Life of pi

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• Afrikaans • العربية • Azərbaycanca • تۆرکجه • বাংলা • Български • Čeština • Dansk • Deutsch • Español • Esperanto • Euskara • فارسی • Français • 한국어 • Հայերեն • हिन्दी • Bahasa Indonesia • Íslenska • Italiano • עברית • ಕನ್ನಡ • ქართული • Кыргызча • Latina • Lietuvių • Magyar • മലയാളം • मराठी • مصرى • မြန်မာဘာသာ • Nederlands • 日本語 • Norsk bokmål • Polski • Português • Română • Русский • Slovenčina • Srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски • Suomi • Svenska • Türkçe • Українська • Tiếng Việt • 中文 Martel in 2007 Born ( 1963-06-25) 25 June 1963 (age59) Occupation Novelist Almamater Period 1988–present Notable works Partner Children 4 Relatives Signature Yann Martel, New York Times and The Globe and Mail, among many other best-selling lists. Life of Pi was Martel is also the author of the novels 101 Letters to a Prime Minister. Martel lives in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, with writer Early life [ ] Martel was born in Martel worked at odd jobs as an adult, including as a parking lot attendant in Ottawa, a dishwasher in a tree-planting camp in northern Ontario, and a security guard at the Canadian embassy in Paris. He also travelled through Mexico, South America, Iran, Turkey, and India. Martel moved to Career [ ] Martel's work first appeared in print in 1988 in Mister Ali and the Barrelmaker. The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios, for which he won the 1991 The Time I Heard the Private Donald J. Rankin String Concerto with One Discordant Violin, by the American Composer John Morton, for...

This chapter shifts around a bit in time as Pi attempts to recover from his ordeal on the ocean, but it primarily focuses on his education after he arrives in North America. He finished high school, then attended the University of Toronto, where he studied both zoology and religious studies. His zoology thesis focused on the three-toed sloth. Analysis Pi’s double major reflects his longstanding interest in the meaning of life. However, this interest is given particular emphasis by the memories of his ocean ordeal, which continually drift through his mind in this chapter. He is continually marked by what he suffered. Quotes Sometimes I got my majors mixed up. A number of my fellow religious-studies students—muddled agnostics who didn’t know which way was up, who were in the thrall of reason, that fool’s gold for the bright—reminded me of the three-toed sloth; and the three-toed sloth, such a beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of God. Pi’s thought here shows the importance of his religious beliefs and how fully the different realms of reality interweave. Chapter 2 Summary Just a few lines long, this chapter introduces Pi as an adult, telling his story to the author. Analysis All chapters in italics will be from the author’s point of view. Quotes No small talk. This line seems to be a minor observation, but it will gain importance as Pi’s story is revealed; all trivia has been burned out of him by his suffering. Chapter 3 Summary Pi tells the story of his r...

SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at In an Author’s Note, an anonymous author figure explains that he traveled from his home in Canada to India because he was feeling restless. There, while sipping coffee in a café in the town of Pondicherry, he met an elderly man named Francis Adirubasamy who offered to tell him a story fantastic enough to give him faith in God. This story is that of Part One is narrated in the first person by Pi. Pi narrates from an advanced age, looking back at his earlier life as a high school and college student in Toronto, then even further back to his boyhood in Pondicherry. He explains that he has suffered intensely and found solace in religion and zoology. He describes how Francis Adirubasamy, a close business associate of his father’s and a competitive swimming champion, taught him to swim and bestowed upon him his unusual name. Pi is named after the Piscine Molitor, a Parisian swimming club with two pools that Adirubasamy used to frequent. We learn that Pi’s father once ran the Pondicherry Zoo, teaching Pi and his brother, Ravi, about the dangerous nature of animals by feeding a live goat to a tiger before their young eyes. Pi, brough...

Based on one of the best-loved works of fiction – winner of the Man Booker Prize, selling over fifteen million copies worldwide – Life of Pi is a breath-taking new theatrical adaptation of an epic journey of endurance and hope. After a cargo ship sinks in the middle of the vast Pacific Ocean, a sixteen-year-old boy name Pi is stranded on a lifeboat with four other survivors – a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger. Time is against them, nature is harsh, who will survive? Training: RADA. Theatre: Botticelli in the Fire(Hampstead Theatre); Life of Pi(Sheffield Crucible Theatre); The Prisoner(Théâtre Des Bouffes Du Nord); Cymbeline, Hamlet; The Taming Of The Shrew(RSC); Peter Pan(Regent’s Park Open Air Theatre); Behind the Beautiful Foreversand War Horse Prom(National Theatre); Rats Tales(Manchester Royal Exchange) and Tartuffe(English Touring Theatre). TV: Good Karma HospitalSeries 4; Holby City; Find Me In Paris; A Midsummer Night’s Dream.Radio: Tumanbay; Broken Paradise; The Last Time I Saw Richard. (he/him/his) A.R.T.: Debut. Broadway: Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts 1 & 2(original company, Hagrid). Regional: Mark Taper Forum, Geffen Playhouse, Berkshire Theatre Group, Milwaukee Rep, Laguna Playhouse, San Diego Rep. TV: Super Pumped, Brooklyn Nine-Nine, The Shield, Drake and Josh, Victorious, As The World Turns (recurring). Film: The Cut Up(by Yussef El Guindi), The Housewife, Defensive Justice. VR180: The Fortune Teller(Director, multi...

L ife of Pi had a first life as a Booker prize-winning novel by Yann Martel and a second as an Oscar-winning film by Ang Lee. Both were utterly captivating. Now comes playwright Lolita Chakrabarti’s stage spectacular ( The magic here lies firmly in aesthetics, from the teeming menagerie of large-scale puppets, exquisitely designed by Nick Barnes and Finn Caldwell, to visual effects that surge, dazzle and undulate like ocean waves (stage design by Tim Hatley with video design by Andrzej Goulding and lighting by Tim Lutkin). The script and characterisation are flat-footed by comparison: “I’ve had a terrible trip,” says Pi from his hospital bed at the start (the framing device here is different from the book and film). It is meant to be wry but, like much of the dialogue, lands with a thud. Martel’s original, unreliable narration left enough space for us to decide if Pi’s story was one of hope, faith and tiger-taming or of survivor’s guilt, trauma and delusion. His subtle explorations of truth and the necessary comforts of make-believe are shoe-horned in as soundbites about God, the beauty of the world and storytelling. Animal magic … a Life of Pi puppet designed by Caldwell and Nick Barnes. Photograph: Johan Persson The visual effects seem to compete with, and ultimately drown out, the quieter, more philosophical elements of the drama, not leaving enough room for Pi’s existential rumination, which is key to his tale. As Pi, The characters on the whole are vividly drawn but i...

Piscine Molitor Patel (Pi) The protagonist of the story. Piscine is the narrator for most of the novel, and his account of his seven months at sea forms the bulk of the story. He gets his unusual name from the French word for pool—and, more specifically, from a pool in Paris in which a close family friend, Francis Adirubasamy, loved to swim. A student of zoology and religion, Pi is deeply intrigued by the habits and characteristics of animals and people. Richard Parker The Royal Bengal tiger with whom Pi shares his lifeboat. His captor, Richard Parker, named him Thirsty, but a shipping clerk made a mistake and reversed their names. From then on, at the Pondicherry Zoo, he was known as Richard Parker. Weighing 450 pounds and about nine feet long, he kills the hyena on the lifeboat and the blind cannibal. With Pi, however, Richard Parker acts as an omega, or submissive, animal, respecting Pi’s dominance. The Author The narrator of the (fictitious) Author’s Note, who inserts himself into the narrative at several points throughout the text. Though the author who pens the Author’s Note never identifies himself by name, there are many clues that indicate it is Yann Martel himself, thinly disguised: he lives in Canada, has published two books, and was inspired to write Pi’s life story during a trip to India. Francis Adirubasamy The elderly man who tells the author Pi’s story during a chance meeting in a Pondicherry coffee shop. He taught Pi to swim as a child and bestowed upon hi...

Summary The author sits in a café after a meeting with One day, Pi tells us, he and his parents were out enjoying the weather at a seaside esplanade when the priest, imam, and pandit with whom Pi had been practicing his various religions approached them. Each was shocked to discover that Pi was not just a Hindu, Christian, or Muslim, but rather all three simultaneously. Pi’s parents were also surprised to learn Pi’s secret. The religious figures protested that such a thing was not possible and demanded that Pi choose a single religion. Pi responded that he just wanted to love God. Pi says his brother, Ravi, teased him mercilessly for some time afterward. Pi speculates that people who act out in violence or anger in the name of god misunderstand the true nature of religion. Pi describes asking his father and mother for a prayer mat, a request that flustered both of them. His mother attempted to distract him with books: Robinson Crusoe and a volume by Robert Louis Stevenson. Finally, however, they gave in, and Pi came to treasure his rug. He used to pray in his yard, with his parents and brother watching him like an exotic creature. Not long after he got his rug, he continues, he was baptized in the presence of his parents. Pi explains that the 1970s were a difficult time in India, though he admits that political troubles did not really affect him. His father, though, became incensed over the government’s actions and decided to move his family to Canada—a place completely fo...