Life of Pi sort of with a capital 'S' – something that would direct my life." He spoke of being lonely and needing direction in his life, and found that writing the novel met this need. The name of Martel's tiger, Richard Parker, was inspired by a character in Edgar Allan Poe's nautical adventure novel "The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym of Nantucket" (1838). In this book, Richard Parker is a mutineer who is stranded and eventually cannibalized on the hull of an overturned ship (and there is a dog aboard who is named Tiger). The author also had in mind another occurrence
Life of Pi (film) The film became the biggest Hollywood hit of the year in India and is now the tenth highest grossing Hollywood release of all time in the country.</ref> "Life of Pi" has earned HK$45,058,653 (US$5.8 million) at the Hong Kong box office, making it the highest grossing Ang Lee film in Hong Kong. "Life of Pi" received positive reviews, with praise directed towards the visual effects, Lee's direction, Magee's screenplay, Danna's musical score, and Squyres' editing. It has an 87% approval rating on the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes based on 238 reviews with an average rating of 7.9/10. The website's