Antoine de Saint Exupery's story The Little Prince begins with the author recounting a period from his childhood when he discovered just how limited an adult's imagination can be. Perhaps he tells us this to explain why he chose to become an aircraft pilot and live among the night sky where anything and everything can be real. When he meets the Little Prince of the title his plane has broken down and he is stranded in the deserts of North Africa.
I'm sure most of us would have been slightly more nonplussed than our author to be greeted by a young boy asking us to draw him a sheep. But Exupery takes it in his stride and learns the story of his new companion. The Little Prince is a beautiful story about a voyage of self-discovery and the nature of love written as a children's tale. Each time I've re-read it I've often wondered about the fact that the hero is a child and how it is told in the language of a story for young readers, yet the content is so incredibly adult.
"What is essential is invisible to the eye" couldn't be more true when considered in the light of an adult parable hiding inside the story of a child as in the case of The Little Prince. Perhaps it is the same element in Yann Martel's Life Of Pi that was responsible for me being continually reminded of Exupery's work as I was reading it, as it too features a young man whose adventures result in some very adult philosophizing. On the surface the stories seem to have little in common, but at the heart of each is the wide eyed wonder of a child experiencing the world for the first time in all it's glory.
We first meet Pi (his parents had named him Piscine Molitor in honour of a friend's favourite swimming pool in Paris, and Pi wisely took it upon himself to change his name as soon as possible - there are far too many temptations in a name like Piscine for other children not to take advantage of it) through the eyes of the writer who is preparing to recount his tale. It is in present day Toronto, Canada, that the story starts, but it doesn't take us long to go back in time and across the Pacific Ocean to the Indian province of Pondincherry.
Pi is the youngest of two sons in a family that has the unique distinction of owning a zoo. While his classmates might receive a cheerful farewell from their mothers as they head off to school, Pi's morning benediction includes the growls of lions and tigers, the trumpet of an elephant, and a wide variety of grunts and squeaks from the animal kingdom. It is easy to see how his awe and delight in the wonders of the world was born growing up in this type of environment. That he also chooses to celebrate his wonder of the world by embracing each of the major religions India, is somewhat odd, but is completely in keeping with his character.
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