From the Bookshelf of EVERYONE Has Read This but Me - The Catch-Up Book Club…

Life of Pi

Yann Martel

Start date: May 1, 2017

Finish date: May 31, 2017

Discussion: MODERN / POPULAR READS

Why we're reading this: Group Pick for May '17 - Modern Classic/Popular Read…more
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MODERN / POPULAR READS

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What Members Thought

Jan 10, 2011 Kase Wickman rated it liked it

alternate title: tigers! what's going on! tigers! what's going...oh.

thoughts: In any kind of writing, you're told that the most important parts of the piece are the beginning and the end. This definitely holds true for Yann Martel's Man Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi.

The main character, Pi, is the Indian son of a zookeeper and an explorer of religions who identifies as Hindu, Christian and Muslim, all in one tidy 16-year-old package. When the shipping rig carrying Pi, his family and a number of alternate title: tigers! what's going on! tigers! what's going...oh.

thoughts: In any kind of writing, you're told that the most important parts of the piece are the beginning and the end. This definitely holds true for Yann Martel's Man Booker Prize-winning Life of Pi.

The main character, Pi, is the Indian son of a zookeeper and an explorer of religions who identifies as Hindu, Christian and Muslim, all in one tidy 16-year-old package. When the shipping rig carrying Pi, his family and a number of zoo animals from India to Canada sinks, Pi's polytheism and knowledge of zoo biology are vital to his survival.

For more than seven months, Pie inhabits a 26-foot lifeboat with an adult male Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, and lives to tell the tale to the book's italicized narrator.

I'm not one to judge a book solely by the embossed medals on its cover or other accolades, but I admit that I was one of those asshole elementary schoolers who read every finalist for the Newbery Medal and harassed my school librarian until she discussed them with me. (I clearly had a lot of friends as a child. And now.) Judging by triple threat of public buzz about Life of Pi, my friends' positive reviews and the shiny Man Booker recommendation, I should have been all over this book like cheese on macaroni.

Overall, though, I ended up wondering how much there really is to say about being on a boat with a tiger. Martel-as-Pi makes it sound mostly monotonous, if occasionally terrifying. It's like Danny Boyle's recent (and awesome) 127 Hours: Nothing happens, until something does.

The ending, however, changes everything. Obviously I can't say why without spoiling the entire book, but it's a game-changer. I just wonder whether it's really fair or worthy for the last 50 pages of the book to redeem the previous 300 or so pages. If 85 percent of the text is an extended literary device to get to the treat of the last 15 percent, is a book worthy of praise?

It would take a re-read to decide, most likely, but for now I just look at the book and think blahblahtigersboatsblahreligionblaheternalsoulblahWHOCARES. The re-read can wait. ...more

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