"π"

Yann Martel's way of starting Life of Pi is a bit confusing. I actually had to read some of it over again to completely understand who was talking about what. After doing this though I understood the story so much better. I think in order for the story to really make sense Martel needed to surround it with all these details.
One of the biggest details is that Pi grew up at a zoo. He learned all about the different animals and all the strange things that "work" in the animal world like the goats and the rhinocerus. I think these details needed to be brought out so that the reader would understand that Pi wasn't just some random kid stuck out on a boat in the middle of the ocean with a tiger. Pi understood animals probably better than he understood anything else. He understood that animals can be trained and taught to be a certain way. Obviously with this knowledge he was able to train Richard Parker. Without this background knowledge of Pi's life the reader would not find the story as believable. Pi is also able to be developed as a character quite quickly in the readers mind because of all the background information.
A lot of the humor in the middle section of the book has a base in the beginning section. For example in the first part of the book Pi talks about how was teased as a child for having been named Piscine. Later on he talks about how anybody who had been called "pissing" as a child would never think of drinking urine even if they were in the middle of the ocean and dehydrated.
There definately is a method to Martel's madness. He has a way of capturing the reader in the story because they want to figure out who is who and what is being referenced to in the first part of the book.