Life of Pi

I had watched the Life of Pi moving a while ago, and now am reading the book. It is very well written, and the author manages to sew doubts about what is real and what is fiction. The main character adopts the name Pi to avoid vulgar puns on his real French name. He lives in India where is family owns a zoo. He is extremely interested in religion and is a devout Christian, Muslim and Hindu (all this while living in a secular house.) There are a lot of interesting insights about captive animals and zoos. He compares people's city houses to the animal's zoo houses. If you took some people out of their house and drove them to the country and said they were free, they would think your crazy. Similarly, many animals are perfectly content living in the zoo.
His family decides to immigrate to Canada. They board a boat with all the animals. It is a rather normal voyage until the ship sinks. Then Pi ends up losing his family and finding himself on a lifeboat with a heyena, zebra, orangutan, and a tiger named Richard Parker. Most of the book deals with his struggles out at sea. He must will himself to survive, while at the same time making peace with the carnivorous tiger.
At the end, he is finally rescued and tells his tale to accident investigators. They do not believe him. He then tells an alternate story with a murderous french chef, his mother and an injured sailor in the boat. We are left to wonder whether he just made up the animal parts to make a better story. Though it doesn't really matter. The story was that of overcoming great adversary through faith in God.