Just Finished Reading Life of Pi by Yann Martel

The other day I finished reading Yann Martel's celebrated fictional novel Life of Pi.  Perhaps you've heard of it; if you have, then you also probably know of the famous protracted scene of the protagonist Piscine Molitor Patel (or more familiarly, "Pi") in a life-and-death standoff with a full-grown Bengal tiger on a lifeboat, crossing the Pacific together as castaways from a shipwreck.  So I don't think that's really giving away very much, although this dire circumstance does take up more than half of the book.  Life of Pi deals with more than this adventure as there is a plethora of topics discussed to great length on its pages.  The deeper message I got from Life of Pi was twofold: one, it is important to believe in something...and not sit on the fence in spiritual matters (even a confirmed atheist is better, according to Pi the storyteller, than a doubting, uncertain agnostic).  And two, every living thing has its important place in the world and has value.  Martel's intense probing of religion and biology (especially in the areas of zoology and ecology) was mesmerizing to me.  But he also went into great detail regarding the steps taken by Pi to survive on a lifeboat in the open seas for a very, very long stretch of time.  As well as delving into the psychology of animals.

Life of Pi was first released in 2001, and was made into an award-winning movie in 2012.  There are three different scenes from the book that I am very interested in seeing how the film version treated them.  One is how the zebra, hyena, orangutan, and tiger played out their tortured relationship and the second is the mysterious island...with the peculiar algae.  The third involves an alternative, "no animals" account of Pi's ordeal given near the end...and how the movie chooses to express this.  Yes, this is one book whose film adaptation I anxiously want to see.  But having just said that, I can't help but wonder how much of the philosophical, introspective nature of the book will be lost in a more action-oriented treatment on the big screen.  Anyway, I can always go back to the book should the movie be lacking in that regard.  Should be interesting to compare the two versions...