The Life of Pi by Yann Martel documents the life of Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi), a young boy growing up in southern India in the 1970's. The early chapters of the book tell the tale of Pi's youth, as he grows up among the animals in his father's zoo and is influenced by a myriad of religious influences. Pi becomes enthralled with theology, practicing Christianity and Islam along with his native Hinduism. The increasing political unrest in India forces Pi's family to sell the zoo and emigrate to Canada. In true Noah's-Ark-fashion, they accompany the wild animals on board the ship to North America. The ship sinks and Pi finds himself the only human survivor aboard a life raft that has rescued, rather remarkably, a zebra, a large motherly orangutan called Orange Juice, a frenzied hyena and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. It isn't long before Richard Parker becomes Pi's only remaining companion, and the boy must use all his knowledge of zoology and animal behavior to create boundaries and to survive, which he does for 227 days.
             Is this a far fetched survival-at-sea story? Yes, but it's much more than that. The Life of Pi asks many questions about life, survival, belief, and the importance of imaginative story-telling, posing the question of whether or not fiction should be believable. Many people judge a fictional novel on how realistic and believable it is. Martel, however, sets out in this novel to argue the case for imaginative fiction - "to not sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality".
             The Life of Pi makes the reader question whether this is imaginative or real-life fiction. The story of Pi's survival is, on the one hand, a classic tale of survival on the high-seas, a grueling story of one boy's survival at sea on a raft against all that nature throws at him. On the other hand, by the time we have read about the floating weed island with its quiet secret and a meeting with a bli...