Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

Quickly you make rash decisions. You dismiss your last allies: hope and trust. There, you’ve defeated yourself. Fear, which is but an impression, has triumphed over you.

For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it. So you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don’t, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.

Prusten is the quietest of tiger calls, a puff through the nose to express friendliness and harmless intentions.

He kept me from thinking too much about my family and my tragic circumstances. He pushed me to go on living. I hated him for it, yet at the same time I was grateful.

It’s the plain truth: without Richard Parker, I wouldn’t be alive today to tell you my story.

My panic was gone. My fear was dominated. Survival was at hand.

In my experience, a castaway’s worst mistake is to hope too much and do too little. Survival starts by paying attention to what is close at hand and immediate. To look out with idle hope is tantamount to dreaming one’s life away.

If you want to see wildlife, it is on foot, and quietly, that you must explore a forest. It is the same with the sea. You must stroll through the Pacific at a walking pace, so to speak, to see the wealth and abundance that it holds.

Still, a part of my mind—the one that says what we don’t want to hear—rebuked me. “Stupidity has a price. You should show more care and wisdom next time.”

All sentient life is sacred. I never forget to include this fish in my prayers.

It is simple and brutal: a person can get used to anything, even to killing.

The sea moved in a lethargic way, as if already exhausted by the oncoming heat.

I wonder if those who hear this story will understand that my behaviour was not an act of insanity or a covert suicide attempt, but a simple necessity. Either I tamed him, made him see who was Number One and who was Number Two—or I died the day I wanted to climb aboard the lifeboat during rough weather and he objected.

I made clear to Richard Parker that it was my right, my lordly right, to fondle and sniff his feces if I wanted to. So you see, it was not good zookeeping I was up to, but psychological bullying.

It seems impossible to imagine that there was a time when I looked upon a live sea turtle as a ten-course meal of great delicacy, a blessed respite from fish.

To be a castaway is to be caught in a harrowing ballet of circles.

The sun distresses you like a crowd, a noisy, invasive crowd that makes you cup your ears, that makes you close your eyes, that makes you want to hide. The moon distresses you by silently reminding you of your solitude; you open your eyes wide to escape your loneliness. When you look up, you sometimes wonder if at the centre of a solar storm, if in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity, there isn’t another one like you also looking up, also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy.

Otherwise, to be a castaway is to be caught up in grim and ex...

Only death consistently excites your emotions, whether contemplating it when life is safe and stale, or fleeing it when life is threatened and precious.

Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher. Physically it is extraordinarily arduous, and morally it is killing.

You reach a point where you’re at the bottom of hell, yet you have your arms crossed and a smile on your face, and you feel you’re the luckiest person on earth. Why? Because at your feet you have a tiny dead fish.

curmudgeonly

It came as an unmistakable indication to me of how low I had sunk the day I noticed, with a pinching of the heart, that I ate like an animal, that this noisy, frantic, unchewing wolfing-down of mine was exactly the way Richard Parker ate.

The loss of the raft was perhaps not fatal to my body, but it felt fatal to my spirits.

A tiger shark—very dangerous. Circled us. Feared it would attack. Have survived one tiger; thought I would die at the hands of another.

A sound without shape or colour sounds strange. To be blind is to hear otherwise.

I concluded that I had gone mad. Sad but true. Misery loves company, and madness calls it forth.

Hmmm. Figment. Fig-ment. Wouldn’t a fig be good?

“Instead of coconut yam kootu, why not boiled beef tongue with a mustard sauce?” “That sounds non-veg.” “It is. And then tripe.”

“What will be the next affront?” “Calf’s brains in a brown butter sauce!” “Back to the head, are we?” “Brain soufflé!”

“That is need expressed in all its amoral simplicity. But any regrets now?” “It was the doing of a moment. It was circumstance.”

“Of what use is a story? I’m hungry.” “It’s a story about food.” “Words have no calories.”

I will further confess that, driven by the extremity of my need and the madness to which it pushed me, I ate some of his flesh.

Well, this was green. In fact, it was chlorophyll heaven. A green to outshine food colouring and flashing neon lights. A green to get drunk on.

I have read that there are two fears that cannot be trained out of us: the startle reaction upon hearing an unexpected noise, and vertigo. I would like to add a third, to wit, the rapid and direct approach of a known killer.

I managed to do with Richard Parker. My good fortune, the fortune that saved my life, was that he was not only a young adult but a pliable young adult, an omega animal.

I was certain about that. How wrong I was. If that fruit had a seed, it was the seed of my departure.

How much time had he—or was it she?—spent here? Weeks? Months? Years? How many forlorn hours in the arboreal city with only meerkats for company? How many dreams of a happy life dashed? How much hope come to nothing? How much stored-up conversation that died unsaid? How much loneliness endured? How much hopelessness taken on? And after all that, what of it? What to show for it?

The lower you are, the higher your mind will want to soar.

Then Richard Parker, companion of my torment, awful, fierce thing that kept me alive, moved forward and disappeared forever from my life.

I am a person who believes in form, in the harmony of order. Where we can, we must give things a meaningful shape.

It’s important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse.

I wish I had said to him then—yes, I know, to a tiger, but still—I wish I had said, “Richard Parker, it’s over. We have survived. Can you believe it? I owe you more gratitude than I can express.

I wish you all the best with it. Watch out for Man. He is not your friend. But I hope you will remember me as a friend. I will never forget you, that is certain. You will always be with me, in my heart. What is that hiss? Ah, our boat has touched sand. So farewell, Richard Parker, farewell. God be with you.”

He and Mr. Chiba spoke with Piscine Molitor Patel, in English, for close to three hours, taping the conversation. What follows are excerpts from the verbatim transcript. I am grateful to Mr. Okamoto for having made available to me a copy of the tape and of his final report. For the sake of clarity I have indicated who is speaking when it is not immediately apparent. Portions printed in a different font were spoken in Japanese, which I had translated.

“That’s right. We believe what we see.” “So did Columbus. What do you do when you’re in the dark?” “Your island is botanically impossible.” “Said the fly just before landing in the Venus flytrap.”

A line of blood struck me across the face. No whip could have inflicted a more painful lash.

“So what happened, Mr. Patel? We’re puzzled. Everything was normal and then . . . ?” “Then normal sank.”

“Don’t worry, you won’t. He’s hiding somewhere you’ll never find him.”

Pi Patel: “Would you like some cookies for the road?” Mr. Okamoto: “That would be nice.” “Here, have three each.” “Thank you.” Mr. Chiba: “Thank you.” “You’re welcome. Goodbye. God be with you, my brothers.”