesting but didn't contribute to the overall impression of the book.
No, what I found more interesting -- and it's terrible that I had to slug through 90% of the novel to get to it -- were the parallels between the "real" story and the story that Pi relates. The real story is the more horrific. It calls into question why Pi chooses to reinvent the real story to reflect the behavior of animals. Is it because what actually occurs is so irrational, so inhumane, that it consoles his conscience that it is Richard Parker who eats the disgusting hyena, rather than Pi eating the freshly murdered cook? That his mother had suffered a gentler fate of drowning rather than by the cook's knife? Is it escapism, to assign anthromorphological identities to the ship's survivors?
Or is it a comment on that what we are? We are animals. Given desperate situations, would we revert to our baser, primal instincts, an instinct to survive, even if it meant to betray comrades, shed their blood, and eat it too? Would we abandon ethos? pathos? logos? all that separates us from animals? This perhaps is the reason why Pi's mother is personified as an orangutan, humanlike and maternal. The most intelligent and evolved by human standards yet unable to adapt to harsh/unfamiliar situations.
When discussing the above it becomes necessary to note Pi's role in either story. It is clear that Pi is Richard Parker, or at least part of Pi is. Pi separated the most savage part of him into a tiger entity. A tiger perhaps of its color (orange: Hinduism) and that it's indigenous to East Asia. Pi and his Richard Parker alter ego lived together in a tentative dynamic for those 227 days. It says something that his humanity eventually dominated his animal. However it also says something that his animal is undoubtedly much more powerful than his humanity, and that his humanity had to resort to using animal techniques to achieve this goal...
exhaustion is when you'er too tired to really eat dinner and you're falling asleep at work even when drinking 4 mugs of tea a day and you snap out of a working reverie only to realize most people are gone and you were supposed to have left half an hour ago.