Rating: 
Summary: Implausibly mesmerizing
Review: I avoided reading this book because of the implausible premise. A good friend kept tellng me, "Read it, read it," and finally, reluctantly, I did. And I couldn't put it down.
I laughed like the hyena who plays a pivotal role early in the book. I bought into the outrageous setup. I don't give a fig for the religious message that others argue about. I found the book, the story, and the moral thoroughly engaging and 'believable,' at least in a metaphorical sense. Lay aside your reservations, and read this one. It's great.
Rating:
Summary: Outstanding
Review: Life of Pi tells the story of an Indian boy, Piscene (Pi), the son of a zoo owner, who becomes stranded on a lifeboat with a Bengal tiger after a shipwreck which kills, among others, his entire family.I don't think there's any way to describe the story further than that. It has to be read to be understood. Read it! In the end, the story is more than simply a story of overcoming the odds or unusual circumstances. Finishing this novel is like having your eyes opened to a new aspect of humanity. I tend to take a more philosophical mindview, so I wasn't overly swayed by the book's claim that it can make you believe in God (we should always believe what we feel to be true, not what makes us most comfortable, in my opinion), but the book is a searing look at human savagery - and more importantly, how we deal with it. The book's metaphors run deep, although I know I'm going to have to read this novel again to fully grasp them all. And don't be intimidated by the book's lofty spiritual claims. This is not a theological book - it's simply a book about how one boy comes to view the world. Faith is used in a liberal spiritualistic sense, not a religious one. All in all, this is a book not to be missed. Matty J
Rating: 
Summary: Imaginative and inspirational
Review: I spent the whole Saturday chasing the audacious journey of Pi on Pacific Ocean... deeply touched and captivated... it's not about God and I am not a believer, but you would wonder his power behind our existence, or more exactly our own strength through faith... you would wonder the non-randomness of absolute universe... I am very much amazed by author's imagination, by his superb skill of story-telling; beneath this adventurous story lies subtly the more philosophical and spiritual rhythm... it's not a must-read book, but once you go through the journey with Pi, the cinematic view and mesmerized notion would forever stay in your mind...
Rating: 
Summary: Unconvincing psychological allegory
Review: "Life of Pi" begins with the establishment of a 'frame' narrator (à la Conrad), and then proceeds with the development of a young and naive protagonist (Piscine 'Pi' Molotor Patel) who has a penchant for religious syncretism. Author Yann Martel adds a set of idiosyncratic secondary characters, and puts all of this in an intriguing setting (Pondicherry, India) with a focus on a fictional zoo operated by the protagonist's family. There are a few false notes here and there (e.g. a set of bourgeois, conservative parents naming their son after a swimming pool; the unlikely acceptance by these same parents of their young son's desire to practice three religions simultaneously...), but these lapses are eclipsed by the promise of the themes which are introduced: i.e. the viability of a syncretic religious outlook in the modern world, and the social, environmental, and psychological relationships between humankind and animals. Having introduced the reader to this impressive array of elements, Martel shifts into low gear while trying to think of something dramatic to do with them. As he does so, the novel begins to bog down with tangential material. Some of this is meant to serve as foreshadowing for the human-tiger relationship which will be explored in Part Two, but much of it, particularly the parts relating to religion, basically leads nowhere. Part One drags on to the hundred page mark, at which point Martel decides to cut his losses. He discards about half of the secondary characters by leaving them ashore in India while Pi and his family embark on a cargo ship bound for Canada, along with some of their zoo animals. Then Martel downsizes the scope of the book further by eliminating most of the family and their animals at the beginning of Part Two by means of an unexplained sinking of the cargo ship ("It made a monstrous metallic burp"). The next phase of the book (the bulk of it) takes place in a lifeboat. It begins with a pared-down cast: a zebra, a hyena, an orangutan, and Pi. Thirty forgettable pages are devoted to chronicling in excruciating detail the movements of Pi and these other animals around the boat, with a few episodes of savagery thrown in to punctuate things. Eventually, the zebra and orangutan are done in by the hyena, and then it is revealed that a Bengal Tiger named 'Robert Parker' has been lurking as a stowaway on the lifeboat (hiding unseen for three days, we are asked to believe). The sudden appearance of Robert Parker is accompanied by some interesting attempts at simile: - "Richard Parker's head... looked the size of the planet Jupiter"; "His paws were like volumes of the Encyclopaedia Britannica" (did someone mix up the envelopes for the Booker Prize and the Bulwer Lytton award?) . In practical terms, it offers a pretext to get rid of the hyena, and we move into an extended endgame in which Pi and Robert Parker supposedly enjoy a mutually beneficial relationship (Pi catches food, gives most to Parker, Parker doesn't eat Pi). Another hundred pages pass as Pi, Robert Parker, and the reader all slowly waste away. The reader must skim in order to survive. Finally, after a lacklustre hallucinatory experience involving an encounter with another survivor in another lifeboat, a brief moment of inspiration flares over the barren expanse of the novel. The lifeboat makes it to a strange island of floating algae which has some fabulous qualities and is populated by swarms of meerkats (see: http://www.meerkat.org/mammals/meerkat.html for more on meerkats). This section is reminiscent of Kurt Vonnegut's allegorical mini-fantasies - and surely the island is meant as an allegory of psychological transformation - but where Vonnegut would take a page or two to deliver the goods, Martel uses up thirty. "Life of Pi" concludes shortly after Pi and Robert Parker leave the island and arrive on the shores of Mexico where Robert Parker promptly vanishes into the jungle. In the last scene, a pair of insurance adjustors have arrived to interrogate Pi, and when they express disbelief in his story of the events on the lifeboat, he offers them a second, shorter version of events which more or less parallels the first, but in which the animals on the lifeboat are replaced with people (Pi, his mother, a sailor, and a cook). From an insurance claims perspective, the events on the lifeboat are of little concern anyhow, so the adjustors are free to choose whichever story they prefer. Martel has been very open in interviews about how the freedom of to choose one story over the other works as a metaphor for the freedom to choose or to reject religion or other forms of faith. If both stories 'fit' the meagre evidence available, why not make life more rewarding and opt for the more psychologically healthy version, even though it might not be the most plausible one? For the insurance adjustors, the choice isn't likely to make any long-term difference to their quality of life, but for Pi, matters are different. Clearly, the shorter version of events recounted at the end is the more plausible one, but it also involves the murder of Pi's mother and the murder of the cook by Pi himself. It is understandable, therefore, that in Pi's subconscious mind the memory of such horrors would tend to be transformed into a version which was more psychologically palatable. But since Pi is perfectly aware of both versions - and he himself knows which is the truth - the psychological efficacy of such a process is dubious. As a mere lie, the animal story obviously has utility, but it is unconvincing as part of a process of psychological transformation. The end result is that the 'faith in the preferable fiction' theme falls flat, not because of problems inherent to this thesis, but because the novel does not provide a effective demonstration of the principle.
Rating:
Summary: Survival by fantasy
Review: I don't generally read books of this genre. Most of my reading consists of biography, history, science, and some escapist fiction. I read this book after it was strongly recommended to me, and I found it amazingly powerful literature. It did not change my life, nor did it reveal new truths to me. What it did do was rise to the level of the best storytelling. This is a tale of struggle as personal and compelling as any great shipwreck story (the various tales of the Essex come to mind). Every step into the fantastic is revealed to be prosaic a moment later, and thereby the author takes you three steps into imagination and two steps back, so that without realizing it you find yourself slowly moving into a world out of sync. At the end the author offers you a clear choice, and no matter how strongly you feel about the outcome (I have my opinion), you can find people who intelligently and passionately conclude the opposite. I'd recommend this book to anyone who enjoys the out-of-phase feel of books like Winter's Tale (Helprin), and to anyone fascinated by survival at sea. A rare overlap, but there you have it.
Rating:
Summary: Plot thickens then slows down
Review: A great book for a teenager but reading it as an adult was disappointing. Reminds me of a book that my 4th grade teacher read to my class after lunch. I loved that story.
Rating:
Summary: Very Interesting Book
Review: A book on how a boy survies on a life boat with a Bengal tiger. Definitaley a very unique idea. The book is well paced and some passages are very very philosophical. I really liked the book.
Rating:
Summary: Catch the Tale by the Tiger
Review: The skeptic will dissect a parable, pulling out flaws in narrative construction, pointing out improbabilities, errors, theories to argue otherwise. They, being the astute student of science, will squash the belief in creation, God, Christ, ghosts, miracles, Santa Claus; all because they have a hard time swallowing the notion of faith. Blind faith. The idea that without conclusive proof, a good story remains just that, a good story. Something to tell the kids before bed.
This book is just that. A good story, but biblical in the sense of a moral epic: Daniel isn't in the lion's den here - Pi Patel is in a life boat with a Bengal tiger. And just as one reads the stories of the bible, either believing them in blind faith or merely accepting them as a moral tale, one must read this book. In fact, the story of Piscine and the Bengal Tiger sounds like a missing bible chapter - alongside that of Jonah and the Whale.
Abandon the inner cynic. Go with the flow of this beautifully scripted tale. Yann Martel's story can truly sweep the reader away, with his florid, descriptive writing, off into the Pacific to join his young protaganist on a journey of self discovery.
The message present is universal, whether or not you choose to believe in Pi Patel's adventure. In the face of great adversity and arduous trial, when it feels as if the gods, fate, love have all abandoned, one is forced to meet his maker. It is in these instances where one can rely on faith to survive - not just a belief in god, but the belief that you can change your life and destiny; or you can simply succumb to your enemies, resigning yourself to the hungry maw of that which would greedily feast upon you.
Read this book. You may not "believe in God" upon the last period - but you will definitely question the notion of faith if you remain objective. And to believe in God, or Allah, Jehovah, who or whatever, one must question his faith.
Rating:
Summary: Exceptional
Review: The fantastic story of a young man's (Pi) survival at sea after a shipwreck in which his family perished. In the boat with Pi is a zebra with a broken leg, a jackal, an orang utan and a Bengal tiger. After a short while there is only Pi and the tiger called Richard Parker. Their struggle to stay alive during the almost seven months it takes to reach Mexico is a story of animals and life and how we all learn to accommodate each other. It is a story rich in metaphor and humor. Pi, a practicing Christian, Muslim and Hindu has found incredible ways to love God with all his soul. He finds nothing exclusive about these religions and that each one worships the one true God. The story is not the story but a medium for Martel to reflect on life's vagaries and illuminate a deep religious conviction that cuts through the meaninglessness of most lives. I enjoyed the book on many levels. I give it a 4.5/5
Rating: 
Summary: Who doesn't love a tiger?
Review: If you are one of those readers who must have allegory in every story, pass on Life of Pi. Read Life of Pi for the delicious pleasure that comes from longing to be closest to the one great thing that can (and will) kill and eat you. Imagine the softest, orangest, whitest, blackest of furs and giant cat feet that can crush your skull with a casual swipe. Imagine losing everything except your ingenuity and the will to live. The hero of this story is a shipwreck survivor who also manages to save a few others. It changes his life (well, duh). Plus he gets to hang out with a tiger. What's not to like? There's all the thrill of surviving a shipwreck, plus the pleasure of knowing the hero lived because he is after all telling the story. Scenes from this novel have stayed with me for months, and I savor the memory of the riddles that begin to crop up almost from the beginning. Touches of humor reminded me of Smila's Sense of Snow. This noveich had me laughing even as the characters were at the brink of death. Did I mention there's a tiger? The memory of the island can still raise hairs on the back of my neck. Read, be pleased, be disappointed, feel cheated, accept the plot twists, disregard the plot twists, and imagine that somewhere in the Mexican highlands, there still lives a hybrid race of jaguar with pale orange stripes.
|
