In the beginning, I have mixed emotions about “Life of Pi“. Yann Martel starts the book off with a description of three toed sloth , describing their daily life. I found the opening part of this book to be boring. The extensive description of the sloth made me curious about what the sloth had to do with the story at hand. After reading more of the book, I noticed Yann Martel was using a digression technique with the story of the sloth. (Digression is a temporary departure from the main subject to address a separate idea or event within the story.) Yann Martel was showcasing Pi’s love for animals and demonstrating his knowledge of zoology. Martel also used this technique in the first fifty pages of the book with the hospital scene. It seems that Pi is in the hospital and is in a very serious condition. Martel does not disclose why and what happened to Pi to result in him being hospitalized. Once I am pulled in by the hospital scene; Martel skips to another element of the story, Pi’s childhood.
The description of Pi’s childhood makes this novel more interesting to me. I love the why the author, slowly gives you clues about the main character of the story, Piscine. In most novels, readers find out the main character’s name by the first page. In “Life of Pi”, the reader finally gets the main character’s name at the end of the chapter three. It is also very interesting the way Martel tells the underlying story behind Piscine Molitor Patel’s name. The main character Piscine describes how he receives his name, his school experience, and life at the zoo. Piscine suffers teasing over his name from his fellow classmates. The children associate the way his name sounds to the word “pissing”. So Piscine has a brilliant idea to change his name to Pi. Pi also goes into to great description about the animals in his father’s zoo. This is my favorite part of the book. I love the descriptions of the animals and the techniques that Martel uses to draw the reader in are brilliant. On page thirteen, We learn that Pi’s father use to be a hotelkeeper. Martel connects Pi’s father past occupation with his current occupation as a Zookeeper with an extended metaphor . ( Metaphor is a comparison of two unlike things in which no word of comparison, like or as, is used.) Martel describes the animals as if they are hotel guests. “ The guests never leave their rooms; they expect not only lodging but full board, they receive a constant flow of visitors, some of whom are noisy and unruly.” I found this thought to be quite humorous. During this comparison of hotel keeping and zoo keeping, Martel uses another literary technique, personification. (Personification is a literary device that describes an animal, object, or idea as if it had human characteristics.) This made the animals in the story more relatable to the reader and a comedic element.
After the first fifty pages, I’m very interested in seeing what happens in this novel. Although “Life of Pi” gets off to a slow start, the mysterious elements and quick witted literary techniques pulled me in. I look forward to reading more and sharing the book with each and every one of you.
