Life of Pi
Life of Pi was published on 9/11/2001, the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The novel follows a teenage boy named Pi Patel who finds himself stranded on a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean. On the surface, the book seems like a simple adventure story, but Life of Pi grapples with themes of faith, survival, and the nature of truth.
Life of Pi also explores the tension between civilization and our more primal instincts. My takeaway was that Yann Martel suggests that humans rely on stories to make sense of a chaotic world. Martel raises the question: does objective truth matter as much as the hope and meaning we derive from our beliefs?