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Jan 18, 2011

Eva rated it:

It is not so much that The Life of Pi, is particularly moving (although it is). It isn’t even so much that it is written with language that is both delicate and sturdy all at once (which it is, as well). And it’s certainly not that Yann Martel’s vision filled passages are so precise that you begin to feel the salt water on your skin (even though they are). It is that, like Bohjalian and Byatt and all of the great Houdini’s of the literary world, in the last few moments of your journey – aft More...

33 comments like (324 people liked it)

Jan 31, 2011

Annalisa rated it:

I read this book two years ago, but when we discussed it this month for book club, I remembered how much I liked it. A good discussion always ups my appreciation of a novel as does an ending that makes me requestion my givens in the story. I find myself reading contradictory interpretations and agreeing with both sides. That's the beauty of symbolism: as long as you back up your cause, it's plausible.

Initially it took me several weeks to get into the book. The beginning reads more lik More...

4 comments like (60 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Malbadeen rated it:

Sift a pinch of psychology with a scant tablespoon of theology, add one part Island of the Blue Dolphin with two parts philosophy, mix with a pastry blender or the back of a fork until crumbly but not dry and there you have Pi and his lame-o, cheesed out, boat ride to enlightenment.
Actually I liked the beginning of this book- loved Pi's decleration and re-naming of himself, his adding religions like daisy's to a chain, and was really diggin on the family as a whole and then....then, the More...

17 comments like (96 people liked it)

Mar 05, 2008

Trevor rated it:

I found a lot of this book incredibly tedious. I tend to avoid the winners of the Man / Booker – they make me a little depressed. The only Carey I haven’t liked won the Booker (Oscar and Lucinda), I really didn’t like the little bit of Vernon God Little I read and I never finished The Sea despite really liking Banville’s writing. So, being told a book is a winner of the Booker tends to be a mark against it from the start, unfortunately.

I’m going to have to assume you have read thi More...

100 comments like (116 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2008

Tiffany rated it:

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16 comments like (56 people liked it)

Jun 06, 2008

Adrian rated it:

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9 comments like (52 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Teresa rated it:

On the surface, it's the story of a 16 year old Indian boy named "Pi" who, when he and his zookeeping family decide to transplant themselves and some animals to Canada, ends up stranded on a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a 450-lb Bengal tiger named "Richard Parker."
Don't let the Rudyard Kipling-ness of the plot fool you! In reality, this book is an examination of faith in all its forms. Young Pi loves God, and to prove it he becomes Christian and Mus More...

2 comments like (32 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2008

Mary rated it:

It's not that it was bad, it's just that I wish the tiger had eaten him so the story wouldn't exist.

I read half of it, and felt really impatient the whole time, skipping whole pages, and then I realized that I didn't have to keep going, which is as spiritual a moment as I could hope to get from this book.

16 comments like (82 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Jenny rated it:

Once, while riding the bus, I told a friend I hated this book. A guy I'd never met turned around to tell me that he was shocked and this was a beautiful book. I can sum up my hatred of this book by saying this: At the end of the book a character asks "Do you prefer the story with animals or without?" I can say with conviction I prefer the story without the animals--the stupid, boring, symbolic animals.

6 comments like (50 people liked it)

Jul 14, 2008

Jesse rated it:

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2 comments like (21 people liked it)

Jan 14, 2009

Bunga Mawar rated it:

Batang Bambu dan Tandan Pisang Majene
Republika, 14 Januari 2009

Hujan deras dan angin kencang tak membuat Kapal Motor (KM) Teratai Prima goyah. Kapal berpenumpang 250 orang yang bertolak dari Pelabuhan Parepare, Sulawesi Selatan, menuju Samarinda, Kalimantan Timur, itu tetap melaju.
...
Suasana laut yang memang tak bersahabat, makin membuat mereka tak kuasa menahan kantuk. Ahad dinihari (11/1),... bukan mimpi indah yang membangunkannya, tapi hantaman keras gelombang an More...

7 comments like (19 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

John rated it:

A friend in Canada sent a hardback version of this book to me in 2001. I started reading it, after about 25 pages, I skipped ahead a few pages, a chapter, a bit here and there then put it down. I thought it was going to move slowly and seemed...a little too heavy post 9/11. In fall of 2003 I was leaving for a long trip through Mexico when I decided to pick up a few books to take with me. I saw the paperback and felt like the book was familiar and bought it and a couple others. I started to More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Sep 30, 2007

Peter added it

Life of Pi is a wonder.

It is the story of a boy of sixteen who is stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal Tiger. It is a tale of survival and man’s interaction with himself and the wild. It is a lesson in zoology and spirituality. And it is just plain great.

Part fable, part allegory, part memoir, part encyclopedia, and part philosophical text—Life of Pi is all of these things. But most of all, it is a story. And it reads like old-fashioned storytelling—the kind in which More...

2 comments like (15 people liked it)

Sep 20, 2007

CK rated it:

I love books about animals. This has a lot to do with my great-aunt Alice. Aunt Alice used to be an elementary schoolteacher and librarian, and she often whispered to us that Dad was her favorite nephew. Every Christmas that I can remember, growing up, we’d be sent home with a box full of old or damaged books that the school library didn’t want anymore, all about animals: Black Beauty, King of the Wind, The Incredible Journey, Charlotte’s Web, Lad of Sunnybank, Old Yeller, Where the Red Fern Grows More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 24, 2007

Stefan rated it:

Annoying boy suffers mild discomfort in the boat of plenty. Story starts off well enough, with cute religious confusions in a zoo. The whole thing sinks along with the ship, as it becomes fairly dreadful. Gah, just shoot the flare gun in the stupid tiger's face already, for heavens sake! The usual lost as sea drama ensues, as the boy tries to stay alive, with makeshift innovation and luck. The book is in stasis for the longest time and at the end tries to be all clever clever, but it doesn't wor More...

3 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 19, 2011

Joyzi rated it:

Taken from Chapter 22 of Life of Pi

"I can well imagine an atheist's last words: "White, white! L-L-Love! My God!" - and the deathbed leap of faith. Whereas the agnostic, if he stays true to his reasonable self, if he stays beholden to dry, yeastless factuality, might try to explain the warm light bathing him by saying, "Possibly a f-f-failing oxygenation of the b-b-brain," and, to the very end, lack imagination and miss the better story."

This More...

4 comments like (7 people liked it)

Apr 08, 2011

Mashael rated it:

هي رواية للأديب الكندي "يان مارتل", وحصدت جائزة "Man Booker" الأدبية في عام 2002؛ وهي جائزة ذات مستوى عالي تُقدَّم سنوياً لأفضل رواية كتبت باللغة الإنجليزية لأديب من دول الكومنولث أو من الجمهورية الأيرلندية, ترجمة لأربعين لغة وإلى العربية عام 2006

مقدمة الكتاب تخبرنا عن سر النهاية لو كنت أعلم لقرأته بعد الإنتهاء من قرآءت الرواية , لكن وبالرغم من معرفتنا لأحداث النهاية إلا ان الرواية لذيذة بشكل خرافي أحببتها حد أنني لم أستطيع الكتابه عنها بالرغم من مرور أكثر More...

12 comments like (7 people liked it)

Sep 07, 2010

Julia rated it:

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0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2007

Brady rated it:

Brady Burke
Mrs. Ebarvia
Honors World Lit. – Pd. 5
11/28/37
Book Review

The novel Life of Pi by Yann Martel is an intriguing and very interesting book about the journey of a teenage boy, Pi Patel, who is trying to find himself. Pi is a studious boy who practices not just Hinduism, but also Islam and Christianity. A zookeepers son, Pi finds himself being uprooted from everything he has known to move to North America, but when the boat sinks, Pi finds himself lost a More...

0 comments like (9 people liked it)

Jul 26, 2007

Sarah rated it:

I don't think Life of Pi deserves the low 2 star rating I gave it. But how could I help myself, after Martel got my hopes so high in the beginning, only to dash them against metaphorical rocks in a metaphorical sea? I don't think Pi went through such pain as I did when I realized to my dismay that the middle and the end of the book didn't come close to the engaging, complex beginning. I loved the incorporation of the religious theme into Pi's life at the beginning. The time in the zoo set the st More...

0 comments like (18 people liked it)

May 17, 2011

Nikki rated it:

Ultimately, this book wasn't really for me. I couldn't get into it, and the details -- for the most part -- don't stick in my head. I read it in little bitesize bits, which probably didn't help. Anyway, the part I did really like was close to the end, with the interrogations...

Overall, I don't even really have much to say about the book. Just... totally ambivalent.

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Mar 16, 2010

Jimmy rated it:

Tahun lalu, aku mengikuti kegiatan pemuda bertajuk “Push Your Personal Limit”. Aku bersama sejumlah peserta lain tinggal selama tiga hari dalam tenda di daerah Situgunung, Sukabumi. “Camping”!!! Ahhh, kegiatan seru dan menyenangkan. Tidur di tenda, tanpa selimut, makan-minum terbatas, tidak ada perlengkapan elektronik, apalagi “hand phone”. Hidup di alam terbuka, tidak perlu mandi kalau malas, dan aku harus belajar untuk memperkirakan waktu tanpa bantuan jam. Salah satu kegiatan yang cukup m More...

29 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2008

Ross rated it:

I just couldn't get into it. Yes, I'm sure it's a great piece of literature that those who are more into "literary college fiction" and less into so-called "genre fiction" enjoy immensely.

For me it failed in three major ways.

1) When I read I like to get sucked into the world. I don't want to constantly be reminded that I'm sitting in a location reading. I want to be with the characters. This book kept me at a distance.

2) The book was writte More...

2 comments like (14 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Steven rated it:

What a gorgeous book. Beautiful. It is a tale of survival on the open Pacific Ocean. It's a tale of survival on the Earth. It's a tale about the nature of truth, religion and stories. It is absolutely heart-breaking, then your heart is healed, then it's broken again and you just want to let it stay that way.

Pi is obsessed with religion. He is a teenager who practices Hinduism, Christianity and Islam all at once. He becomes stranded in a life boat with a 450 pound Bengal tiger More...

0 comments like (12 people liked it)

May 31, 2011

Monique rated it:

In a nutshell, “Life of Pi” is one long metaphor about man, his faith and his God, adversities, resiliency, and above all, hope. If I were to describe the book, I would say it is engaging, heartwarming, and hilarious. (Yes, you read it correctly.) The only downside is that it tended to drag a little, but I didn't mind; after all, what can you expect from a novel, written in the first-person point of view, about a teenage boy who is shipwrecked in the Pacific with only a 450-pound adult Bengal ti More...

11 comments like (7 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2007

patxi rated it:

Desafiante, cruel... ¿Quién puede dominar a un tigre de Bengala sin convertirse en un tigre?

3 comments like (5 people liked it)

Jan 18, 2009

Eileen rated it:

The Riddle of LIFE OF PI

LIFE OF PI starts out with a promise of “a story that will make you believe in God;” a promise that the author admits is “a tall order.” Whether one’s faith is altered after reading Pi’s tale surely depends on each reader’s personal “input,” but I can not imagine anyone arriving at the end and not being wholly convinced of Yann Martel’s awesome story-telling ability.

The author, who has allegedly pieced together Pi’s tale from various sources, basic More...

3 comments like (8 people liked it)

Feb 27, 2010

Ross rated it:

Life of Pi by Yann Martel is one of those novels that everyone and their mother seems to have read about 5 years ago, but ended up on my bookshelf, only to be overlooked and forgotten in multiple moves. I finally pulled it out to take with me on my trip to Houston and ended up absolutely loving it.

Piscine Molitor Patel, known to "all" as Pi (i.e. 3.14), comes from a small Indian territory called Pondicherry. Son of a zookeeper, Pi has spent part of his youth exploring and More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Apr 29, 2008

Holli rated it:

I heard what this was about and put off reading it because I didn't think I would like it. It's one of those books that you just keep pondering. I'm still not sure what it was all about! But it turned out to be a great book. I listened to it on tape and the narrator did an excellent job. His innocent voice and observational style provide a great contrast to the multi-layered, truth-filled story as it unfolds. Many things took me by surprise. I used my “willing suspension of disbelief” More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Mar 07, 2008

Megan rated it:

I read this book because it was recommended to me by several people. I'll admit though it took me a while to get into it. About 1/3 of the way through I just wasn't sure if I could keep reading. But I'm actually glad that I did, because it really stretched my mind.

This book is the story of 16 year old Piscine Molitor Patel (who decides to go by "Pi" to end the relentless teasing about his name) from India. He practices not just one, but three religions: Hinduism, Islam and More...

1 comment like (4 people liked it)

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