In the book, he is rescued and is telling the rescuers the whole animal story. They basically question every aspect of it. How could he possibly survive with a tiger on a lifeboat? What did he do for food? Then during flashbacks, he explains how he survived, how he came to make peace with Richard Parker (the tiger), and all the crazy stuff that happens. Every explanation answers the rescuers' questions, but of course they are so out of this world they do not believe him. I mean, how crazy is a lemur island made entirely of plants floating out in the middle of the ocean? How did the lemurs get there in the first place? Etc. So he gets to the end of his story, where he reaches land, and the tiger wanders off into the jungle, there is a last moment of recognition between the tiger and himself, explained almost like a religious experience,.....and the rescuers' go into the whole "we looked for your tiger, we cannot find him, surely by now someone would have reported a tiger loose in the woods"......Pi is frustrated and sad, frustrated that they won't believe him, and sad that they don't believe him.....because he had this amazing, life-altering experience that can only be explained by divine intervention, and "regular" people just don't get it. Instead of seeing it for the miracle that it was, they try and rationalize it....."I'm sorry, we need to give report to the ship owners, and we cannot submit the story you just gave us, they will think we are crazy"......and you think the book is ending, it's written that way. Except you can obviously tell there is a few chapters left to go. Then literally the next chapter, it starts all over, and this time, he's explaining the story, except substituting the animals with people. I know this spoils the book now, but it is really one of those literal "what the fuck" moments when you don't see it coming. For the sake of brevity, the whole experience is condensed into one chapter, but it makes total sense, and is totally believable.....of course, his rescuers are nodding their heads during the story, lots of "ahhh....that makes sense"....etc.....and then at the end, they thank him for the "truth", and something they can report back to their bosses. The book ends with something like Pi saying "now I have told you two stories, both of which explain everything that has happened to me, which one do you choose to believe?"....in essence, thrusting the reader into the role of one of the rescuers, and forcing you to examine whether you yourself can believe in miracles that can't be proven, or are you the type that needs proof before believing something is real.
