Rating: 
Summary: Thoughtful and entertaining
Review: The book begins slowly but sets the stage for an intense story of survival at sea. Perhaps not to be taken literally, this story of survival against all odds is well written paralleling a world of humanity at its worst. It demonstrates the value of a message in myth. I won't forget this tale anytime soon.
Rating: 
Summary: finally, a cure for insomnia
Review: blah, blah, blah. martel, find another vocation, because writing doesn't suit you. this novel is a colossal blunder. i think it could've been condensed and rewritten into a nice little children's book, instead of droning on and on like some half-hearted homily delivered from the pulpit. this book doesn't deserve five stars. it doesn't even deserve publication let alone the booker prize. good lord, what has become of us?
Rating: 
Summary: The Worthless Dreams of Canadian Citizens
Review: This long-winded and unconvincing novel begins with an "Author's Note" in which the unnamed narrator informs us that he is an ARTIST, and his fellow-citizens should pay an arts bureaucracy to support him in replacing their "crude reality" and "worthless dreams" with works of his imagination. I know many Canadians, and am delighted to say that they need a caste of "artists" to provide them with dreams the way a fish needs a bicycle. As for the story...The narrator actually presents us with two stories, neither of which is especially convincing. In one, a young man and his mother are trapped on a lifeboat with a cannibal cook, the last a survival expert whose amazing knife (it MUST be a Ginsu!) is capable of both dressing meat and chopping off heads. After the cook has for no particular reason created a raft out of oars and chopped off the mother's head, the plucky lad wrests the cook's knife away and slowly chops him to bits. The other story is invested with a good deal more versimilitude - up to a point. In THAT story, the young man must manage a powerful but unpredictable being who can be palliated, but never entirely tamed, through offerings. However that story also contains blatantly unbelievable nonsense. "Which story," we are asked, "Do you prefer?" Well neither, but I'm an agnostic... I found the author's point to be heavy-handed and rather naive. In addition there is a good deal of misplaced humour in the book - I won't say it isn't amusing, but Mr. Martel might have been better advised to keep the Mutt and Jeff routines and ditch the religious speculation. The book does raise one worthwhile question, but I think the book itself is the answer to it. Should government 'arts' bureaucracies create and support a separate caste of "artists", or should artists be ordinary citizens, discovering art through participation in real life? More real life would have helped this book. Citizens should support, not their artists, but their art. Those who rely on others' imaginations live worthless lives, and realize crude dreams.
Rating: 
Summary: A well-written book with a FANTASTIC ending
Review: As I was reading this novel, I enjoyed it, but I was a little let down. I had heard such great reviews, and although I thought the book was interesting and well written, it just didn't meet my expectations...until I read the last 15 or so pages. WOW - what an incredible ending. It was such a great ending, that I wanted to open the book back to the beginning and read it again. There is no doubt in my mind, that this book is truly deserving of the awards and praise it has received - and worthy of a 5-star rating. This book is a powerful story of survival and the will to live. The author presents the story honestly and does not shy away from detail. Even though I found some parts of the book disturbing, it adds to the author's credit of being a great story-teller.
Rating: 
Summary: The Good Life
Review: Yann Martel's 2001 novel Life of Pi has had a meteoric climb into the literary and cultural pantheon in the past two years: critical and commercial success, a movie deal, unbelievable word of mouth, a strong stint on bestseller lists, and the prestigious Man Booker Prize. This is a fairy tale story for an amazing piece of literature that truly deserves of all of these accolades. Martel has created a novel that evokes such strong emotions from its readers that after having read the last page, one wants to go out and tell everyone they see-strangers included-to read it immediately.
The novel focuses around a truly charismatic teenage Indian boy, Piscine Molitor Patel-wonderfully self-nicknamed Pi. The novel begins in contemporary Toronto with Pi as an adult man, recalling his story to an unnamed narrator. Part of the literary achievement of the novel lies in Martel's deliciously cryptic origins of the story itself. The author's note as a preface works as a convoluted message from the narrator-Martel? A reporter? Another author?-telling his readers that he has "interviewed" the adult Pi about his story as the basis for the novel. This immediately informs the readers that the novel can be read a number of ways, but predominately through the voice of a storyteller.
As Pi begins his story, he is a teenager in Ponticherry, India, in the 1970's. The son of a zoo owner and a loving mother, the brother of a wonderfully lovable older brother, Pi is of course a special boy. Aside from the narrative advantages given to Pi, he also actively practices Hinduism, Islam, and Christianity-all simultaneously. The curiosity and spirit that drive Pi throughout the novel are reminiscent of a young Scout Finch. Reacting to a tumultuous political and economic climate in India during the 1970's, Pi's father decides to migrate the family to Canada in the hopes of a better future. During the nautical journey to a new home, the ship mysteriously sinks leaving Pi aboard a lifeboat with a hyena, a zebra, an orangutan, and a Bengal tiger-also making the move with the Patel family to a new Canadian zoo home.
As Pi comes to terms with his tragic reality, he also must confront his imminent danger: how to survive the sea and more importantly how to survive with the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. Throughout Pi's adventure on the sea, which lasts roughly two hundred pages of the text, his wits and courage are constantly being tested. At this point, the novel marvelously flows page after page with the reader eagerly anticipating what his next move will be, all the while keeping an eye on Richard Parker. It is an amazing testament to Martel's storytelling that the novel could be read solely in terms of an adventure-tale in the vein of Robinson Crusoe or even television's Survivor. Yet, it is during the course of Pi's journey that the heart of the novel is revealed. Reflections on life, religion, Everyman's path, time/space are subtlety yet richly woven into a debate.
By placing human and animal in such close proximity, Martel strips bare the barrier between the two entities. There are numerous discussions of zoomorphism, domestication of animals, and personification of the animals themselves. This effectively works to tame all of God's creatures and throw them into the same cage. Pi must learn how to coexist with Richard Parker if he is to survive his traumatic journey. Metaphorically, this works as a lesson revealing that we all must learn to harmoniously live together if we are survive our individual and communal journey. This also frighteningly works as a metaphor for all of the fatal tensions in the world today.
In terms of religion, Pi's story is as potentially relevant in today's society as the story of Noah and his ark. Martel has stripped away all exteriors and preconceived notions both in the character of Pi and also in his plight. It is positively absurd for a man to practice three conflicting religions simultaneously, yet Pi executes such a task so effortlessly, one is left to question: Why not? Why is it so difficult for Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Sikh, Palestinian, Israeli, American, Iraqi to live together in harmony as Pi does in his head and aboard a lifeboat for two hundred days with a ferocious tiger? Martel's main achievement in this novel is how he deftly discusses issues with so many dangerous ramifications in such a way to not only produce thought in the reader, but provoke the reader to react.
Martel has a lot at stake with Pi's story. While the novel could delightfully be read through the eyes of an adventure-seeker, the overarching metaphors and lessons learned through Pi's survival translate into issues that are critically prevalent in today's global landscape. The narrator of the novel informs us that this story has a happy ending. Although the price of this happiness is costly, Pi does survive and flourish in his new life. Working as a fable, Pi plays the role of Everyman who finds a way to survive on his own terms. His religion and morals remain intact; he ends up with a wonderful new life with a beautiful new family of his own. Martel does not lay out a roadmap for how to live the life of Pi, he simply places integral pieces of the complex puzzle before his reader's eyes in the hopes that we are somewhat more prepared to tame our personal tigers.
Rating:
Summary: I didn' t understand why it became a bestseller.
Review: Tee book is composed of two sections, first section is about animals in a zoo and religion. I found this section rather boring. The second section, the story of pi, a teenager, on pasific ocean is interesting and worth reading. This is the first novel I read from Yann Martel and I should admit that I bought the book because of the back cover, which says he is like Italo Calvino. Please, don' t read with high expectations, he is not like Calvino.
Rating:
Summary: i like this book because everyone else likes it
Review: i guess i'm giving this book five stars because i'm a total sheep who can't tell the difference between good and bad literature. i don't think this book has any merit, but who am i to go against the herd and give it one star? that would only anger people. in a group of like-minded folks, nobody wants dissenting opinion, because everyone knows that the majority is always right. so in conclusion, i will swallow my individual thoughts and opinions and defer to the group who unanimously praise this novel on baseless grounds.
Rating:
Summary: A bad message and poorly written
Review: The moral of the story (a new twist on "the end justifies the means") is very disconcerting and not easily recognized by the casual reader. To top it off, its poorly written and structured. A total waste of time, I wish I could get my life and money back. Is there a way to give negative stars?
Rating:
Summary: Gripping imaginative story
Review: I have read so many books this past year, and here is one that did not let me down, from the very beginning, until it's end. Not only was the story incredibly imaginative, it was thought provoking and just plain enjoyable to read, a real adventure. I also learned things I didn't know, not only about survival, but also animal behavior.
I plan on recommending this to my reading group, next time we meet!
Rating:
Summary: More than I expected
Review: I was not really looking forward to this read, but I am reading it for book club, so I had no choice. At first I was slightly interested, but by the time I reached page 30, (which didn't take long as this is a fast read)I was hooked for my entire Saturday! The book keeps you thinking; several times I found myself going back in the book to re-read the italicized chapters, especially 21 and 22. Further, much of the lamenting Pi does earlier in the book is revisited in Pi's behavior after the shipwreck. This was a very pleasant book which left me feeling serene; I did not want this book to end!
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