Explanation:
They are the author's memories and impressions with the man he based Life of Pi off of. If you read the introduction(which is all in italics) he talks about how he came to write the book, and one thing the author mentions is the first meeting of real-life Piscine.
The answer would be to reinforce important ideas.
B. run-on
It is thoughts that just keep going without ending the sentence and joined together with the conjunction and.
