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Life of Pi

by Yann Martel

3.78 · rating details · 212,238 ratings · 18,898 reviews

Life of Pi is a masterful and utterly original novel that is at once the story of a young castaway who faces immeasurable hardships on the high seas, and a meditation on religion, faith, art and life that is as witty as it is profound. Using the threads of all of our best stories, Yann Martel has woven a glorious spiritual adventure that makes us question what it means to ...moreLife of Pi is a masterful and utterly original novel that is at once the story of a young castaway who faces immeasurable hardships on the high seas, and a meditation on religion, faith, art and life that is as witty as it is profound. Using the threads of all of our best stories, Yann Martel has woven a glorious spiritual adventure that makes us question what it means to be alive, and to believe.

Growing up in Pondicherry, India, Piscine Molitor Patel -- known as Pi -- has a rich life. Bookish by nature, young Pi acquires a broad knowledge of not only the great religious texts but of all literature, and has a great curiosity about how the world works. His family runs the local zoo, and he spends many of his days among goats, hippos, swans, and bears, developing his own theories about the nature of animals and how human nature conforms to it. Pi’s family life is quite happy, even though his brother picks on him and his parents aren’t quite sure how to accept his decision to simultaneously embrace and practise three religions -- Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam.

But despite the lush and nurturing variety of Pi’s world, there are broad political changes afoot in India, and when Pi is sixteen his parents decide that the family needs to escape to a better life. Choosing to move to Canada, they close the zoo, pack their belongings, and board a Japanese cargo ship called the Tsimtsum. Travelling with them are many of their animals, bound for zoos in North America. However, they have only just begun their journey when the ship sinks, taking the dreams of the Patel family down with it. Only Pi survives, cast adrift in a lifeboat with the unlikeliest of travelling companions: a zebra, an orang-utan, a hyena, and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.

Thus begins Pi Patel’s epic, 227-day voyage across the Pacific, and the powerful story of faith and survival at the heart of Life of Pi. Worn and scared, oscillating between hope and despair, Pi is witness to the playing out of the food chain, quite aware of his new position within it. When only the tiger is left of the seafaring menagerie, Pi realizes that his survival depends on his ability to assert his own will, and sets upon a grand and ordered scheme to keep from being Richard Parker’s next meal.

As the days pass, Pi fights both boredom and terror by throwing himself into the practical details of surviving on the open sea -- catching fish, collecting rain water, protecting himself from the sun -- all the while ensuring that the tiger is also kept alive, and knows that Pi is the key to his survival. The castaways face gruelling pain in their brushes with starvation, illness, and the storms that lash the small boat, but there is also the solace of beauty: the rainbow hues of a dorado’s death-throes, the peaceful eye of a looming whale, the shimmering blues of the ocean’s swells. Hope is fleeting, however, and despite adapting his religious practices to his daily routine, Pi feels the constant, pressing weight of despair. It is during the most hopeless and gruelling days of his voyage that Pi whittles to the core of his beliefs, casts off his own assumptions, and faces his underlying terrors head-on.

As Yann Martel has said in one interview, “The theme of this novel can be summarized in three lines. Life is a story. You can choose your story. And a story with an imaginative overlay is the better story.” And for Martel, the greatest imaginative overlay is religion. “God is a shorthand for anything that is beyond the material -- any greater pattern of meaning.” In Life of Pi, the question of stories, and of what stories to believe, is front and centre from the beginning, when the author tells us how he was led to Pi Patel and to this novel: in an Indian coffee house, a gentleman told him, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” And as this novel comes to its brilliant conclusion, Pi shows us that the story with the imaginative overlay is also the story that contains the most truth.

From the Trade Paperback edition.(less)

Mass Market Paperback, 356 pages

Published August 29th 2006 by Seal Books (first published 2001)

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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...moreIt 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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Aug 25, 2008

Annalisa rated it

· 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 lik...moreI 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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Jonathonz Thank you for your interpretation. I was left feeling a bit like a castaway on the ocean all alone and needing some company after reading this book. I...more
updated Sep 28, 2010 10:03pm

Annalisa Jonathonz, I like your reasoning, some of which I hadn't considered, like of course his mother would have stayed by his side and how did the animals g...more
Sep 08, 2011 12:54pm

Mar 23, 2008

Malbadeen rated it

· 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, the...more

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Mar 05, 2008

Trevor rated it

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 thi...more

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Mar 16, 2008

Tiffany rated it

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...moreI 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.
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Jun 06, 2008

Adrian Rush rated it

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 o...moreNo 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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Aug 12, 2007

Teresa Jusino rated it

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 Mus...moreOn 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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Jan 24, 2008

Mary rated it

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.

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Nov 30, 2007

Jenny rated it

Shelves: fiction

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.

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Jul 14, 2008

Jesse rated it

· 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. Basically, this is one of the most thematically interesting and thought-provoking books I've read in a while, even though it's a fairly simple story. 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 say that many people who enjoy thinking about the nature of reality and the po...moreLife 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. Basically, this is one of the most thematically interesting and thought-provoking books I've read in a while, even though it's a fairly simple story. 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 say that many people who enjoy thinking about the nature of reality and the possibility of God would find this a compelling read.

To me, the entire thrust of the book [SPOILER ALERT] is aimed at the idea that reality is a story, and therefore we can choose our own story (as the author himself put it). So if life is a story, that leaves us 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 suggest that 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. It's not that you must believe in God to be happy (even though Pi clearly finds peace in his beliefs); rather, the important thing is that you make a choice to bring meaning and richness to your life, that you look beyond pure, uninterpreted fact and find a better reality, that you exercise faith and strive for ideals (whatever the object of your faith and whatever those ideals might be ). Or as Pi himself puts it: "To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation."

In the end, I didn't necessarily read this book as an invitation to believe in God, but rather as a mirror held up to the reader, a test to see what kind of worldview the reader holds. [SPOILER ALERT] 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 adhere to?

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 scepticism 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 completely postmodern view of God or that he believes in God as a matter of art rather than in a sincere way. [SPOILER ALERT] True, Pi suggests that whether you believe his story has 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 that 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 unadulturated 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.

[SPOILER ALERT] 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. [SPOILER ALERT] 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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Jan 14, 2009

Bunga Mawar rated it

· 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 an...more

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Apr 23, 2007

John rated it

· 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...moreA 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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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...more

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Sep 20, 2007

CK rated it

· 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 Grows ...moreI 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)

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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

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Dec 19, 2011

Joyzi rated it

· 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...more

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Mar 12, 2009

Mashael Alamri rated it

· 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 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

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Jun 18, 2008

Julia rated it

Recommends it for: zookeepers and/or shipwreck memoir aficionados

Recommended to Julia by: book club, lots of friends, Amazon, Powells, Man Booker judges o

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. Is it possible to recommend heartily a book that I almost stopped reading on three separate occasions? Based on some amazing recommendations for this book, I broke some of my book-buying rules. So utterly assured was I that this book brimmed with potential to become my new Favorite Book For A Few Months that I bought the book instead of checking it out from the library. In addition, I purchased the hardback and not the paperback - that hasn't happened for a very long time - harkening back to ...more

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Dec 02, 2007

Brady B 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 ...moreBrady 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 sea in a lifeboat with a ferocious Bengal tiger, who are both trying to survive. Yann Martel was born in 1963 in Spain and studied philosophy before beginning to write. He has written many other published novels including The Facts Behind the Helsinki Raccomatios, The Third Brother, and Self.
In this novel I enjoyed how the author did not simply write about Pi and his journey but he wrote about what Pi was thinking and how he was feeling. I found that what kept me interested and what kept me reading was how in almost every paragraph, the author would deeply explain everything Pi was thinking and what was going on around him with examples from religious scriptures, experiences, and different stories from all over. Although it is an intellectual book it was not a hard read and the way it was written flowed well and was easy to understand. My favorite part of the book was when Pi's experiences with all of the three religions were explained and analyzed. I enjoyed how the other not only wrote about how Pi and his mentors felt about it, but also about how his family and the people around him felt after they found out what was going on.
Although I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I did find that sometimes the author would stray to far from what was going on and you would lose sight of everything that was happening with Pi. As I said in the last paragraph, I did like how the author explained everything with examples, but some of them would be multiple pages long and it was easy to forget what was going on. I felt that sometimes during these points I lost interest. I think that it would help readers stay focused on the plot and the book, if he had written less or not used such extraneous examples. Although they give you much needed insight into the mind of the main character, they would still help even if they were not so long.
In conclusion, I liked this book very much and would highly recommend it to all. Although sometimes it is easy to get lost, over all, this book is extremely interesting and exciting. I have found this book to be one of my favorites and I will probably read it again. This is one of those books that no matter how many times you read it, it will always be good. It is one of those books that when you just want something good to read at your local coffee house or when you go to bed, you will always want to pick up. This book is intellectual and exciting, and if you’re looking for a good book that is hard to put down, try "Life of Pi by Yann Martel!
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Jul 26, 2007

Sarah rated it

· 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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May 16, 2011

Nikki rated it

· 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.

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Dec 30, 2008

Jimmy rated it

· review of another edition

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

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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

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Aug 23, 2007

Steven Stark rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone

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

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May 31, 2011

Monique rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone!

Shelves: 2011, 50-bucket-list-books, absolute-favorite, award-winners, bestsellers, fiction, religion

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...moreIn 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 tiger left for company? That, in a sentence, is what the novel is all about.

I constantly put myself in the shoes of Piscine Molitor Patel - “Pi” for short, as in 3.1416 – while he was stranded in a lifeboat with Richard Parker, the Bengal tiger in whose claws he was sure he was to meet his end. I knew, without doubt, that I could never have done what he did, and survive for more than 200 days floating in the ocean, practically starving to death, and with a carnivorous mammal for company, to boot. But Pi was an extraordinary person: he was resilient, he never lost hope (even when the circumstances actually justified it), he did his best to co-exist in extremely cramped living quarters with a carnivore, and best of all, he never doubted God and fervently kept the faith throughout his ordeal. It's an amazing life story, indeed. And although there were several situations in the story which even an unskeptical person may find improbable (e.g. The carnivorous island in the latter part of the story), it nonetheless helped drive home the point: that there is always hope.

I've read Yann Martel's “Beatrice and Virgil” prior to reading “Pi”, and I remember liking the former very much. I also know that “Pi” is a highly-acclaimed novel, and that it comes recommended by peers. After reading it, I now fully understand that, indeed, “Pi” is worth all the accolades and good reviews that have been thrown its way. I will always remember “Life of Pi” as the book that made my heart so full, and rekindled my faith that, even in the face of adversity, God will always pull you through.

EDIT:
I was reading some of my GR friends' reviews of the book after having published mine, and came across TINTIN's review. Please read it, it is one of the most in-depth and intelligent reviews of the book that I've read. :)(less)

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Feb 16, 2007

patxi rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: novela

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

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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...moreThe 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, basically allows Pi to tell his own story. In the first part of the tale, adolescent Pi explores various philosophies and religions and chooses to practice three simultaneously: Hinduism, Catholicism and Islam. His interfaith awakening – and people’s reaction to it – is both comical and touching. Strangely, although he is quite devout, Pi has no problem with atheists. He sees them as his “brothers and sisters of a different faith” and respects their firm convictions. Not so for agnostics like his own father. He has no patience for them and says (p. 28):

“Doubt is useful for a while. We must all pass through the garden of Gethsemane. If Christ played with doubt, so must we ... But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.”

Though Pi does not share his father’s view of religion, he does gain from him a love and respect for all animals as his father is the director of the Pondicherry Zoo in India. We learn a great deal about animals and humanity’s treatment of them and, despite Pi’s claim to the contrary, he gives some solid arguments in favor of zoos. Still, he admits (p. 19):

“I know zoos are no longer in people’s good graces. Religion faces the same problem. Certain illusions about freedom plague them both.”

In Part Two, Pi’s faith in God and humanity is tested in a most unusual way: He is the lone survivor of a shipwreck and ends up in a lifeboat with several zoo animals, among them a Bengal tiger. Here the tale becomes one of endurance and survival against all odds. Told in exactly one hundred (mostly) short chapters, the narrative provides a lot of information. Some of the details are graphically violent or just plain gross. But most often, Martel can devastate us with just a few words, as in Chapter 75, consisting of one sentence. Lost at sea, battling intense solitude, thirst and hunger, Pi reports:

“On the day when I estimated it was Mother’s birthday, I sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her out loud.”

Pi’s adventure is in a sense an allegory, reminiscent of other epic stories like Jonah’s, Noah’s and Ulysses's. In the end, Pi survives. He triumphs over the elements, extreme hunger and thirst, a Bengal tiger, and unimaginable loneliness, fear and despair. What is it that saves him? Is it his faith? His imagination? Pushed to the limit, Pi goes blind and descends into madness. Shortly afterwards, though, he is saved. In a prescient moment at the beginning of his tale, Pi notes (p. 41):

“All living things contain a measure of madness that moves them in strange, sometimes inexplicable ways. This madness can be saving; it is part and parcel of the ability to adapt. Without it, no species would survive.”

Ultimately, the riddle of Pi’s salvation is left to the reader to solve. It is a riddle well worth contemplating and one which may require a second reading.
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Jun 13, 2008

Ross rated it

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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...moreLife 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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Apr 29, 2008

Holli rated it

Shelves: literary-fiction

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 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” just to see where things were going and waited eagerly for the end to see how he would wrap it all up. I admit that the middle part of the plot got a little lengthy at points. I was tired of the castaway situation, but his beautiful descriptions and observations kept me interested. My favorite thing about the book was the way he played with the idea of what is real. I really enjoyed the dialogue between Pi and the Japanese representatives from the shipping company. They were so concerned with what “really happened” and Pi was so good at showing them that we can’t really be sure of anything. Just like Loving What Is. There was one line in particular, something about how with any “real thing,” we bring ourselves and our experiences to it and that changes it. It reminded me of quantum physics and What the Bleep Do We Know? Our influence on reality. Always multiple choices, multiple possibilities.
I really liked the main character, Pi, and his collection of religions. He is the kind of person you would want to be stranded on a lifeboat with, resourceful, thoughtful, well-read. Richard Parker is another story . . . .

Amazon.com
Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life 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, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. --Brad Thomas Parsons --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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Mar 07, 2008

Megan rated it

Shelves: fiction

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 ...moreI 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 Christianity (a good section of the book is dedicated to his religious journey and it quite interesting). Pi's father is a zoo keeper and his family is in the process of moving with the animals to Canada when the Japanese cargo ship they were on sinks. The majority of the story is Pi's survival in a lifeboat in the Pacific Ocean over 7 months. But he isn't alone... his companions are a hyena, zebra, orangutan and tiger.

From reading this book, I learned a lot about the psychology of animals, religions, as well boats, ocean life and survival. I'll admit... I was a little grossed out at the descriptions of how Pi catches and eats his food, but it made me feel like I was right there with him, watching him drink the blood of a turtle. (Ew!) I thought the language Martel used in this book was fantastic and creative... it really helped me get into Pi's mind--to understand his personality, beliefs, sense of humor, fears and will to live.

A passage that really struck me was Pi's thoughts on the behavior of some Christians. He said,

"There are always those who take it upon themselves to defend God, as if Ultimate Reality, as if the sustaining frame of existence, were something weak and helpless. These people walk by a widow deformed by leprosy begging for a few paise, walk by children dressed in rags living in the street, and they think, 'Business as usual.' But if they perceive a slight against God, it is a different story. Their faces go red, their chests heave mightily, they sputter angry words. The degree of their indignation is astonishing. Their resolve frightening.
These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart. Meanwhile, the lot of widows and homeless children is very hard, and it is to their defence, not God's, that the self-righteous should rush" (pages 70-71).

Wow. That really made me examine my own heart after reading that! It made me think of James 1:22, "But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves."

And finally, the book is especially good because the ending isn't nice and tidy... you have to decide for yourself what you want to think about Pi's story.(less)

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About Yann Martel

Yann Martel is a Canadian author best known for the Man Booker Prize-winning novel Life of Pi.

Author Biography: Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of peripatetic Canadian parents. He grew up in Alaska, British Columbia, Costa Rica, France, Ontario and Mexico, and has continued travelling as an adult, spending time in Iran, Turkey and India. Martel refers to his travels as, “seeing the sam

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Quotes from Life of Pi

“I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. It goes for your weakest spot, which it finds with unnerving ease. It begins in your mind, always ... so you must fight hard to express it. You must fight hard to shine the light of words upon it. Because if you don't, if your fear becomes a wordless darkness that you avoid, perhaps even manage to forget, you open yourself to further attacks of fear because you never truly fought the opponent who defeated you.” — 347 people liked it

“To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” — 335 people liked it

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