This book by Yann Martel is one that is likely to remain in my memory for a long time. It is a very different novel, a half real half imaginary tale of coexistence between an Indian teenager and Bengal tiger, aboard a life boat drifting for nine months in the open of the Pacific. With the use of vividly striking imagery Martel examines a developing relationship between a tiger and a boy that is neither friendship, nor attachment, but a bond on many varying levels. This bond develops slowly, over many months and is shaky at best, but ends very abruptly without justification. Or does it?
With the use of philosophical allegory, the author explores the dualities between human and animal, good and evil, physical and metaphysical, conscious and subconscious, reality and imagination, instinct and will. The most refreshing part of the novel is its ending - it presents a novel choice for the reader in the form of a “second story” - an alternative explanation for the (mis)adventures that befell the characters. The reader is then left with an option of deciding which story to believe, or whether to believe at all.
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