Part 1:

Titel of the book: Life Of Pi

Author: Yann Martel

Genre: Fantasy, drama, and adventure.

Number of pages: 348

Name of the publisher: Canongate Books Ltd

Year of publication: 2003

Part 2:

I chose to read the book, because I had read someone’s essay about this book and I got curious about it. And I wanted to know the whole story and what exactly happened and meant what she wrote about.

Part 3: Characters

The main character in the book is Picine Molitor Patel, named after a swimming pool in Paris. But he calls himself Pi, because he has been bullied when he was younger with people calling him ‘pissing’. He is important because he tells the story, it’s all written as a narritive from his perspective when he was sixteen years old.

Other important characters are Richard Parker, a Bengal tiger stranded on the lifeboat with Pi, who kept him alive.

Also, a spotted hyena, an injured Grant’s zebra and an orangutan are other, but less, important characters in the novel. They are on the boat as well, but die pretty quick, due to different causes, after they ended up onto the lifeboat with Pi.

Part 4: Plot Summary

         Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, is an adventure, fantasy and drama novel about an Indian teenage boy, Pi, who experiences a ship wreck while he and his family are moving to Canada around the 1980s. When Pi is older, he tells someone his story, how he survived his long journey filled with danger, loneliness and doubt. He tells him how he ended up on a lifeboat with a tiger, hyena, zebra and orangutan, and all the way through the 277 days he spent on that boat up until he stranded in Mexico and eventually tells another, a different version of his story to a journalist who doesn’t believe his first ‘real’ story. In the end you, the reader, have to decide what story really is true; the one with the animals on the boat or the other one with the animals replaced by persons.

Part 5: Alternative Ending

          Instead of the hyena, orangutan and the zebra dying, they all stay alive but wounded. And they’re not sure if they will make it to somewhere where they can strand, when their lifeboat has a leak and they barely make it in time to an island where they have to find a way to survive. And eventually they sent a S.O.S. signal what some helicopters flying above the ocean catch and sent a rescue team.

Part 6: Write a recommendation

         I do and do not recommend the book.. I would maybe recommend it to an American classmate, but not a Dutch classmate, because the story is very difficult to understand.. Even some of my American classmates who read it, who are native English speaking, had approximately about 10 words per page they, and I didn’t know and/or understand.

What drew me in to the story was that Pi is thinks very deep about everything. He is very itelligent and it’s very inspiring how he is in love with the idea of faith.

I love how he describes everything so good and clear, that  doesn’t give a choice to not have a picture in your mind about what it must look like from his perspective.

I learned a lot, about the ocean, animals and the fight for life, and going through an emotional journey that made me empathize deeply with his circumstances.