Books-5: 'Life of Pi' by Yann Martel

Today I completed reading the above book. I had been to Chennai on a two-day trip. I utlized this opportunity to read this book. It is a fantastic book. I have to borrow words from experts to describe its many-sided splendour. Yann Martel blends fact and fiction with wily charm(The Guardian). An astonishing piece of fiction. It is unbelievable that a person can give such free rein to his imagination and put the whole pile of meandering thoughts into a brilliant, logical sequential order(Deccan Chronicle). He is a powerful writer and storyteller(Edmonton Journal). It is an amazing and astounding novel.

The hero is a castaway with only a Royal Bengal Tiger for companion, and of course, the Pacific ocean , the sky, the winds and his thoughts. There are many passages in the book that are worth recording. However, for want of space, I am reproducing below only a few:

“There were many skies. The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy, suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white, fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that looked like a cotton ball stretched apart. The sky was a featureless milky haze. The sky was a density of dark and blustery rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars. The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon: sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges between light and shadow perfectly distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting rain on my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff.

There were many seas. The sea roared like a tiger. The sea whispered in your ear like a friend telling you secrets. The sea clinked like small change in a pocket. The sea thundered like avalanches. The sea hissed like sandpaper working on wood. The sea sounded like someone vomiting. The sea was dead silent.

And in between the two, in between the sky and the sea, were all the winds.

And there were all the nights and all the moons.

To be a castaway is to be a point perpetually at the center of a circle. However much things may appear to change – the sea may shift from whisper to rage – the sky might go from fresh blue to blinding white to darkest black – the geometry never changes. Your gaze is always a radius. The circumference is ever great. In fact, the circles multiply. To be a castaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles. …. To be a castaway is to be caught up in grim and exhausting opposites. When it is light, the openness of the sea is blinding and frightening. When it is dark, the darkness is claustrophobic. When it is day, you are hot and wish to be cool and dream of ice cream and pour sea water on yourself. When it is night, you are cold and wish to be warm and dream of hot curries and wrap yourself in blankets. When it is hot, you are parched and wish to be wet. When it rains, you are nearly drowned and wish to be dry. When there is food, there is too much of it and you must feast. When there is none, there is truly none and you starve. When the sea is flat and motionless, you wish it would stir. When it rises up and the circle that imprisons you is broken by hills of water, you suffer that peculiarity of the high seas, suffocation in open spaces, and you wish the sea would be flat again. The opposites often take place at the same moment, so that when the sun is scorching you till you are stricken down, you are also aware that it is drying the strips of flesh and meat that are hanging from your lines and that it is a blessing for your solar stills. … When rough weather abates, and it becomes clear that you have survived the sky’s attack and the sea’s treachery, your jubilation is tempered by the rage that so much fresh water should fall directly into the sea and by the worry that it is the last rain you will ever see, that you will die of thirst before the next drops fall.

The worst pair of opposites is boredom and terror. Sometimes your life is a pendulum swing from one to the other. The sea is without a wrinkle. There is not a whisper of wind. The hours last forever. You are so bored you sink into a state of apathy close to a coma. Then the sea becomes rough and your emotions are whipped into a frenzy. Yet even these two opposites do not remain distinct. In your boredom, there are elements of terror: you break down into tears; you are filled with dread; you scream; you deliberately hurt yourself. And in the grip of terror – the worst storm – you yet feel boredom, a deep weariness with it all……

Life on a lifeboat is not much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements could not be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing. You must make adjustments if you want to survive. Much becomes expendable. You get your happiness where you can. You reach a point where you are at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you are the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish…”

This is only a sample. If one wants to enjoy the whole story, there is no other way than to read the book, which is eminently readable and enjoyable.