The following was discovered in the journal of Sir Heinriech Blossom Bugfellow, Gentleman:

During my travels, I came across a curious figure of Mr. Snipe, a derelict of the town who, for a small sum, would relate his tales from across all corners of the world. On this occasion, he spoke of his journey to the Gallery of the Wizened Master, a painter of rich and moving tapestries. As Mr. Snipe recalled, the Master was well known throughout the world, and his latest exhibition featured works done with a new kind of paint, one which made the images leap from the canvas and poke at your eyes.

The works were representations of a famous folk tale featuring all mixes of animals, people, landscapes, and the like. Mingling with each other, they produced images of great wonder, such as a still ocean reflecting the sky above or endless pools of glowing bioluminscence or a vast and enveloping view of a sunken ship. Certainly they stole many a breath, for one viewer was scared to cough for fear that the painting would disperse. Mr. Snipe, he assured me, found them delightful as well, but noticed, when he walked behind these pictures, that each one disappeared when viewed from a different angle.

It’ll be interesting to see how audiences who haven’t read Life of Pi, Yann Martel’s 2001 novel respond to director Ang Lee’s vision of the colorful tale. Piscine Molitor “Pi” Patel is a twice-strangely-monikered, religiously insatiable 16-year-old Indian boy immigrating by freighter from Pondicherry to Canada with his parents, brother and the animal inhabitants of their family zoo who finds himself the sole human survivor of a shipwreck at sea.

The book is a rare hybrid: gripping survival thriller crossed with metaphysics and theology. That hybrid paid off in spades: it was both a runaway best-selling and massive award winner, starting with the Man Booker Prize in the UK. The story is bold and fantastical, yet as I remember it also dwelled for long, engaging stretches on the tedium and loneliness of sole survival at sea, with the world narrowed to Pi’s all-consuming counting of the cans of potable water and the packets of sea biscuits.