Book Review: “Life of Pi” by Yann Martel

Everyone confronts grief differently. We all, consciously or unconsciously, create ways to cope and continue living as we deal with loss. Usually this involves some mixture of employing defense mechanisms, taking solace in escape and eliciting help and comfort from those who care. The mind, body and emotions can do some incredible things to protect us from difficult realities and enable us to continue existing under circumstances we may have previously thought were inconceivable. This can manifest in both healthy and unhealthy ways and varies throughout our journey. For almost the entirety of the novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel, we follow a young boy as he deals with loss while trying to care for himself under extreme circumstances. Lost at sea, stranded, alone and grieving the deaths of his mother, father and older brother, the protagonist of Life of Pi has ample amounts of time to reflect on his situation.

With no real ways of escaping his current reality, he retreats into the corners of his mind. His imagination does not disappoint him, but in fact saves his life and his spirit, allowing him a means of finding and holding onto hope. Author Yann Martel speaks through him to address several of the most basic and universal human struggles:

I must say a word about fear. It is life’s only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in the mind, always… 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.

Yann Martel
Photo Credit: themanbookerprize.com

This sentiment relates directly to the dangers of avoiding grief and what can happen if we don’t deal with loss. It’s tempting to push away or drown out negative, difficult feelings and sometimes it’s even necessary — few of us are capable of confronting every pain without some balance of hope and positivity — but if shut away too deeply, our grief only begins to simmer and morph, turning into something that will demand our attention.

Dealing with loss is perhaps one of the most difficult things we as human must face. Through another of Pi’s reflections, Yann Martel speaks to the severity of grief, eloquently expressing what many who lose a family member feel but can’t say:

To lose a brother is to lose someone with whom you can share the experience of growing old, who is supposed to bring you a sister-in-law and nieces and nephews, creatures who people the tree of your life and give it new branches. To lose your father is to lose the one whose guidance and help you seek, who supports you like a tree trunk supports its branches. To lose your mother, well, that is like losing the sun above you. It is like losing–I’m sorry, I would rather not go on.

Related Links:

• Coping with Bereavement
• Healing Process
• Meaning, Faith and the Life of Pi