The Life of Pi

I often refer to Milan Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" as the best book I ever read. My favorite novel is F. Scott Fitzgerald's "The Great Gatsby" while the most difficult book I've read is "The Sound and The Fury" by William Faulkner. (It only took me three tries.) Still I consider "The Unbearable Lightness of Being" the best book because of what it stirred in me.

It was more than just a simple appreciation for the method by which the author told the story or an affinity for the characters. It was a deep connection between myself and the ideas of the book on a spiritual level. I found it encapsulated not only the world I lived in or the world I wanted to live in but both at the same time.

Since I finished "Unbearable Lightness" at the end of summer 2003, I've read a lot of really good books like "Ender's Game", "Good Omens" and "A Long Way Down." But there have only been two books which approached the incredibly high level of "Unbearable Lightness."

The first was a Spanish book called "The Shadow of the Wind" by Carlos Ruiz Zafon. Set in Barcelona during the years after the war, it tells a Gothic story of a young boy whose father owns a used bookstore. His father takes him to The Cemetary of Forgotten Books where he discovers a book by Julian Carax. However when he goes searching for other works by Carax, he finds that someone has been systematically destroying all copies of Carax's work. It enthralled me to the point that I was very upset when I went to Amazon and found Zafon had not written any other books.

The other book up to "Unbearable Lightness" standards is the one I just finished, "The Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. Telling the story of a young Indian boy who finds him tossed from the proverbial pan of a shipwreck into the fire of a lifeboat inhabited by a Bengal tiger, it's more a novel about the place of Man in the world.

When the action is taking place in Pondicherry, India the emphasis is on the relation of God to Man. It specifically explores religious pluralism as the main character simultaneously adopts Christianity and Islam while retaining his Hindu beliefs. Multiculturalism is still a relatively new idea so it's interesting to watch it seep from the Ivory Tower of academia into the mainstream via books like "Life of Pi."

Still the hook of the book is the section taking place in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. As great as it is to read about this kid following many paths to the top of the same mountain, my constant thought was "This was really great AND there's a part coming up involving this boy and a tiger in a lifeboat." It's interesting to watch the story slide quickly down Maslow's hierarchy of needs. Where the Indian boy was interested in God and self-actualization in the first section, his focus slides quickly into pure survival. Man's place in the world is re-framed as he has to take on a direct (the tiger) and indirect (the sea) threat to his life from Nature.

Finally the way it all wraps up is beautiful. Like its predecessors before it, the ending was everything I could've expected while reading the book. It encapsulates the ideas I have as well as the ideas I'm moving towards and that meant the book carried a lot of weight for me. It's definitely a book which requires a lot of consideration and that's the best thing you can say about a book. Quite simply put it's the best book I've read since at least "The Shadow of the Wind" and maybe even "The Unbearable Lightness of Being."