Rating: 
Summary: Shocked, But Not Awed
Review: At its base this is an extraordinary story of how a boy and a Bengal tiger survived at sea, alone for seven months. But however courageous and persevering the protagonists, the tale is gruesome. The tiger and boy survive, but the carnage is rampant. Far from "making one believe in God" (per dust jacket), it is more likely you will experience the fear of God. This is a tale of survival--grim, brutal, and violent. The violence is overwhelming; so much so that I came to the point where I dreaded to turn the page, not knowing what violent wrenching carnage would occur next.
I respect the fact that survival in these circumstances is brutal. But the story is told with little compassion and is almost bestial in nature. It is man at his lowest ebb, man as beast, man devoid of God. The idea and plot line are exceptional, but the execution is cold, violent, and base.
Rating: 
Summary: I Do Believe
Review: I've read hundreds of reader reviews on Amazon, but have never written one before...until now. This book's ending caught me so off guard that as soon as I finished, I turned to the first page and started reading the book again. The first read was a great story. The second read was a fantastic spiritual journey.Since I already believe in God this book was not able to convert me. What it did for me, however, was remind me that, while my faith in God may look like "hallucinations" to the outsider, I have been lucky to live the ups and downs of the "better story." Perhaps Pi and I ARE crazy for believing that Richard Parker, a 450 pound Bengal tiger, exists and really did slip back into the jungle without being seen by anyone else. But as long as Pi and I believe, I feel lucky to be in such good company.
Rating: 
Summary: Great survival story
Review: I suspected this book was going to be heavily spiritual and along the lines of fantastic realism, which I don't care for, and that there would be talking animals in it. So to any one with the same suspicions, let me assure you that the animals behave like animals and you don't have to be the spiritual, soul-seeking type to enjoy this book. Don't be put off by the first part of the story, which I didn't find too captivating. You will soon be pulled in. The story was convincing and the subject matter was, I felt, very well researched by the author, though granted I don't know much about religion, zoology, or the ocean. The one thing I found lacking was character development, and the occasional verbalizations from Pi were very prosey, but then the story is being told from the perspective of Pi 20 years later. Beyond any higher meaning wrapped around the central story, it's just a really good story about survival. It's also very funny. The ending is stunning. I never did understand what the story has to do with religion or God, but it did leave me thinking. Normally I get my books from the library, but I'm glad some one bought this one for me as it's definitely worth a second read (and I was 152nd on the waiting list at the library).
Rating:
Summary: Pi is by definition irrational.
Review: As we can never bring the mathematical pi to a rational conclusion, neither can we this remarkable novel. I read much of it with my little cat on my lap (her flight distance being about a millimeter or less--something you will learn about in the novel). I suddenly realized she is a distant cousin of the great Bengal tiger of or maybe not of this novel, which I could not stop reading once I had started.
Rating:
Summary: Don't judge this book by it's cover!
Review: Despite its ecstatic reviews, I was leery of this novel given the aura of magic realism that was imparted by those same reviews, and by the whimsical cover that depicts a boy and a tiger in a rowboat built for three or four. Clearly this was going to be a parable of some sort, in which the tiger learns to speak or some such nonsense. Compounding matters was the fact that the boy is Indian, since the Subcontinent seems to have supplanted Latin America as a locus of enchantment for Westerners. (And who can blame them? What's more interesting, currency devaluations and narcotrafficers, or elephant-headed gods and corpse-devouring vultures?) Spurred by the recommendation of a trusted friend, though, I took the plunge on this novel, and was absolutely blown away. The most important thing to know is that the story is not fabulistic in any way; the only magic here is in Martel's story-telling, as he renders an extraordinarily plausible account of how a boy and a tiger *really could* co-exist on a lifeboat for six months. Pi is no ordinary boy, of course, but the son of a zookeeper with an encyclopedic knowledge of animals and their behavior, which is one key to his survival. The other is his religious faith; Martel manages to move effortlessly between detailed descriptions of the natural world and moving renditions of spiritual longing, often combining the two in striking ways. In spite of its many disasters, even through the novel's stunning coda, Martel also manages to make the novel hilariously funny; it's not every shipwreck novel, involving the death of the narrator's entire family, that makes one laugh out loud every twenty pages or so.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: This book has been sitting on my my desk for three months. I was busy reading other books. Once I picked it up, I couldn't put it down. A very imaginative and enthralling read.
Rating:
Summary: Overrated--WAY overrated.
Review: After reading this book, I just shook my head. What is all the fuss about? How did this get a Booker Award? What are these reviewers so impressed with? The main character of the novel? Absolutely uninteresting and uninvolving; nothing really human about him. Is it the 150 pages of seagoing adventures with Richard Parker (or did it just seem that long)? Who cares? Do I really need the details about making a zebra your lunch? After awhile, I just got tired of it; Richard Parker should have made a Pi sandwich and ended it all right there, as far as I'm concerned. Is it the spiritual insights that supposedly flow from this story? Give me a break--if this is a profound statement about faith, then I'm Moses. It's strictly PBS pop philosophy. Am I supposed to be impressed with Martel's "fantasy island"? About as fascinating as a million meerkats. Some readers think this book is hilarious--all Martel does is throw out flashy but insubstantial wisecracks and one-liners. This was chosen as the "campus book" where I teach. It just goes to show how desolate the literary landscape has become.
Rating:
Summary: Depth hidden or hidden depths?
Review: With greater mass appeal a rumor would probably develop that this book, when read backwards, would read "Paul is dead". It is the type of text that evokes much passion, analysis and soul searching yet leaves one pondering the embarrassing possibility that Yann Martel is sniggering as we search for unintended depth in his brilliance as a storyteller. The life of Pi, ostensibly, tells the story of a religiously bewildered Indian boy who is named after, of all things, a swimming pool. He ends up in a life raft with a strange and dwindling collection of animals courtesy of his zoo-keeper parent's abortive attempt to transfer the family business, via cargo ship, to the new world. The bulk of the book dwells significantly on the relationship between Pi and a Bengall Tiger who bears the unlikely yet charming name "Richard Parker". Even superficially it is a fascinating read and I became convinced that I was appraising some brilliant piece of religious satire that would become cunningly transparent at an appropriate stage. As the pages wore on I became concerned that my rather sketchy knowledge of Indian religions would leave me hanging intellectually and I resolved, should the situation continue, to deny firmly that I had read the book. Then that ending hits you. One sentence which sends your whole mind into a spin. All at once the aim of the story is clarified as simultaneously its true message is lost in a jumble of conjecture and possibilities. Even my intuitive discovery (of which I am endlessly proud) that Richard Parker was, apparently, the name of an English cabin boy cannibalized after a ship wreck, only served to fuel my bewilderment. All in all a great read which I would recommend to anybody with a slight tendency to inflicting mental abuse on themselves. Like me you can take solace in the fact that the title will attract gullible mathematicians who, courtesy of that arrogant logic they sneered at us with at school, will surely be reaching for the Tylenol.
Rating:
Summary: But I still don't believe in God
Review:
I have been an atheist for a long time. I've probably been an atheist for longer than Yann Martel has been alive and now, having read his story, I still don't believe in God, nor will I ever. I do believe that great stories are being written into the 21st Century though and this is about the best one I've read so far.
On the surface it's a story about a boy in a lifeboat alone, but for a 450 pound Bengal Tiger. Beneath the surface it's about a boy who has suffered such loneliness and tragedy that his mind spared him the brunt of the pain of it by taking leave of him for awhile. You'll read this book, put it down, read some other book, and then come back to this one to re-read the beginning, at least, to see what you might have missed the first time. All in all it's money very well spent.
Rating:
Summary: Survival in the High Seas--No "The Old Man and the Sea"
Review: Starting out, I thought "Life of Pi" might be a good book, one that could lead someone to "believe in God" as the front cover advertised. However, as Pi was left to wander the Pacific by sea, the book quickly turned into a theological disappointment. I will admit that it's hard for a western mind to hold the ideas of Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism at peace within oneself at the same time, and I was disappointed that Martel didn't delve at all into the differences between them. The incident in the cafe between the three religious leaders and Pi's parents offered me hope that a cursory review of the religious controversies was to follow, but it did not. If I'm ever stuck in the Pacific on a lifeboat for a couple of months, I feel somewhat better prepared. However, this book didn't offer what I expected to find in this book--an inclusivist understanding of God through the focused lenses of Islam, Christianity, and Hinduism. I realize Martel may intend "Pi" for a younger audience, but "The Old Man and the Sea" is certainly more mature, in it's story depth and in it's theology.
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