Life of Pi

Jan 18, 2011 Eva rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 – after yo...more 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 – after you’ve felt the emotions, endured the moments of heartache, yearned for the resolution of the characters’ struggle – that you realize the book is not what you thought it was. The story transforms, instantly, and forever.

And in those last few chapters, you suddenly realize that the moral has changed as well.

You feel Martel’s words lingering, suggesting, and you find yourself wondering whether you are his atheist who takes the deathbed leap of faith – hoping for white light and love? Or the agnostic who , in trying to stay true to his reasonable self, explains the mysteries of life and death in only scientific terms, lacking imagination to the end, and, essentially, missing the better story?

There is no use in trying to provide a brief synopsis for this ravishing tale of a young boy from India left adrift in the Pacific in a lifeboat with a tiger who used to reside in his father’s zoo in Pondicherry. There is no use because once you finish the book you might decide that this was not, indeed, what the book was about at all. There is no use because, depending on your philosophical bent, the book will mean something very different to your best friend than it will to you. There is no use because it is nearly impossible to describe what makes this book so grand.

Read this book. Not because it is an exceptional piece of literary talent. It is, of course. But there are many good authors and many good books. While uncommon, they are not endangered. Read this book because in recent memory - aside from Jose Saramago’s arresting Blindness – there have been no stories which make such grand statements with such few elements. As Pi says in his story “Life on a lifeboat isn’t much of a life. It is like an end game in chess, a game with few pieces. The elements couldn’t be more simple, nor the stakes higher.” It is the same with Martel’s undulating fable of a book about a boy in a boat with a tiger. A simple story with potentially life altering consequences for it’s readers.

As Martel writes, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?" Like Schroedinger's cat in the box, the way this book is understood, the way it is perceived affects what it is. There has been some talk that this book will make it’s readers believe in god. I think it’s a question of perspective. To behold this gem of a novel as an adventure of man against the elements (the “dry, yeastless factuality” of what actually happened) is certainly one way to go about it. But to understand this piece to be something indescribable, something godlike, is by far the greater leap of faith.

Oh, but worth the leap, if the reader is like that atheist, willing to see the better story.

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Mar 23, 2008 Malbadeen rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people that can't get enough of Carl Jung and his wack-a-noodle ideas

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, then, then...more

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Mar 25, 2013 Jesse rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Life of Pi was a fairly engaging story in terms of plot and character, but what made it such a memorable book, for me at least, was its thematic concerns. Is it a "story that will make you believe in God," as Pi claims? I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I would recommend it to people who enjoy thinking about the nature of reality and the role of faith in our lives.

To me, the entire thrust of the book is the idea that reality is a story, and therefore we can choose our own story (as the author h...more Life of Pi was a fairly engaging story in terms of plot and character, but what made it such a memorable book, for me at least, was its thematic concerns. Is it a "story that will make you believe in God," as Pi claims? I'm not sure I'd go that far, but I would recommend it to people who enjoy thinking about the nature of reality and the role of faith in our lives.

To me, the entire thrust of the book is the idea that reality is a story, and therefore we can choose our own story (as the author himself puts it). So if life is a story, we have two basic choices: we can limit ourselves only to what we can know for sure - that is, to "dry, yeastless factuality" - or we can choose "the better story." I suppose in Pi's world the "better story" includes God, but he doesn't say this is the only meaningful possibility. In fact, Pi calls atheists his "brothers and sisters of a different faith," because, like Pi, atheists "go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap."

Pi's point, in my opinion, is that human experience always involves interpretation, that our knowledge is necessarily limited, that both religious belief and atheism require a leap of faith of one kind or another - after all, there's so little we can know for sure. For Pi, then, we shouldn't limit ourselves only to beliefs that can be proven empirically. Instead, we should make choices that bring meaning and richness to our lives; we should exercise faith and strive for ideals (whatever the object of our faith and whatever those ideals might be). Or, as Pi says in taking a shot at agnosticism: "To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

In the end, however, I didn't necessarily read this book as an invitation to believe in God. Instead, I saw it as a mirror held up to the reader, a test to see what kind of worldview the reader holds. That is, as Pi himself says, since "it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with the animals or the story without the animals?" Or, as I took it: Is it my nature to reach for and believe the better but less likely story? Or do I tend to believe the more likely but less lovely story? What view of reality do I generally hold?

Another equally important question is this: How did I come by my view of reality? Do I view the world primarily through the lens of reason? Or do I view it through the lens of emotion? For Pi, I think it's safe to say his belief comes by way of emotion. He has, as one reviewer noted, a certain skepticism about reason (in fact, Pi calls it "fool's gold for the bright"). Pi also has what I would call a subtle but real basis for his belief in God, namely, "an intellect confounded yet a trusting sense of presence and ultimate purpose." But belief still isn't easy for him. Despite his trusting sense of purpose, Pi acknowledges that "Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer." So it's not that a life of faith is easier, in Pi's opinion, it's that for him belief is ultimately more worthwhile.

This is not to say, however, that Pi holds a thoroughly postmodern view of God or that he believes as a matter of art rather than in a sincere way. True, Pi suggests that whether you believe his story had a tiger in it is also a reflection of your ability to believe in something higher. And of course it's easy to read Pi's entire story as an attempt to put an acceptable gloss on a horrific experience. Still, there are a number of clues throughout the book that give the reader at least some reason to believe Pi's story did have a tiger in it (for instance, the floating banana and the meerkat bones).

As such, Pi's two stories could be seen as an acknowledgement that both atheism and belief in God require some faith, and therefore it's up to each of us to choose the way of life that makes us the happiest. He's not necessarily saying that the truth is what you make it, he's saying we don't have unadulterated access to the truth: our imagination, personalities, and experiences unavoidably influence the way we interact with the world. But that's not the same as saying whatever we imagine is true. I think Pi, for instance, knows which of his stories is true. It's not Pi but the reader who is left with uncertainty and who therefore has to throw her hands up and say "I don't know," or else choose one story or the other. And to me, this isn't too far off from the predicament we all find ourselves in.

And that's what makes Life of Pi such a challenge to the reader: Pi's first story is fantastic, wonderful, but hard to believe. Yet there's some evidence that it happened just the way he said it did. And Pi's second story is brutal, terrible, but much easier to accept as true. Yet it's not entirely plausible either, and it leaves no room for the meerkat bones or Pi's "trusting sense of presence and ultimate purpose." If the reader personally dismisses the tiger story out of hand, I suppose that's another way of saying the reader, by nature, tends to believe the more likely but less lovely story. In the same way, if the reader gets to the story's payoff and still believes there was a tiger in the boat, the reader is probably inclined to believe the more emotionally satisfying story. But it should be born in mind that Pi doesn't definitively state which story was true, something which only he can know for sure. All we can really be sure of, in Pi's universe, is that he was stuck on a lifeboat for a while before making it to shore. So which story do I believe? I struggled with that question for a long time. But after thinking about it for a couple of days, I'll end this review with the final lines from the book: "Very few castaways can claim to have survived so long at sea as Mr. Patel, and none in the company of an adult Bengal Tiger." (less)

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Jun 15, 2012 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: for-kindle, 2011, reviewed, thrill-me-chill-me-fulfill-me

LITTLE INDIAN BOY GOES ON WEIRD BOAT RIDE WITH MEAN CAT.

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Jun 19, 2012 Kirstine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was extremely, EXTREMELY surprised by this book. Let me tell you why (it's a funny story):

On the Danish cover it says "Pi's Liv" (Pi's Life), but I hadn't noticed the apostrophe, so I thought it said "Pis Liv" (Piss Life) and I thought that was an interesting title at least, so perhaps I should give it a go. So I did. And... what I read was not at all what I had expected. It actually wasn't until I looked up the book in English I realised the title wasn't "Piss Life". I was deceived for the l...more

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Mar 24, 2013 Teresa Jusino rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: readandreviewed

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 Muslim in addition to his nat...more 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 Muslim in addition to his native Hinduism. He also loves animals, and much of the book examines animal psychology and its relationship to human psychology in a vibrant, interesting way.

This book had me asking questions about my life, my beliefs, and my society on just about every page....and when the reader gets to the end (which I won't spoil here), the reader is forced to ask themself the kind of person they really are. If ever there was a novel that could be called a litmus test, it's this one. "The Life of Pi" will, at the very least, entertain through its sharp storytelling, but it can also help a reader examine how they see the world - and isn't that the point of great literature?

Favorite quotes:

"I felt a kinship with him. It was my first clue that atheists are my brothers and sisters of a different faith, and every word they speak speaks of faith. LIke me, they go as far as the legs of reason will carry them - and then they leap."

"But I don't insist. I don't mean to defend zoos. Close them all down if you want (and let us hope that what wildlife remains can survive in what is left of the natural world). I know zoos are no longer in people's good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both."

"And so, when she first heard of Hare Krishnas, she didn't hear right. She heard 'hairless Christians', and that is what they were to her for many years. When I corrected her, I told her that in fact she was not so wrong; that Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims."

"Christianity is a religion in a rush. Look at the world created in seven days. Even on a symbolic level, that's creation in a frenzy. To one born in a religion where the battle for a single soul can be a relay race run over many centuries, with innumerable generations passing along the baton, the quick resolution of Christianity has a dizzying effect. If Hinduism flows placidly like the Ganges, then Christianity bustles like Toronto at rush hour. It is a religion as swift as a swallow, as urgent as an ambulance. It turns on a dime, expresses itself in the instant. In a moment, you are lost or saved. Christianity stretches back through the ages, but in essence it exists only at one time: right now."
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Jul 25, 2012 Richard rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

UPDATE: Some will see this as good news...there is a movie based on this piffling 21st-century Kahlil Gibran ripoff, directed by Ang Lee, coming out...trailer here. As one can readily see, no smarm or treacle has been spared.

The whole world has a copy of this book, including me...but not for long. Over 10,000 copies of this on LT, so how many trees died just for our copies alone? Don't go into the forest, ladies and gents, the trees will be lookin' for revenge after they read this book.

There is...more UPDATE: Some will see this as good news...there is a movie based on this piffling 21st-century Kahlil Gibran ripoff, directed by Ang Lee, coming out...trailer here. As one can readily see, no smarm or treacle has been spared.

The whole world has a copy of this book, including me...but not for long. Over 10,000 copies of this on LT, so how many trees died just for our copies alone? Don't go into the forest, ladies and gents, the trees will be lookin' for revenge after they read this book.

There is no question that Martel can write lovely sentences: "Those first hours were associated in my memory with one sound, not one you'd guess, not the yipping of the hyena or the hissing of the sea: it was the buzzing of flies. There were flies aboard the lifeboat. They emerged and flew about in the way of flies, in great, lazy orbits except when they came close to each other, when they spiralled together with dizzying speed and a burst of buzzing." (p118, paper ed.) Good, good stuff, nicely observed and handsomely rendered, and not enough to lift this dreary pseudo-philosophical rehash of Jonathan Livingston Seagull into greatness.

Piscine Molitor (Pi) Patel does not wring my heartstrings on his spiritual quest across the vasty deep, accompanied by a tiger named Richard Parker, to a carnivorous island, thence to Mexico to answer to a pair of noxious Japanese stereotypes and, ultimately, to Canada...sort of an anodyne for all the adventure he's been through, the way the author presents it. If I were Canadian or Torontoid (or whatever they call themselves), I'd be livid with fury over this crapulous insult to my homeland.

But hey, I'm Texan and Murrikin, if they don't care enough to run this yahoo outta town, why should I? The yodeling of joyous awakening that fogged this book on its debut..."a story to make you believe in the soul-sustaining power of fiction" ugh!; "could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life" oh really?; "a fabulous romp through an imagination by turns ecstatic, cunning, despairing and resilient" *retch*...made my "oh yeah?" follicle erect its sturdy little hair, so I avoided it. But, in all fairness, people I love and respect lived it, so it's a mitzvah to read it, right?

Public notice: My spiritual debt to the opinions of others is, with the reading of this ghastly book, herewith Paid In Full For Good. Most strongly and heartily NOT RECOMMENDED.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.(less)

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Aug 05, 2012 Megan rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: the entire human race...

Shelves: mind-blown

“The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no? And in understanding something, we bring something to it, no?
Doesn't that make life a story?”

Life is a story and the story of Pi Patel is one of the most extraordinary stories that I have read in awhile. The story begins before the fateful shipwreck that makes up most of the novel. Pi is a little boy who lives in India on a zoo that his father owns. Pretty much the greatest place to live as a kid is on a zoo. After watching We...more

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Aug 25, 2008 Annalisa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: book clubs, thinkers

Recommended to Annalisa by: Crystalyn

Shelves: book-club, literary, religion-philosophy, classics

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 like a textboo...more 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 like a textbook with inserted clips of the main character's future self. While the knowledge I gained about zoology and theology was interesting, it wasn't intriguing enough to keep me awake for more than a few pages at a time and often I found the tidbits a confusing distraction. But with distance I enjoyed the backdrop information it offered. If you're struggling through the initial background, jump ahead to the second section. Yeah it's important, but it's not vital. And maybe once you've read the story you'll want to come back and appreciate his analysis.

I highly enjoyed this strange journey at sea and found it almost believable--until the castaways encounter the island at which point I wondered how much of his sanity wavered. Being shipwreck is one of a plethora of phobias I have. Throw on top my even stronger fear of tigers and this was a story straight out of a nightmare, one that kept me intrigued for a resolution. How could a boy keep the upper hand shipwrecked with a tiger? I had a picture in my head of Pi clinging to the side of the boat to avoid both the salty water infested with sharks and a foodless boat housing a hungry carnivore.

I found myself stuck in the unusual place where as a reader I find a story plausible with full knowledge that had this story been presented in real life I would have doubted its authenticity. I wanted to believe the story and all its fantasy. The end initially annoyed me, but if you look at the rich metaphors in the story, it becomes delectable for a story analyst like me. There is nothing I enjoy more than tearing apart a story and pulling out the intentions and symbols buried inside. Instead of just a fantastical story, you find a fable with a moral.

Spoilers here.
(view spoiler)[I want to reread the story now and analyze Richard Parker as Pi's alter ego, seeing that alpha and omega struggle as an internal one. Even the name Richard Parker is a hint at cannibalistic roots since it is the true account of a sailor who died at the hands of his cannibalistic crew members. I keep going back to that moment when Pi calls for Richard Parker to join him on the ship and then is appalled at what he has done. Once Richard Parker has joined his voyage, there is no banishing him. If they are one and the same, they beautifully represent that internal battle between the civilized vegetarian and the animalistic instinct to survive, showing the compartmentalization he needed to prevent madness.

You would not expect the small boy to conquer the beast (whether animal or himself), and yet he keeps the upper hand for an unimaginable 227 days. Had the cannibal overrun his pysche, he would have lost his battle and landed a madman. When the duo landed on the beaches of Mexico, Richard Parker took off, never to be noted by civilians again, but alive and surviving. Thus the horror of the incident will always live in Pi's memory but he chooses to repress it as it has no part in civilization.

I enjoyed the portrayal of the characters on the boat as animals. I could envision the quiet maternal sadness the orangutan gave his mother. Since the crew would be blamed for the demise of the ship, the wounded sailor as the zebra lying as prey to a demented and angry foreign chef who is just as crazy as we view the viscous hyena. The symbols were perfect and I think a second read would bring out their traits even stronger.

Some of the richest symbolism comes from the cannibal island and sailor. I think Pi's childlike mind could not deal with the cannibalism of a loved one and lets this theme leak into other story elements. The blind sailor is a second portrayal of the French chef, a character too big and conflicting to fit into one projection. At first he is the mean animal thinking only of his own survival, but as the journey progresses, Pi is conflicted with his friendship for the man. A bond is bound to happen between the only two survivors in limited space and Pi could not come to terms with his human feelings for the barbaric man. So he invents a second character, one whom he can make human, worthy of connection, but in the end is still untrustworthy and Pi must kill or be killed.

So what of the strange island? In his hallucinating state, it serves as a mirage where life is not as sweet as he suspected. The island parallels his own problems at sea with rich religious symbolism of the Garden of Eden. No matter what one's ethical code, the will to survive trumps one's moral haven. These vegetarians (person and island) don't want to harm, but are killing to survive. Something happened out at sea that his waning mind (and blindness both real and spiritual) could not substantiate and like all else he twisted it to a socially accepted tale. Since the island is discovered just after the sailor dies, maybe finding one of the chef's tooth on board turned him. Or maybe Pi happened upon a pile of garbage infested with rats and this boy, starving and demented enough to have tried his own waste, sees it as a heaven. His civilized nature knew he should scorn the filth but his barbaric needs were grateful for the nasty feast. The bones in the boat, proof that his experience was real, could have been rat bones.

Whatever the cause of his epiphany, he had to enter the depths of his own personal hell to realize this was not a heaven, or Garden of Eden, and a return to civilized behavior was vital for his own survival. Richard Parker was winning as he felt completely detached from civilization. He almost wished to stay and die at sea, to live at a level of base survival, instead of have to emotionally deal with his ordeal to progress. But his innate need to survive wins out as he realizes that as the lone castaway if he does not fight his mind's descent into madness, the sea will eat him mentally and literally.

One of my favorite interpretations of the island is a religious fork in the road. Whatever truly happened, the island cements your belief in the first or second account. Either you see the meerkat remains as proof that the beauty of the first story is true or the island is the point at which you start questioning the credence of his tale and believe he threw in this unbelievable turn of events to ready you to accept his alternate ending. As readers we are given the choice between two stories. We can pick the miraculous version of the first story, an icon of those who believe in God, or we can pick the grim atheist view of the pessimistic--although reasonable--second story, as do those who believe science disproofs God. In section one, Pi references religion to not only show where his beliefs give him strength but to give backbone to the religious allegory. He shows disdain for the indecisive agnostic (see quotes below) and bids you chose your path. The island serves to question your own religious devotion, but you have to pick what you think it represents, which story you care to believe.

Pi states this is a story that makes you believe in God. As a believer in God and the second story, I don't think there is merely an atheist interpretation to the second. Either you accept God with a leap of faith despite dissenting controversy or you take the bleak realism and see God saved him from death at sea and even more protected him from mental anguish by healing his soul from the horrors he experienced. Both stories can justify the belief in God or justify your belief in nothing. Just as I don't believe people who buy the second story are atheists, I do not believe people who chose the first story follow blindly or idiotically. It's a matter of interpretation. The story isn't going to make you believe or disbelieve God anymore than you now do.

At first I was annoyed he recanted his story because I wanted to believe his original story. It is imaginative and well written and I didn't like being called out for believing fantasy from the fantasy itself. But how could I not love an allegorical explanation to a literal story? So now I love that he presents both stories: the imaginative far-fetched one and the plausible horrific one and leaves you the reader to decide which one you want to buy into and let you ponder what it says about you. That is the point of the story. (hide spoiler)]

Some of my favorite quotes from the book:
"Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can."
"It was my luck to have a few good teachers in my youth, men and women who came into my dark head and lit a match."
"Doubt is useful for a while...But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."
"All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways."
"Memory is an ocean and he bobs on the surface."
"First wonder goes deepest; wonder after that fits in the impression made by the first."
"The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart."(less)

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Aug 29, 2012 s.penkevich rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those looking for an uplifting, spiritual story

Recommended to s.penkevich by: Megan

Shelves: high_sea_adventure, man_booker_prize, animals

’ Life is a peephole, a single tiny entry onto a vastness.’

We have all heard the phrase ‘you can’t judge a book by it’s cover.’ While this is a good life lesson, especially when taken as a metaphor that extends beyond books and into people, places, foods, etc., sometimes the cover of a novel is very telling of what lies within. Yann Martel’s Life of Pi wears it’s heart on it’s sleeve. A quick glance at the cover shows the overzealous stamp of ‘Winner of the Man Booker Prize’, INTERNATIONAL BESTS...more

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Apr 23, 2007 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 read...more 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 read this book while traveling but in the heat and the dust I was too thirsty and hot to read about a character who was thirsy and hot and stuffed it in my backpack and quickly began reading what I brought with me. I finished all of the books I brought and gave them away in exchange for novels and poetry in Spanish. I read those books, translating wiht my dictionary and asking my then partner to read to me what I could translate. We finished those too. I was about to start Don Quixote in Spanish after visiting the Don Quiote iconographic museum in Guanajuato when my partner told me if I started that one he wouldn't help me read it while we were traveling. I put it away and was left with only Yann Martel's Life of Pi. After spending the day and evening out and coming back to our room in the wee hours to make love then relax I couldn't sleep. My partner snored, a singer in the club across from our hotel in the town center was singing loudly through the night, I enjoyed listening to the people outside. I picked up Life of Pi and began. When my partner awoke I didn't want to stop but we had a full itinerary and I would get to read again until we left for the next city. As boarded our bus though, I cracked that book open and read until we arrived in the city. Fey was ill from drinking the water, while he slept I lay on the bed next to him reading outloud. I finished the book over night. I couldn't stop thinking about it. To this day, Fey still swears we saw a Senegal tiger while we were traveling, "it must have escaped from a zoo, it was there, we fed it. Don't you remember?" "Of course, I do, the tiger ate you." "What? Oh, shut up. I know we saw it." He wanted to check the newspapers to find out if a tiger were loose. I can't explain what exactly changed, but after a certain point in the book, the boy, the tiger - I just wanted to know them a little longer.
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Mar 05, 2008 Trevor rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: literature, religion

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 this book, as if I...more

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Jul 26, 2007 Sarah rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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

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Mar 04, 2011 Blair rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary, read-on-kindle, booker-prize, overrated

Having finished this, I am finding myself feeling thoroughly ambivalent about it. I can't think of anything overwhelmingly positive or overhwelmingly negative to say in this review. It was just alright. I've read lots of books that could be described in the same way, but I expected more from this, particularly since it won the Booker prize.

The beginning - describing narrator Pi Patel's childhood in India, growing up surrounded by exotic, dangerous animals as the son of a zookeeper - is promising...more Having finished this, I am finding myself feeling thoroughly ambivalent about it. I can't think of anything overwhelmingly positive or overhwelmingly negative to say in this review. It was just alright. I've read lots of books that could be described in the same way, but I expected more from this, particularly since it won the Booker prize.

The beginning - describing narrator Pi Patel's childhood in India, growing up surrounded by exotic, dangerous animals as the son of a zookeeper - is promising. Some of the prose is rather beautiful, and at their best the descriptions evoke the sights and sounds of Pi's environment vividly. However, following this pleasant introduction, the bulk of the book is taken up by a lengthy account of the protagonist's attempts to survive on board a lifeboat after the ship carrying his family to Canada sinks, leaving Pi and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker the only survivors. The excitement of the situation soon abates; once the tiger has dispatched a few other surviving animals and Pi has managed to train him, all that's left is a repetitive series of chapters about how Pi stays alive. I couldn't stomach much of the stuff about Pi killing and eating whatever forms of life he comes across (there are more mentions of drinking turtles' blood than any story could ever need) and skipped the majority of these chapters (there's LOTS of them). The book becomes very monotonous, and while this may indeed represent what struggling to stay alive on a boat in the middle of a vast ocean would be like, it's not an attractive attribute in a work of fiction.

Right at the end, there's suddenly a really good bit which makes you yearn for how good the book could have been. First there's a sequence - possibly a fantasy/dream/allegory - in which Pi disovers a seemingly idyllic island with a sinister secret. Then there's the last few chapters, in which he recounts his tale, alongside an alternative version, to a pair of investigators. This part of the story is intriguing, funny and contains a fascinating twist; I really enjoyed it. It's just a shame I couldn't feel the same way about most of what came before these concluding pages.

Edited 29/12/12 to add... The film is better than the book. I've seen it in the cinema twice now, and it turns out this story is much more enjoyable to watch than it is to read. It's rare for me to prefer the movie version to the original, but this is an exception, it's wonderful!(less)

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Sep 30, 2007 Peter added it · review of another edition

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 a circle of boys and girls s...more

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Mar 16, 2008 Tiffany rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: atheists who want confirmation for their beliefs

Recommended to Tiffany by: media hype

Shelves: 2008, literature

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I discovered early in The Life of Pi why the main character was named after a infinite number - the book is an interminable bore. This book is sort of a Rorschach test for religious belief, so here's my take. If you haven't read Pi yet and want to, the rest of my review will spoil it for you, so be warned. The story is told in 3 parts. The opening is a reflection back on Pi's childhood at the zoo in Pondicherry. During this segment, he tells us that his story will lead us to have faith in God, a...more I discovered early in The Life of Pi why the main character was named after a infinite number - the book is an interminable bore. This book is sort of a Rorschach test for religious belief, so here's my take. If you haven't read Pi yet and want to, the rest of my review will spoil it for you, so be warned. The story is told in 3 parts. The opening is a reflection back on Pi's childhood at the zoo in Pondicherry. During this segment, he tells us that his story will lead us to have faith in God, and that the next part of the story "has a happy ending."
In the next section of the book, Pi is on a boat that sinks. His family dies and he floats on a lifeboat with several animals including a very dangerous tiger. At first, the tiger is hidden from Pi's view, but as he becomes more desperate to survive and more willing to stretch the boundaries of his civilized nature, the tiger emerges and the two survive together. The tiger is symbolic of Pi's animal nature, which allows him to resort to whatever he must do to survive such a harrowing experience. He resorts to cannibalism, eating feces, and several other disgusting things in his efforts to survive, and advises the reader not to judge him harshly.
In the meantime, he is performing religious rituals that he makes up and says that God helped him survive. My reading of this was fairly dark and I'm assuming this was tongue in cheek. He talks in one breath about atrocities and in the next about God saving him. It struck me as the opposite of Martel's stated intent to make someone believe in God; rather, he was making fun of people who do. Pi finds an island of algae where he floats for several days. It appears to be beautiful and a respite from his troubles - in actuality, it's an ugly, horrible place where innocent, peaceful creatures are gobbled up by the tiger, and Pi is happy for them to be sacrificed. Pi's feet are burned by the ground. Fruit has teeth. Nothing is at it seems. In my opinion, the island is a representation of the promise of organized religion. It looks beautiful and promises respite from grief and sorrow, hunger and despair. But in actuality, beliefs divide us; people are killed for religion. Many times we float "alone" but for the presence of God, or we face illness, pain, death, despair. We are left to ask ourselves why God has abandoned us if our faith is not strong. What should be good turns hideous.
In the final section, Pi leaves the island and is rescued. The men who come to interview him are told the story of Pi's journey to safety, and they don't believe him. Pi at first tells them that they should take his story on faith, much like we take our religion beliefs and Biblical teachings on faith.
When the men are not satisfied about Pi's account, he changes his story so that it's easier for the interviewers to understand - saying that each animal actually represented a person. Which is true is left open to the readers interpretation. Pi tells of the atrocities he committed, and the atrocities committed by the other survivors. He explains how he murdered one of his crewmates to survive. Then, after the other man's death, "Solitude began. I turned to God. I survived." It's over the top ironic - he only turns to God AFTER he murders someone! If he hadn't committed a murder, he would have been killed by the other man. God comes into play after there is nothing to fear.
Pi asks the interviewers which story they prefer - the cleaned up version with the animals, or the version with the people committing murders and atrocities against each other. They prefer the animal version. Pi says, "And so it goes with God." We prefer the nicer version, the cleaned up version. Not the version where God leaves us to struggle and we suffer, but the version where love triumphs and God stands beside us. The "happy ending" is one that is manufactured - Martel's truth seems to be that we people of faith are dupes; if only we would look at the darkness, we would see the humanity in it. He fails to understand that that is exactly the point of faith.
(less)

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May 26, 2013 Huda Yahya rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adventure-and-or-travel-books, spirituality, عن-الأديان-والنقد-الديني

برائحة البحر ، وطعم الملح
وقساوة الشمس وبهجتها
وبعذوبة قطرات المطر وبحزن الطبيعة المتجسد فيها
تمت كتابة هذه الرواية

مغامرة عن عالمٍ بحجم كرتنا الأرضية
عالمٍ قد لا تراه من حولك إذ أنت كثير الإنشغال بذاتك
وفي ذاتك قد تغيب عنك أشياء
وقد ترى ما يحاكي الكون من حولك ببساطة مدهشة

ولكن مهلاً...
هل كانت الرواية على مستوى فكرتها؟
هل استطاعت نقل العذوبة الكونية والتناغم الطبيعي
وهل أوفت وعدها بكونها سطور تجعلك تؤمن بالله؟

تعال لنعرف سوياً

في البداية يبدو الكاتب متكلفاً قليلاً بحيلة هزيلة سبقه إليها البعض
فيوهمك بأن الح...more

برائحة البحر ، وطعم الملح
وقساوة الشمس وبهجتها
وبعذوبة قطرات المطر وبحزن الطبيعة المتجسد فيها
تمت كتابة هذه الرواية

مغامرة عن عالمٍ بحجم كرتنا الأرضية
عالمٍ قد لا تراه من حولك إذ أنت كثير الإنشغال بذاتك
وفي ذاتك قد تغيب عنك أشياء
وقد ترى ما يحاكي الكون من حولك ببساطة مدهشة

ولكن مهلاً...
هل كانت الرواية على مستوى فكرتها؟
هل استطاعت نقل العذوبة الكونية والتناغم الطبيعي
وهل أوفت وعدها بكونها سطور تجعلك تؤمن بالله؟

تعال لنعرف سوياً

في البداية يبدو الكاتب متكلفاً قليلاً بحيلة هزيلة سبقه إليها البعض
فيوهمك بأن الحكاية حقيقية
وتلاها عليه الهندي الحقيقي باي
وأنه مجرد سارد للأحداث
ًفجاءت الحيلة غير ناضجة دراميا

وبرغم محاكاته لقصة سبق وأن كتبها الروائي مواكير
بل قدم الكاتب إهداءه إليه
ظاناً أنه هكذا يبرز ذكاءه
ويقول في وقت واحد أنا أخدعك ،،لا ..لا أفعل ،،صدقني من فضلك
أرجوك! ماذا تظن قارءك؟
طفل أم بالغ ساذج؟؟

مفتتح الرواية بجزئها الأول يصور لك أو من المفترض أنه يصور طبيعة شخصية باي
والتي من المفترض ان تكون سامية ، محبة ، باحثة عن الله
جميلة الروح والطباع

ولأن الكاتب بلا عاطفة حقيقية ولا يملك سمو روحاني
فقد جاءت النتيجة شديدة السوء

لقد أُقحمت الأديان ،وحب الله في القصة بلا مغزى
وجاءت كثير من الأفكار ساذجة ، وطفلية، ومضحكة

والأكثر إضاحكاً هو أن الكاتب
يشعرك طوال الوقت بأنه يتحفك بالجمل الذكية
وهذا غالبا لا يحدث
فهو لا يخلّف أكثر من أفكار درامية جيدة
صيغت بأفكار عقلية ساذجة في جُملتها

مثلاً
أعجبتني فكرة الكاتب بلقاء الملحد والمسلم في حديقة الحيوان
و إتخاذهما نفس الإسم
جميل ‏
ما الذي خرجت به من الحوار المبتور؟
لا شيء ‏
أي أفكار حاول المؤلف ترويجها أو مناقشتها
لا شيء

سذاجة متناهية في قالب يثير بعض الغيظ لأنه يريد حقاً وصدقاً إشعارك بذكائه الفذّ

أنا كاتب ذكي أتلاعب بكل الأيديولوجيات وأبسّطها
أنا ذكي
أنا يان مارتل
لم تلد أمٌ بعد من هو مثلي
ألا ترون؟

‏!‏

الرواية لا تساعد أحداً على الإيمان بالله
ولا تشجّع على الإلحاد
ولا علاقة لللأديان بقصة باي الحقيقية أو ‏المصطنعة
الكاتب أراد أن يكون فيلسوفاً ظاناً في نفسه القدرة على ذلك
أراد أن يصور الروحانيات
فجاءت طريقته مصطنعة ،مبتذلة في أغلبها

فكرة الجمع بين الأديان
المسيحية والهندوسية والإسلام
فكرة رائعة فيها كثير من التسامح الديني
ولكن تمت معالجتها هنا بشكل مبتور
وبلا روح مؤمنة حقيقية

من يتسم بأي صفة إنسانية ويقول
~~**~~
أستطيع أن أتخيل آخر كلمة يرددها الملحد‏
إنه أبيض .. أبيض..إنه ال.. ال حب ...ياإلهي
تلك القفزة إلى الإيمان على سرير الموت
بينما اللاأدري ،في حال بقاءه مخلصاً لذاته العقلانية
في حال تمسكه بالواقعية الجافة
فيمكن ان يحاول تفسير الضوء الحار الذي يغمره على النحو التالي‏
إنه على الأرجح جفاف الأوكسيجين في ال .... د...ماغ،
وحتى الرمق الأخير يظل مفتقراً إلى الخيال
وتواقاً إلى القصة القابلة للتصديق
~~**~~

لاحظ أنه يصور لك إنساناً يموت
وهذا التصوير يبرز من شخص يزعم الروحانية وأنه يحب الله
أين هو الحب ؟؟؟
ما هذه السخرية اللاإنسانية والساذجة؟
ويستطيع الملحد واللا أدري الرد عليها بأسوأ منها
إنما المفترض أنها رواية عن التسامح والحب؟؟

الملحدون في عمومهم ليسوا بأشخاص أجلاف سذج
لا يدركون للحياة طعماً
ولا هم بماديين بشكل كامل
ولا هم مقولبون في قوالب تجعلهم يتكلمون بلسان واحد

ولا المؤمنون ملائكة بأجنحة وردية
يحلقون بالقرب من الرب في سمو وحبور
وقلوبهم ترفرف ‏بالطهر والنقاء

ولا كل المسلمين متصوفة عائشين في زهد
وهم لا يبكون في كل ركعة سجود
مستشعرون الله في ‏سرائرهم كما في علانيتهم

واللاأدريون ليسوا سذّج بدون طريق
و لا يتشككون طوال الوقت بلا رأي وبلا هوية

من سمح لك يا يان يا مارتل بقولبة العالم هكذا
ومن تكون أنت مؤمناً أو ملحداً
لتحكم على غيرك وتصورهم بهذه السذاجة

علاقة الإيمان بينك وبين ربك
وغالباً لا تشكل في الانسان صفات جديدة
فالأخلاق كانت قبل نشوء الأديان
بل وتتغير مع تغيرات العصر
ونسبة الوعي لدى الناس
إلا في بعض الثوابت

==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-

نأتي للحديث عن العالم الذي أعشقه
وأحب القراءة عنه والسباحة في دواخله
عالم الحيوان المهيب الممتع

الكاتب العبقري يخبرك من بدايات الرواية بسخرية واضحة
أن الحيوانات مكانهم الأفضل هو حديقة الحيوانات
حيث يتعلل بعلة مضحكة ومبكية
يقول لك ألا ترى الإنسان لا يشعر بالراحة في بيته؟
هل تستطيع أن تتصور حياتك في الشوارع بلا طعام ولا دفء؟
أليس من الأفضل أن تعيش في فندق خمس نجوم يخدمك ويقوم على راحتك؟
أم أنك لا سمح الله تفضل البقاء في الشارع معرضاً للخطر؟؟

بهذه الأفكار يبرر لك المؤلف مدى أهمية حدائق الحيوان التي تتناسب مع الحيوان
وتقيه شر البرية حيث الغذاء يندر أحياناً والخطر يتربص به دائماً

وأتمنى أن أعرف رأي الكاتب في حياته
إن تحول منزله لقفص في حديقة
حيث يشاهد التلفاز ، ويقرأ ‏الجريدة
ويذهب إلى التواليت أمام أعين جمهور
يقذف له أحيانا ثمرة فاكهة أو شطيرة برجر من ‏هارديز

وربما يأتي طفل بعصا طويلة
ليضربك على مؤخرتك ضربتين لا بأس منهما
لأن العصا لم تكسر ‏عظامك
فلتحمد الله
هللوليا

الحيوانات التي تضعونها في أقفاص
ثم تسخرون ممن يريد منحها حريتها
هي التي تتكسب من وراءها ‏
وتحولها مشروعاً تجارياً يدر الربح عليك وعلى عائلتك

أتفهّمُ أن تكونَ محباًً لحيوانات حديقتك
وأن تشعر معهم بألفة
وأن تحب بعض عاداتهم
وتفرح بالوليد ‏الجديد منهم

أما أن تسخر ممن يتمنون عودتهم إلى البرية
حيث يعيشون حياتهم كما أرادها الله لهم
وبحيث تنبثق ‏غرائزهم الفطرية
التي ولدوا بها وطوروها على مدار ملايين السنين
فأنت لا تستحق إلا الإحتقار

وهناك اهتمام من بعض المنظمات الإنسانية
بحياة الحيوانات والتي توشك على الإنقراض منها
بحيث يوفرون لهم مساعدات مهمة
بدون إخراجهم من بيئتهم أو التدخل فيها
بل يسجلون بسكون وصمت
واهتمام شغوف بتلك المخلوقات الرائعة

فمثلا حيوانات المعامل كالغوريلا
والتي أرفض انسانيا اجراء التجارب عليها
يستطيع العلماء الرد عليك تلك الإعتراضات
بأن ذلك للخير الأسمى ولتقدّم صناعة الطب والأدوية
رغم أن الحال ليس كذلك دائماً
ولكنهم لديهم حجة

فما حجتك أنت في وضعك إياهم في أقفاص
ليتفرج عليهم العامة ويدفعون لك الأموال
فيكسر أحدهم ذراع قردٍ مرّة
ويسحق الآخر منقار طائر مرة أخرى
ويُطعن منهم من يُطعن
ويتم ‏قطع أو العبث بالأعضاء التناسلية لآخر لا مشكلة
فهذه أفعال سادية قليلة
وكانت لتحدث مثلها في البرية
حيث أن الحيوانات تهدر كرامة مثيلاتها بهذا الشكل المخزي

أليس كذلك ؟؟
أخبرني يا محب الله يا مؤمن ؟؟؟

==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-

الرواية ككل مشوقة وبرغم إعتراضاتي على بعض أفكارها
وعلى أسلوب المؤلف ذاته
إلا أنني ولجمال عالم الحيوان
ومغامرة ريتشارد باركر الرائعة مع باي
قد قررتُ أن أتخطى السذاجة ‏لجمال بعض الأفكار والمواقف
وأستقر على 3 نجوم‏

ومما يعزز إعجابي بالرواية هي النهاية الصاعقة
(view spoiler)

والجزء الثالث من الرواية يدور في شبه إطار مسرحي بحواره
وإن كانت الرواية مكتوبة في الخمسينات مثلاً لاعتبرتُ الحوار ذكيا ممتعاً
أما أن يصبح الحوار تقليداً أعمى
لمسرحيات مشهورة كتبت في منتصف القرن الماضي
حين بدأت النهضة العملية
فترى الكتّاب في حيرة من انتشار العلم الحديث ، وتأثيرات نظرية التطور
وحديثهم عن عنت العلماء أحياناً
وثغائهم بأنهم لا يصدقون إلا ما يرونه بأمّ أعينهم
وأنهم يؤمنون فقط بالحقائق

صدقاً أن تُكتب رواية حديثة حاملة نفس المفاهيم
وبنفس طريقة الحوار الساخرة
لهو شيء سخيف

==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-==-

هناك عاطفة غير حقيقية في هذه الرواية
‏ تعبير عن الحب
والحب غير موجود بروح الكاتب
توقٌ إلى السمو ممن لا يملك بتلات ورداته
شراسة ودموية غير مبررة في الوصف
أزعجتني وجعلتني أصرخ أحياناً

فالكاتب ليس بالذكاء الذي يظنه في نفسه
لذا وهو يمسك بخيوط الرواية بدت تنزلق حينا
ثم تتماسك حينا
مع كثير من الحكي الخالي من العاطفة

يكفيه فخراً أنني
لم أتعاطف مع صبي صغير في عرض البحر
خائف وجائع
وشعرتُ بالحياد المطلق ‏نحوه
جائزة تقدم لك يا مارتل حقا
!

أما إن كان الكاتب في روايته يقصد السخرية من المؤمنيين بطريقة مبتكرة
ومن كل ما دافع عنه
إن كانت هذه هي توريته العبقرية
فسيكون بالفعل كاتباً أحمق
لأنه ساعتها الدراما هنا تصبح شديدة الهزال
ومرة أخرى يسخر من عقائد لا حق له في السخرية منها
من أنت يا يان مارتل
؟

بالنسبة للطبعة العربية
فحقاً لا تعليق
الترجمة شديدة السوء
وطبعة منشورات الجمل مليئة بالأخطاء الإملائية والمطبعية

الرواية لا تستحق شهرتها ككثيرٍ من الأعمال المشهورة بلا داعٍ
ولكنني تمتعتُ قليلاً ببعض مواقفها ومغامراتها
وأعجبتني نهايتها
وحمدت الله على حدسي
وحبي للسمو النبيل الذي تمثله المملكة الحيوانية
وهذا مالا يستطيع الكاتب الوصول إليه

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Jun 06, 2008 Adrian Rush rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. No need to reinvent the wheel. Here's my Amazon.com review:

It doesn't matter whether what you tell people is truth or fiction, because there's no such thing as truth, no real difference between fantasy and reality, so you might as well go with the more interesting story. That's "Life of Pi" in a nutshell. Sorry to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Remember that season of the TV series "Dallas" that turned out to be just a dream? That's kind of how you feel after you've invested hours o...more No need to reinvent the wheel. Here's my Amazon.com review:

It doesn't matter whether what you tell people is truth or fiction, because there's no such thing as truth, no real difference between fantasy and reality, so you might as well go with the more interesting story. That's "Life of Pi" in a nutshell. Sorry to spoil it for anyone who hasn't read it yet.

Remember that season of the TV series "Dallas" that turned out to be just a dream? That's kind of how you feel after you've invested hours of your time reading page after page of a quite engrossing survival narrative, only to find out that it was all something the survivor made up.

Or was it? Ah, there's the twist that we're supposed to find so clever. But the officials from the ship company who tell Pi they don't believe his story are such hopelessly weak strawmen that the author pretty much forces you to accept the "better story." Pi, and, by extension, Martel, have no patience for the "dry, yeastless factuality" that the ship officials want, you see. Never mind whether it's closer to the truth -- it's just too boring, and we need colorful stories to make our lives richer. Besides, Pi and Martel say, as soon as something leaves your mouth, it's no longer reality -- it's only your interpretation of reality. So why bother grasping for the truth? You prefer the Creation story to the Big Bang? Then go with the Creation story, even if it defies logic and scientific discovery.

That's all well and good. Everyone likes a good story. But there's a time and a place for them, and the ship officials didn't need a story -- they needed to know what happened to their ship. To that end, Pi's entire tale is irrelevant anyway. And that, in turn, makes you wonder what the whole point of the book was. Other than, maybe, to laud the power of storytelling in a really hamfisted manner. Or to advocate for taking refuge in fantastical fiction when reality is too harsh. Or to champion shallow religious beliefs ("Why, Islam is nothing but an easy sort of exercise, I thought. Hot-weather yoga for the Bedouins. Asanas without sweat, heaven without strain."). Or to bash agnostics. Or something.

Be advised that this is not a book for children or the squeamish. Pi's transformation from vegetarian to unflinching killer, and Richard Parker's dietary habits, are rife with gratuituously gory details about the manner in which animals suffer and are killed and eaten.

The story promises to make you believe in God. Yet with Martel's insistence that a well-crafted story is just as good as or even preferable to reality, he leaves us not believing in a god of any kind, but rather suggesting that we embrace the stories that religions have made up about their gods, regardless of those stories' relation to scientific knowledge, since the stories are so darn nice, comfy, warm, and fuzzy in comparison with real life. Whether the God in the stories actually exists, meanwhile, becomes totally irrelevant. So ultimately, Martel makes a case for why he thinks people SHOULD believe in God -- it's a respite from harsh reality, we're told, a way to hide from life rather than meet it head-on with all of its pains and struggles -- and that's quite different from what he ostensibly set out to do. He trivializes God into a "nice story," a trite characterization sure to offend many readers.

Pi sums up this postmodern worldview by telling the ship investigators, "The world isn't just the way it is. It is how we understand it, no?" Well, no, the world IS just the way it is, in all of its highs and lows, triumphs and tragedies, happiness and sadness. But Pi and Martel's solution is to avoid the whole messy thing altogether, pretend that the way things are don't really exist, and pull a security blanket of fiction over your head. Create your own reality as you see fit. That's called escapism. It's fine when you want to curl up with a good book on a rainy day and get lost in the story for a few hours, but it's a lousy way to try to deal with real life.

Pi would tell me that I lack imagination, just as he told the investigators they lacked imagination when Pi claimed he couldn't "imagine" a bonsai tree since he's never seen one, as a way of mocking the investigators' reluctance to believe in Pi's carnivorous island. (Nice cultural stereotyping with the bonsai, by the way -- the investigators are Japanese.) But you see the problem, right? It's not a matter of lacking imagination. It's a matter of conflating things that are obviously imaginary with things that are obviously real. They're not one and the same. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise. You might as well say that the story of Frodo and the Ring is every bit as real as the American Revolution.

Pi also tells us, quite pointedly, that choosing agnosticism is immobilizing, while atheists and religious folks make a courageous leap of faith. Yet immobility is precisely where Pi places us, so that by the time the book ends, you're stuck not knowing what to think about what you've just read. Do you accept the original shipwreck story just because it's more engrossing, even if it's less believable? Or do you accept the plausible but boring story Pi gives to the officials after he's rescued? Fanciful religious allegories or cold, scientific recitation of facts that might come from the mouth of an atheist -- we're expected to pick one or the other.

But it's a false dichotomy. We needn't make a choice between embracing religious tales merely because they're more interesting or settling for the sobering realities of science and reason. We can go as far as our reason will take us and then leave ourselves open to further possibilities -- just as Pi himself suggests. That's not immobility. That's intellectual honesty -- an admission that I don't know all the answers but am willing to keep an open mind about whatever else is presented to me.

Seems better than saying you might as well just accept the better story since it really makes no difference. That's laziness. And it doesn't make for a very good story. (less)

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Mar 12, 2009 Mashael Alamri rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: translated, favorites

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 الانتهاء من قراءة الرواية , لكن وبالرغم من معرفتنا لأحداث النهاية إلا أن الرواية لذيذة بشكل خرافي أحببتها حد أنني لم أستطيع الكتابة عنها بالرغم من مرور أكثر من أسبوعين على قراءتي لها , أغرق أنا في...more

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Nov 16, 2011 Zaki rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

12 likes · like · see review

Jan 24, 2008 Mary rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up

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.

215 likes · like · see review

Dec 19, 2011 Joyzi rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Those who like inspirational and philosophical books

Recommended to Joyzi by: Charles Van

Shelves: borrowed, adult, religion, reviewed, realistic-fiction, philosophy, inspirational, favorites, fiction, contemporary-fiction, 1001-books, thought-provoking, 100-books-tfg

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 is a very typical story of faith against adversity an...more

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Nov 30, 2007 Jenny rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

81 likes · like · see review

Jan 03, 2013 Ted rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: lit-canadian, fantasy

I was disappointed in this novel, but not really surprised at this. Rather I was somewhat prepared for it, because the ratings for it, specifically by my GR friends and reviewers (people I follow), are all over the place. While over half of these ratings are good (4s and 5s), fully 28% are bad (1s and 2s). This is the highest percent of bad ratings for a Booker award winner since 2000 among these people.

And, as indicated by my own rating, there were things I liked about the book. But before I ge...more

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Sep 20, 2007 CK rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

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 Gro ...more 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, Lassie Come Home, and Beautiful Joe, among others. In each one, animals are the heroes of the tale, and are much more noble and beautiful than humans. Us humans like to think this about animals. Too bad that what we’d like to think isn’t always true.

So, I really like how Yann Martel wrote about animals in this book — they are animals! — and I really like how he compared the way that animals behave with the way that humans behave, especially how we behave about religion. This is the best aspect of the book. The main character, an ardent practitioner of religion, is simultaneously Christian, Muslim and Hindu, but finds himself resorting to “animal behavior” in order to survive.

I enjoyed reading it. He’s a good writer. Not great, but very good. He has a nice sense of humor, he writes good dialogue (which is difficult), and it’s a very interesting story that will hold your attention until the end of the book. I like how he wrote himself into the story as a character (I get all giddy and weak-kneed when authors do that). I also really like the way it ended.

Complaints:

1) Overall, the story seemed a little choppy; the three sections didn’t flow very well into each other and instead felt like three different books. I understand the point — the book starts out on a more “human” note, rather philosophical and intellectual, and then progresses to the more raw depiction of survival, so the tone and subject matter changes accordingly — but it comes off feeling like a bad editing job. Also, like I said before, he's not a great writer. A better editor would have made him better.

2) It was really violent in places. I know that it had to be violent because animals are violent (kill or be killed!), but did it have to be that violent? There were one or two paragraphs that were so bad it made me nauseous. Great authors can do more with less.

I’d still recommend it to most of my friends (except for those of you who can’t handle blood and gore).(less)

10 likes · like · see review

May 16, 2011 Nikki rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary

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.

15 likes · like · see review

Dec 31, 2012 Lou rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: adapted-to-screen

a3d89efbdd35f8bf9068136b1b85b16f, Uploaded from the Photobucket iPad App

December is a month where on many stages children will be playing the role of the three wise men, in school plays. Many will also learn of this story Life of Pi by reading it or watching its premiere on film.
There are three wise men in this tale. They are beacons of light and inspiration to the main protagonist of this story Piscine Molitor Patel aka Pi.
This teenage boy has the insight of men much older than himself.
Three religions appeal to him, he adopts three beliefs, rituals of worship cong...more

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Jan 14, 2009 Bunga Mawar rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, translated-into-indonesian, tadinya-pinjem, it-s-mine

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 angin laut... air laut yang ding...more

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Oct 28, 2012 jzhunagev rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to jzhunagev by: Man Booker Prize

Shelves: award-winning-best-seller, booker-prize-winners, fiction-contemporary, philosophical-book, spiritual, 2012-reads, adventure, dark-chest-of-wonders, drama, from-book-to-film

The Search for the Better Story
(A Book Review of Yann Martel’s Life of Pi)

Life of Pi is many things. It’s zoology… it’s spirituality… it’s an adventure… it’s a survival tale… and most importantly it’s about faith.

Part narrative, part discourse, Yann Martell tells the story of Piscine Molitor Patel, or Pi as he should like to be called, and his atypical growing up years in Pondicherry as a young Hindu boy of devout, spiritual practice subscribing to two more religious beliefs, i.e. Christianity a...more

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Jun 13, 2008 Ross rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, owned

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 practicing multiple rel...more 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 practicing multiple religions, from his native Hinduism to Islam to Christianity. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to Canada aboard a Japanese cargo ship, which sinks along the way. Pi finds himself stuck in a lifeboat with a number of zoo animals, including a 450-pound Bengal tiger.

The book tells more than the story of a stranded teenager and his ark full of animals. It is a look into religious beliefs and faith, the importance (or lack thereof) of material goods in one's life, and the indomitable will of human beings and animals to not only survive, but flourish under conditions of adversity. Pi's story is told non-linearly, with interruptions to recount stories of his past or accounts of interviews that occur in his future. Rather than detracting from the plot, this only serves to strengthen the story-line and give deeper emotion to every castaway scene the reader encounters.

Yann Martel's prose is beautiful and humorous. Descriptions of the littlest thing can leave you wondering why you never looked at the item that way before, and his observations on people and religions are interesting and often profound. Pi characterizes scientists early on as:

"I never had problems with my fellow scientists. Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science."

But one of my favorite passages deals with his philosophical view of life and death:

"When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling. My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, "You've got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!" The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn't surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity-it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly; losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud."

Life of Pi lends an element of the fantastic to the story, while at the same time appears as if the story could have be an all-too-real occurrence. The unique blend of zoological, philosophical, and religious insights draws you in and lets your mind chew on a heavy meal while your eyes hunger for the rest of Pi's castaway tale. It's a brilliant story by a wonderful storyteller, and one I'd recommend for anyone who wants a deeper look into the human condition.(less)

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Did you like the book or movie better?	47	332	1 hour, 44 min ago
Is Richard Parker a Tamil tiger?	5	34	20 hours, 24 min ago
Crazy for Young A...: Life of Pi by Yann Martel → Start Date: July 21, 2013	6	19	Jun 17, 2013 01:29am
Ending (Do not look if you have not read)	19	559	Jun 16, 2013 08:53am
And so it goes with God	23	634	Jun 06, 2013 08:20am

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