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Life of Pi by Yann Martel Vintage Books $14.00

I had heard about the The Life of PI and had conjured up like in an early morning dream a story about an embodiement of the prime numbers circling into radix of multiple personalities - hunnhh ... after all it is an edge of awakening creation. But Yann Martel has conjured up better - much better. A family and its zoo migrating from India to the United States by freighter boat across the Indian and Pacific oceans with Richard Parker as one of the premier passengers.

But before we partake of this Indian exodus we must meet Pi Patel - small boy humanist, as pure as a prime. So even of spirit is Pi, to the utter horror of the the local Imam and the parish priest and the Hindu brahmin, Pi has adopted all three world faiths - Islam, Catholicism, and Hinduism and has become a model worshipper in each. Although Pi's intelligence and wisdom are notable but not soaring; however his sense of equilibrium if not sheer good will are winning traits suggesting more ... a life beyond the ordinary.

But in laconic fashion paterfamilias Patel decides that America needs the family Zoo more than India and embarks on delivering just that while migrating family as well to the distant North American shores. And so we leave Madras on a freighter, the TsimTsum out of Japan by way of Panamanian registry. And after a fretful start in the Indian ocean the TsimTsum crosses onto the Pacific and right into a horrific storm that produces the following prose:

"The ship sank. It made a sound like a monstrous, metallic burp. Things bubbled to the surface and then vanished. Everything was scresming: the sea, the wind, my heart. From the lifeboat, I saw something in the water.

I cried, 'Richard Parker is that you ? Its so hard to see. Oh that this rain would stop!Richard Parker ? Richard Parker ? Yes it is you. ' I could see his head. He was struggling to stay at the surface of the water.

'Jesus Mary, Muhammed, Vishnu, how good to see you Richard Parker. Don't give up, please. Come to the lifeboat . Do you hear this whistle ? TRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, TRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE, TRRREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. You heard right. Swim, swim! Your a strong swimmer. It's not a hundred feet.'

'Richard Parker, can you believe what has happened to us ? Tell me its a bad dream. Tell me its not real. Tell me I'm still in my bunk on the TsimTsum and I'm tossing and turning and I will soon wake up from this nightmare'"

And thus we are fully launched into the allegory of Pi Patel surviving alongside Richard Parker, a 450 pound Bengal tiger - and as we are soon to see a very lethal Bengal tiger. It is a reality storm wreck in the middle of the Pacific. For countless days of high imagination, stark savagery and surprisingly compelling twists of superrealism, Pi manages to cope with 450 pounds of feral fury. It is page turning and enthralling, fantastic and funny - this is a story telling yarn twisting at the edges of believability with such convincing skill that one is mesmerized and enchanted, horrified and engrosed all in one half day or less of can't-put-the-book-down reading. having said that also consider controlling the urge to compulsive page turning and take the time that delights in a careful reading. There are rich rewards here in.

(c)JBSurveyer 2005