This book has just about everything you could want in a thoughtful summer read: a charming protagonist, a harrowing journey, zoo animals, and well-articulated musings on life, death, God, and everything in between. Life of Pi is the book I would recommend to any teenager or twenty-something who is feeling just a bit too sorry for themselves, because by the end (s)he will close the book and thank his/her lucky stars that they haven't endured the same journey as Pi, the book's narrator.
Martel illustrates the journey in a way that is swift and engaging, and in a way that successfully distracts you from the fact that you've been reading some 200 pages about animal feces and the uber-disgusting things one must eat for survival at sea. It is easy to follow Pi's struggles with interest and compassion because he is fleshed out as such an intriguing, sympathetic character from the very beginning.
The most interesting thing about the book's climax and conclusion is the element of true horror and tragedy that Martel embeds in a seemingly innocuous way. If that sentence doesn't really make sense, I'll clarify (albeit with spoilers): the ship Pi is sailing on sinks, and he's left in a lifeboat with a cook, a sailor and his mother. He watches the cook kill the other two, and then stabs him to death and sails on his own until he reaches Mexico. That's not the story we're told, however, because during Pi's debrief in Mexico, he and the men he is with decide a telling with animals substituted in for humans is "the better story." The realization that the entire tail has been a kind of childish allegory is haunting, and it is there that Martel fittingly ends the book.
Overall, there is some definite beauty in the simple prose of this novel, and I would certainly recommend it to anyone looking for a book to shake things up this summer.
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