Life of Pi

[Waylen]

Life of Pi, by Yann Martel, copyrighted in 2001. The book is a Young Adult book, the general subject matter I believe is a struggle of mental/physical survival in certain situations.
Yann Martell wrote on this subject to entertain the minds of those who's attention and imagination are absorbed by survival and high-stake situations.
I don't think that the author was trying to give any information about anything, with the exception of some characteristics of several zoo animals. Life of Pi could have possibly been used to prove that it is possible to survive in the middle of the ocean on a lifeboat, with the right supplies, even with a tiger on board.
Martel's style I would say is informal. At times he writes in very short sentences with not much flow, to imitate the thoughts of a person, which he does well. Martel uses technical words at the right time, whether it is desribing the joy of the character, or the fear of him. Martel also uses these words in very stimulating scenes of the book. The form of writing defenitely suits it's audience. The young adults who read this don't want to read long and, "proper" worded sentences. They want to be able to read the sentences and gain the information that they need to know.
The book affected me, by giving more of a, "hunger" for young adult and survival books. Some of my ideas were changed throughout the book. I felt that it might be a little dry at times, since most of it is just a boy and a tiger on a lifeboat. Martel did an excellent job of providing detail in every event and page of the book. All of the book seemed to stimulate my imagination. One idea that remained the same was, the boy surely won't be able to fully, "tame" the tiger, but just enough to keep him alive.
I could relate to this book because, in certain times in the book it describes the boy's thoughts about how beautiful and majestic he thinks the tiger is, although keeping in mind hot lethally dangerous it is. I find myself looking at Tigers and seeing just how majestic they really are, but knowing the they are still beasts who terrorize everything in the jungal.
Life of Pi did an extremely great job of acheiving it's goal. The book wanted the reader to almost feel the pain, fear, loss and gain of hope, joy, and discomfort of the main character. The book certainly did this, while still managing to keep the reader's attention by not boring them with too many details.
I would most certainly recommend this book to others. It is a book that you simply cannot put down. It seems as if at the end of every chapter there is some detail or event that makes you want to keep reading. The book has some parts that you can connect with, and there are some parts that you are just left to wonder how it must feel for the main character.
One of Martel's main arguments is that it is possible to survive stranded in the ocean. There have been several cases of people surviving lin life boats, but none this long. Even if there weren't any cases of this happening, Martel certainly made it seem possible to survive in this situation.
Conclusions that are drawn from this book are defenitely drawn logically from the evidence. The book gives every detail that you need, so that when you make your conclusion. You can look back at the deatils if you are confused about the conclusion, and you can decide that the conclusion makes sense given the details it gives you.
An issue that this book raises in the beginning is, the main character, practices in three different religions. Even just the topic of religion can sometimes make a reader drop the book. This book has the character practice three of them. A conflict on this issue rises soon after these details.
Another issue that this book contains is, whether or not this book can be read by children. At times the book can be very graphic on how it describes the death, or appearence of some animals. Children may not like the way that the book expresses the details of the animals.
Life of Pi suggests the possibilities of surviving over 200 days in a lifeboat, along with a tiger. Also, giving the suggestion of the possiblilty of, "taming" s tiger to obey you, while still not having full command of it. The book describes this as the character being similar to the ring leader of the circus, directing the tigers.
A point in the book that is not fully convincing is when the character is on the verge of death, another lifeboat with a person on it floats next to him. The character is blind, and it seems as if the other lifeboat was just a figment of his imagination. After several pages I was finally convinced that the lifeboat was real.
I would not say that this book is a rework of another book. The book seemed to carry on its own ideas and opinions.
A part of particular interest is the character is on an island, and at night the island's floor turns into an acidic deatht-trap the burns, and sometimes kills the victims that walk on it. I found this to be rather bedaffling.
A larger issue that the book could be related to, could be the saftey of cargo ships. Perhaps cargo ships should be made more safe, or larger, maybe even smaller, to minimize the p[ossiblity of a cargo or even any ship sinking.
Yann Martel is a, "Man Booker Prize" winner with the book, "Life of Pi" He is from Salamanca, Spain. His influences include the following; Dante Alighieri, Franz Kafka, Jospeh Conrad, Nikolai Gogol, Sinclair Lewis, Moacyr Scliar, Thomas Hardy, Leo Tolstoy, Alphonse Daudet, J.M. Coetzee, and Knut Hamsun.
Those are my opinions, beleifs, and my review about the book, "Life of Pi"
Waylen L.