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Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettableLife of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."
An award winner in Canada (and winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize),Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelikeLife of Pi is such a book.--Brad Thomas Parsons
By: BookishAngel1 Pi-thetic! Full of psuedo-psychological drivel, religious allusion and other nonsense. Just say NO!
Round up Pi (that's my suggestion) "Life of Pi" was a rewarding read on several levels. The basic plotlines are that a young boy in India who calls himself Pi (in order to save himself schoolyard ridicule stemming from his real name) grows up as an inquisitive and intelligent son of a zookeeper. The first part of the book describes his and his family's life in India, and alot of information about the animal kingdom is dispensed, as well. To be honest, I remember being a little bored with the beginning of the book, but it serves a purpose to set up the rest of the story, which is phenomenal.
The family decides to move to Canada, and on the way their ship goes down, leaving Pi and assorted zoo animals as the only survivors. The bulk of the story is about Pi's adventures in a lifeboat with a tiger named Richard Parker.
I would like to highlight three areas in which this book excelled and won me over:
*Adventure: The story of Pi and the tiger reads like something from Hemingway or London (which is good, to me.) The sea becomes a character in the story, and Pi utilizes his savvy and intellect to overcome several obstacles, not the least of which is cohabiting a 36' boat with a carnivorous beast. I was on the edge of my seat throughout.
*Humorous narrative: I laughed out loud several times at the humorous way Pi interacted with tiger, and even at his thoughts to himself. Martel has a gift for subtlety that he wields deftly to great effect.
*Thought provocation: On so many levels, I found the gears in my head working overtime. Martel touches on religious and philosophical issues that form a central theme throughout the book. And the ending galvanizes one of the issues at the base of this central theme -- the struggle between faith and logic.
I will not give too much away about the ending, but it is in the same vein as "The Sixth Sense" or "The Usual Suspects" in the movie world, in that I want to re-read the book to pick up any clues to the surprise at the end.
I am giving the story my highest ranking, despite my boredom at the beginning, because the book was highly entertaining, was very thought provoking, and it provided a good hour of discussion between my wife and me.
Haunting... Hundreds of reviews have already been written about Yann Martel's, the Life of Pi. I also feel that this is a story where the review should not spoil the plot for those people who have yet to read it. So I will keep this short. But I will say that the reader will fall in love with Pi Patel-the 16 year old son of a zookeeper, whose family is attempting to move from India to Canada. You will love Pi's intelligence, his innocence, his quick thinking, and especially his faith. You will also marvel at the relationship Pi achieves with an unlikely character, and how they help each other to survive an amazing ordeal. You will also be amazed at what Pi has to do to survive. The Life of Pi is definitely a book that ends with more questions than answers, and it will haunt you long after you've finished reading. My only criticism is that I feel the religious theme could have been played throughout the book a little more than it did. But despite this, The Life of Pi is a great effort by the author, and I found that I couldn't turn the pages fast enough to find out the ending.A deeper look Life of Pi was a wonderful book, with notes of philosophy and theological thought tied into a well crafted story. While it may start with a slightly slower pace than other books in the genre, it is worth the effort. If you liked this, I would also recommend Golf in the Kingdom.
