Word: tigers
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...prior to the domestication of crops such as wheat and corn, humans consumed a variety of wild grains filled with fiber, which slows digestion. The process of highly refining foods, which allows carbohydrates to be quickly absorbed by the digestive system, wasn't widespread. As Rutgers University anthropologist Lionel Tiger puts it, human metabolism "did not evolve for prime beef, but, one would surmise, neither did it evolve to eat heaping plates of white rice and pasta." Nor heaping plates of doughnuts and chocolate-covered croissants, for that matter...
...mixed race were once portrayed as tragic figures in movies, such as 1934's Imitation of Life, its 1959 remake and 1960's I Passed for White, today's pop-culture scene is bursting with mixed-race heroes, from movie tough guys Vin Diesel and The Rock to golfer Tiger Woods and rising tennis star James Blake to singers like Alicia Keys and Norah Jones. Sacramento is ahead of the curve; 2 of every 10 babies born here are multiracial. When those babies grow up and start marrying--a national survey shows more than 90% of today's teens approve...
...core a record of survival?and quite a record it is. Martel's protagonist, a 16-year-old Indian boy named Pi Patel, not only endures 227 days in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, but does so while sharing a lifeboat with a 200-kilogram tiger, which regards his shipmate as a tasty sea ration. More than mere physical endurance, however, Life of Pi is concerned with the difficult perseverance of the human spirit. The tiger is a threat to Pi's body, but then becomes the key to his spiritual survival in a sea of isolation...
...family decide to emigrate to Canada, zoo animals in tow, but their ship sinks into the Pacific, leaving Pi and the tiger?named Richard Parker due to circumstances that would take too long to describe here?bobbing in a lifeboat. With no escape for either, Pi must tame the tiger if they are both going to survive...
...Bengal tigers in lifeboats and Indian boys who worship Allah, Jesus and Hindu gods could easily become precious, but Martel saves his novel from saccharine whimsy by grounding it in hard reality. He doesn't stint on the bloody details of a tiger's diet, or the immense physical suffering Pi is forced to endure. Martel has done his homework: if a tiger and an Indian boy found themselves floating in the Pacific, this is how each would respond. Most importantly, Martel doesn't make the mistake of anthropomorphizing his tiger. Richard Parker is an animal and a killer...