Life of Pi (continued)

I should finish the novel tonight. I still love it, but last night I read a portion that dealt with Pi and Richard Parker (the Bengal tiger) both going temporarily blind. I need to read it again, but Pi begins having a conversation with RP (actual "I talk", "you talk" kinda conversation), then with another man/boy in another lifeboat who claims to have gone blind too. When the man/boy attempts to get on Pi's boat to hug him, RP tears him to shreds.

I thought it was a hallucination/dream/nightmare/crazy spell, something, but Pi gains his eyesight back and sees the remains of the man/boy at the bottom of his lifeboat. It may be explained by book's end, but I couldn't help but think of a Disney animated movie when reading that section. You know...cartoon is moving right along, all is normal, bright, and ever so happy, then, there's got to be a segment that warps into another dimension...pictures become distorted, minor chords are thrust into the score, and the whole effect is trippy, really. "Dumbo", "Beauty and the Beast", "The Little Mermaid", "The Lion King", and let's not forget "Alice"...I can't think of one without it.

Not that Pi's world up until the aforementioned strangeness is bright and happy, quite the opposite, but I imagined normalcy in the way of colors, sounds, and the general described day to day survival methods of Pi and RP. The hallucination/nightmare/what have you just jumped out at me and didn't mesh; I'm sure the author had every intention of accomplishing just that, but I'd sure like to be given a better explanation. I mean, the chances of Pi coming across another blind castaway when he was about to give up on life only to have fellow castaway turn into catnip? Uh-uh. Not buyin' it.

I'll read the rest, re-read the former, ponder some more, and take any suggestions or insights from any out there who've read it.

Also...an algae island full of meerkats? I guess one can only flip through so many pages of dorados, hammerheads, and turtles.