Life of Pi

Rating:
Summary: Warning: This could be a life altering experience.
Review: 'Life of Pi' is an inspired, amazing transformative journey. Reading this novel not only expands one's understanding of other (I say other, because this is also an inspired work.) major religious texts, but of the religions themselves.

Comprehension of the ideas and metaphors in this novel can serve to unite the fractured God in one's life experience.

Yann Martel weaves together a beautiful allegory that is as complex in it's subtext, as it is simple in it's storytelling.

Anyone can pick up this book and enjoy the tale of Pi and his long and harrowing journey on a 20ft lifeboat with a bengal tiger aptly named Richard Parker.

'Life of Pi' is an exciting, emotionally charged, spiritual novel that leaves you wanting more. It is a story of epic proportions that one never wants to end. Indeed this is a story that can be read over again and again with new insights and understandings achieved upon subsequent reads.

While the story is fantastic in every way, the irony is that the story itself is inconsequential. Where the novel really excells is in its rich, metaphorical, subtext which Martel cleverly hides in plain sight as it were.

When put into practice, the priniciples that Martel demonstrate are life altering. The ideas in this book may change one's perception of the world around them, as well as the perception of others toward one.

Martel is a true artist and a wonderful spirit, who has blessed us with a work of truth, life and love.

Needless to say, this novel is highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: wow
Review: if you want to read a book that will change your view on life... read this!

Rating:
Summary: Which story will you tell?
Review: This book is not what it seems. It seems incredibly improbable in parts - after all, Pi survives for MONTHS alone at sea - and perhaps it is. This book is fantastically written, witty, and heartbreaking. The question you must ask yourself pertains to the truth in the story of your life: which story do you tell?

Rating:
Summary: Mud Pi
Review: I kept trying to like this book - the tone and writing were often enchanting, and the premise remarkable. Ultimately, though, I found it shallow, glib and in too many instances gratuitously violent and grotesque. My final take on it, was, So What? The best that I can say about it is, I listened to it in an unabridged audio version, and listening was better than giving into road rage during my often gratuitously violent and grotesque commute.

Rating:
Summary: An element of style..
Review: In E.B. White's "Elements of Style", the great American author praises those few writers who can relay great emotion through the simplest of prose. If Mr. White had been alive to read Yann Martel's "Life of Pi", this book would have warmed his heart.

The winner of the Booker Prize, "Life of Pi" is a story about the innate necessity of survival, the ability to find one's inner-self, and the importance of cooperation and coexistence.

Incorporated in succint prose, Mr. Martel relays his story through both straight-foward dialogue as well as many cunning metaphors. He passes his own brand of social agenda as well, and one must read this book with a careful eye in that regard. However, I do not say that to deter any readers from picking up this book.

"Life of Pi" earned its many praisings through excellent writing and an almost philosophical premise. Of any book published in 2002, this is certainly one of the more insightful novels.

Rating:
Summary: slow first half, but you'll rush back to read it again
Review: This Nobel Prize winner was a slow start, but once we got to part II and then the end, it blew me away. I want to read it several times, slowly. An Indian boy is emigrating from India to Canada with his family (zookeepers) and animals from the zoo when the ship sinks, stranding him in a lifeboat for 200+ days with a Bengal Tiger. Religion, animal training, faith, reality, being at sea. Brilliant!

Rating:
Summary: a wonderful read
Review: an incredible story of the resiliency of the human mind, a story that stays with you long after you've put down the book.

Rating:
Summary: A Worthy Purchase off Amazon!
Review: Life of Pi is a beautiful and intriguing story about an Indian boy, son of a zookeeper, who finds himself lost at see after a ship he is on, with many of the zoo's animals, sinks in the middle of the open and deserted ocean. He comes to realize that the life raft, on which he clings to life, is occupied not only by himself, but by a crazed hyena, a confused orangutan, an injured zebra and a dangerous Royal Bengal Tiger. Needless to say, he is petrified, and of course starving and thirsty for fresh water. Pi's story of survival and courage begins here through the author's (Yann Martel) great skill in making a fantastical novel seem incredibly real. By the end of the novel, where we are reminded of the fictitious nature of the story, it seems hard to believe that any other version of the story's events had taken place. Plain and simple, it's a great book! Two other great Amazon picks are: [e-mail] by Tom Grimes, The Losers' Club by Richard Perez. During this season I like to avoid long bookstore lines when I can. Happy Holidays everyone!

Rating:
Summary: Belief
Review: The writing is so sharp, so closely observed and descriptive, that I found it hard to believe that this was fiction and not a memory of real events. Who could describe the taste of turtle meat or the feeling of cutting one up, without having experienced it? Every nuance of life as a castaway rings true, and I start to wonder whether the Author's Preface is fact or fiction. And yet at the same time, the story is absolutely fantastic, impossible.

The bending of truth and fiction in the end of the book rather stunned me. And then I had to consider which story was the better one. And the parallel to believing or not believing in God was obvious.

Rating:
Summary: A good story
Review: I bought this book based on all the glowing reviews I had read. After finishing it, I first thought "It was a good story, but whats the big deal". I found myself thinking about the books message hours after I had finished it, so for that alone I would say its worth reading.