Life of Pi by Yann Martel opens with an author's note, an integral part of the narrative that provides background on Martel's life and career. This preface is largely made up of fictitious events. 

Martel states that he has traveled to India to recuperate from the nonsuccess of his past novels. There, he speaks with Francis Adirubasamy, who tells him about a man named Pi Patel who has an incredible story to write about. 

When Martel returns to his home in Canada, he contacts Mr. Patel, and they meet in person so the author can hear his story. "The Author" details what it was like to meet with Mr. Patel and hear his wondrous story. This note emphasizes one of the novel's central concepts: the subjectivity of truth. 

Who is "The Author" exactly? Is the note autobiographical, describing Martel himself, based on Martel, or is this part of the novel a series of fictitious events curated by Martel? 

"The Author" character allows for some unreliability in the narration– the storyline can delve into fables and folklore, transforming the novel into a vessel for portraying and emphasizing various notions and events. This small introduction muddles the boundaries that lie between reality and imagination, which is a theme that is carried on throughout the novel.

Pi narrates Part One of the novel in the first person, providing a retrospective point of view as he recounts his life's journey. Francis Adirubasamy (mentioned in the Author's Note), a close colleague of Pi's father and a competitive swimmer, holds a pivotal role in Pi's life. 

Adirubasamy, who carries a unique name, teaches Pi how to swim and bestows his unique name upon him. The name is a homage to the Piscine Molitor, a swimming club in Paris. Pi's classmates ended up teasing his full name, referring to him as "pissing," so while he is in secondary school, he creates the shortened version of his name, which also refers to the number Pi as well. 

Pi tells us that in the 1960s, he grew up in Pondicherry, India, the son of a zoo manager, and he reflects on the profound hardships he was enduring there. His father's work in the Pondicherry Zoo provides Pi and his brother Ravi with perilous realizations about animals. 

There is an unforgettable incident from Pi's childhood when they witnessed a live goat being fed to a tiger, which warned them of the wild and unpredictable nature of animals. Pi's spiritual journey takes unexpected paths despite his upbringing as a Hindu. 

Pi explores Christianity and Islam, choosing to look to all three faiths throughout his lifetime. During the political chaos in India during the 1970s, Pi's parents decide to move their family to Canada. They start their journey on a cargo ship with a crew and many cages holding zoo animals. This is where Pi's life begins to take a different turn. 

In Part Two, Pi and his family's ship starts to sink due to a storm. Pi, gripping a lifeboat, takes a risk as he coaxes a tiger named Richard Parker to accompany him onboard. However, it soon becomes evident that this decision is reckless and possibly dangerous, and Pi realizes his mistake. 

Quickly thinking on his feet, Pi decides to jump into the sea. Pi is tossed into a lifeboat amidst all the chaos and finds himself in an unexpected and solitary situation. His companions within the lifeboat include an orangutan, a zebra, and a hyena. He realizes his family is nowhere to be found. 

As the storm abates, Pi has no choice but to come to terms with his current situation. An unexpected turn of events takes place—the hyena's aggression results in the demise of the zebra and the orangutan. 

Surprisedly, Richard Parker, the tiger, emerges from the bottom of the boat, shocking Pi. He kills the hyena, leaving himself and Pi as the sole occupants of the lifeboat that is lost at sea. Pi's endurance is only fueled by a meager supply of emergency resources. Amidst these dire circumstances, he sustains himself and assumes the role of caretaker for Richard Parker, with whom he forms a bond. 

As time stretches on, the two cautiously share the limited space. When Pi goes blind due to severe dehydration, he encounters another stray man who is blind. They decide to connect their boats to collaborate for survival. The situation takes a turn when the other blind man's intentions shift towards cannibalism, which results in Richard protecting Pi and killing the other man. 

The lifeboat drifts towards a peculiar island with trees that do not need soil to grow. The two castaways find temporary refuge here, and they encounter a vast community of meerkats that utilize the trees for rest and the freshwater ponds for sustenance. 

The island harbors an eerie secret, unveiled when Pi stumbles upon human teeth inside the fruit of a tree. This leads him to a chilling realization: the island sustains itself by consuming human beings. Driven by this unsettling discovery, Pi and Richard Parker return to the open sea and eventually end up in Mexico. Richard Parker disappears into the wilderness, while the villagers who discover him take him to the hospital, marking the end of his tumultuous voyage. 

In Part Three, two representatives from the Japanese Ministry of Transport arrive to speak with Pi, the sole survivor of the Japanese Tsimtsum. Their purpose is to glean insights into the tragic fate of the ship, hoping that Pi could offer valuable information. 

Pi recounts the saga as previously detailed, telling the remarkable story of survival involving the various animals onboard. However, the two representatives do not believe him and tell him there has been no trace of a wild tiger running loose in the area. 

In response to their skepticism, Pi tells a second version of this story. He reshapes the narrative this time, substituting the animals with human counterparts. The cast shifts so that the four beings aboard the ship are an insatiable French cook instead of a hyena, a young Chinese sailor who was the zebra, Pi's mother instead of an orangutan, and Pi himself, with no tiger. 

The officials observe that both story versions align, the second being more plausible. As Pi replaces the animals with humans in his story, he also states that he turned to God for assistance at this time. The readers can conclude that animals were likely a mere fable to help Pi cope with immense trauma, returning to the novel's central theme: fiction versus reality. 

In their official report, the officials commend Pi for his exceptional survival against all odds, particularly for enduring the company of an adult tiger throughout his ordeal. Life of Pi highlights a question often asked: What exactly separates humans from animals?