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Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction.
Meet Pi Patel, a young man on the cusp of adulthood when fate steps in and hastens his lessons in maturity. En route with his family from their home in India to Canada, their cargo ship sinks, and Pi finds himself adrift in a lifeboat -- alone, save for a few surviving animals, some of the very same animals Pi's zookeeper father warned him would tear him to pieces if they got a chance. But Pi's seafaring journey is about much more than a struggle for survival. It becomes a test of everything he's learned -- about both man and beast, their creator, and the nature of truth itself.
With a brilliant combination of sensitivity and a precise economy of language, Martel develops a story some readers might find less than credible. But his capacity for the mysterious, and a true understanding of the depths of human resilience will compel even the most skeptical of readers to continue on the fantastic journey with Pi, and an unusual 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. (Summer 2002 Selection)
— Francie Lin
— Suzy Hansen
— Charlotte Innes
— Gary Krist
Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963 of Canadian parents. After studying philosophy at university, he worked at odd jobs—tree-planter, dishwasher, security guard—and traveled widely before turning to writing at the age of twenty-six. He is the author of a collection of short stories; three novels, including the internationally acclaimed 2002 Man Booker Prize–winning novel Life of Pi , which spent fifty-seven weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and Beatrice and Virgil; and a collection of letters to the Prime Minister of Canada, What is Stephen Harper Reading?. Yann Martel lives in Saskatchewan, Canada.
Ironically, Martel's account of the plot of Max and the Cats wasn't completely accurate. In fact, in Scliar's novel, Max Schmidt did not belong to a family of zookeepers -- he was the son of furrier. Furthermore, he did not emigrate from Berlin to Brazil with his family as the result of a failing zoo, but was forced to flee Hamburg after his lover's husband sells him out to the Nazi secret police. So, this plot that so enthralled Martel -- which he did not pursue for several years because he assumed Moacyr Scliar had already tackled it -- was more his own than he had thought.
Meanwhile, Martel managed to write and publish two books: a collection of short stories titled The Facts Behind the Helsinki Roccamatios in 1993 and a novel about gender confusion called Self in 1996. Both books sold only moderately well, further frustrating the writer. In an effort to collect his thoughts and refresh his creativity, he took a trip to India, first spending time in bustling Bombay. However, the overcrowded city only furthered Martel's feelings of alienation and dissolution. He then decided to move on to Matheran, a section near Bombay but without that city's dense population. In this peaceful hill station overlooking the city, Martel began revisiting an idea he had not considered in some time, the premise he had unwittingly created when reading Updike's review in The New York Times Review of Books. He developed the idea even further away from Max and the Cats. While Scliar's novel was an extended holocaust allegory, Martel envisioned his story as a witty, whimsical, and mysterious meditation on zoology and theology. Unlike Max Schmidt, Pi Patel would, indeed, be the son of a zookeeper. Martel would, however, retain the shipwrecked-with-beasts theme from Max and the Cats. During an ocean exodus from India to Canada, the ship sinks and Pi finds himself stranded on a lifeboat with such unlikely shipmates as a zebra, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.
The resulting novel, Life of Pi, became the smash-hit for which Martel had been longing. Selling well over a million copies and receiving the accolades of Book Magazine, Publisher's Weekly, Library Journal, and, yes, The New York Times Review of Books, Life of Pi has been published in over 40 countries and territories, in over 30 languages. It is currently in production by Fox Studios with a script by master-of-whimsy Jean-Pierre Jeunet (City of Lost Children; Amélie) and directorial duties to be handled by Alfonso Cuarón (Y tu mamá también; Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban).
Martel is now working on his third novel, a bizarrely allegorical adventure about a donkey and a monkey that travel through a fantastical world... on a shirt. Well, at least no one will ever accuse him of borrowing that premise from any other writer.
When he isn't penning modern masterpieces, Martel spends much of his time volunteering in a palliative care unit.
My suffering left me sad and gloomy.
Academic study and the steady, mindful practice of religion slowly brought me back to life. I have remained a faithful Hindu, Christian and Muslim. I decided to stay in Toronto. After one year of high school, I attended the University of Toronto and took a double-major Bachelor's degree. My majors were religious studies and zoology. My fourth-year thesis for religious studies concerned certain aspects of the cosmogony theory of Isaac Luria, the great sixteenth-century Kabbalist from Safed. My zoology thesis was a functional analysis of the thyroid gland of the three-toed sloth. I chose the sloth because its demeanour-calm, quiet and introspective-did something to soothe my shattered self.
There are two-toed sloths and there are three-toed sloths, the case being determined by the forepaws of the animals, since all sloths have three claws on their hind paws. I had the great luck one summer of studying the three-toed sloth in situ in the equatorial jungles of Brazil. It is a highly intriguing creature. Its only real habit is indolence. It sleeps or rests on average twenty hours a day. Our team tested the sleep habits of five wild three-toed sloths by placing on their heads, in the early evening after they had fallen asleep, bright red plastic dishes filledwith water. We found them still in place late the next morning, the water of the dishes swarming with insects. The sloth is at its busiest at sunset, using the word busy here in a most relaxed sense. It moves along the bough of a tree in its characteristic upside-down position at the speed of roughly 400 metres an hour. On the ground, it crawls to its next tree at the rate of 250 metres an hour, when motivated, which is 440 times slower than a motivated cheetah. Unmotivated, it covers four to five metres in an hour.
The three-toed sloth is not well informed about the outside world. On a scale of 2 to 10, where 2 represents unusual dullness and 10 extreme acuity, Beebe (1926) gave the sloth's senses of taste, touch, sight and hearing a rating of 2, and its sense of smell a rating of 3. If you come upon a sleeping three-toed sloth in the wild, two or three nudges should suffice to awaken it; it will then look sleepily in every direction but yours. Why it should look about is uncertain since the sloth sees everything in a Magoo-like blur. As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound. Beebe reported that firing guns next to sleeping or feeding sloths elicited little reaction. And the sloth's slightly better sense of smell should not be overestimated. They are said to be able to sniff and avoid decayed branches, but Bullock (1968) reported that sloths fall to the ground clinging to decayed branches "often".
How does it survive, you might ask.
Precisely by being so slow. Sleepiness and slothfulness keep it out of harm's way, away from the notice of jaguars, ocelots, harpy eagles and anacondas. A sloth's hairs shelter an algae that is brown during the dry season and green during the wet season, so the animal blends in with the surrounding moss and foliage and looks like a nest of white ants or of squirrels, or like nothing at all but part of a tree.
The three-toed sloth lives a peaceful, vegetarian life in perfect harmony with its environment. "A good-natured smile is forever on its lips," reported Tirler (1966). I have seen that smile with my own eyes. I am not one given to projecting human traits and emotions onto animals, but many a time during that month in Brazil, looking up at sloths in repose, I felt I was in the presence of upside-down yogis deep in meditation or hermits deep in prayer, wise beings whose intense imaginative lives were beyond the reach of my scientific probing.
Sometimes I got my majors mixed up. A number of my fellow religious-studies students-muddled agnostics who didn't know which way was up, in the thrall of reason, that fool's gold for the bright-reminded me of the three-toed sloth; and the three-toed sloth, such a beautiful example of the miracle of life, reminded me of God.
I never had problems with my fellow scientists. Scientists are a friendly, atheistic, hard-working, beer-drinking lot whose minds are preoccupied with sex, chess and baseball when they are not preoccupied with science.
I was a very good student, if I may say so myself. I was tops at St. Michael's College four years in a row. I got every possible student award from the Department of Zoology. If I got none from the Department of Religious Studies, it is simply because there are no student awards in this department (the rewards of religious study are not in mortal hands, we all know that). I would have received the Governor General's Academic Medal, the University of Toronto's highest undergraduate award, of which no small number of illustrious Canadians have been recipients, were it not for a beef-eating pink boy with a neck like a tree trunk and a temperament of unbearable good cheer.
I still smart a little at the slight. When you've suffered a great deal in life, each additional pain is both unbearable and trifling. My life is like a memento mori painting from European art: there is always a grinning skull at my side to remind me of the folly of human ambition. I mock this skull. I look at it and I say, "You've got the wrong fellow. You may not believe in life, but I don't believe in death. Move on!" The skull snickers and moves ever closer, but that doesn't surprise me. The reason death sticks so closely to life isn't biological necessity-it's envy. Life is so beautiful that death has fallen in love with it, a jealous, possessive love that grabs at what it can. But life leaps over oblivion lightly, losing only a thing or two of no importance, and gloom is but the passing shadow of a cloud. The pink boy also got the nod from the Rhodes Scholarship committee. I love him and I hope his time at Oxford was a rich experience. If Lakshmi, goddess of wealth, one day favours me bountifully, Oxford is fifth on the list of cities I would like to visit before I pass on, after Mecca, Varanasi, Jerusalem and Paris.
I have nothing to say of my working life, only that a tie is a noose, and inverted though it is, it will hang a man nonetheless if he's not careful.
I love Canada. I miss the heat of India, the food, the house lizards on the walls, the musicals on the silver screen, the cows wandering the streets, the crows cawing, even the talk of cricket matches, but I love Canada. It is a great country much too cold for good sense, inhabited by compassionate, intelligent people with bad hairdos. Anyway, I have nothing to go home to in Pondicherry.
Richard Parker has stayed with me. I've never forgotten him. Dare I say I miss him? I do. I miss him. I still see him in my dreams. They are nightmares mostly, but nightmares tinged with love. Such is the strangeness of the human heart. I still cannot understand how he could abandon me so unceremoniously, without any sort of goodbye, without looking back even once. That pain is like an axe that chops at my heart.
The doctors and nurses at the hospital in Mexico were incredibly kind to me. And the patients, too. Victims of cancer or car accidents, once they heard my story, they hobbled and wheeled over to see me, they and their families, though none of them spoke English and I spoke no Spanish. They smiled at me, shook my hand, patted me on the head, left gifts of food and clothing on my bed. They moved me to uncontrollable fits of laughing and crying.
Within a couple of days I could stand, even make two, three steps, despite nausea, dizziness and general weakness. Blood tests revealed that I was anemic, and that my level of sodium was very high and my potassium low. My body retained fluids and my legs swelled up tremendously. I looked as if I had been grafted with a pair of elephant legs. My urine was a deep, dark yellow going on to brown. After a week or so, I could walk just about normally and I could wear shoes if I didn't lace them up. My skin healed, though I still have scars on my shoulders and back.
The first time I turned a tap on, its noisy, wasteful, superabundant gush was such a shock that I became incoherent and my legs collapsed beneath me and I fainted in the arms of a nurse.
The first time I went to an Indian restaurant in Canada I used my fingers. The waiter looked at me critically and said, "Fresh off the boat, are you?" I blanched. My fingers, which a second before had been taste buds savouring the food a little ahead of my mouth, became dirty under his gaze. They froze like criminals caught in the act. I didn't dare lick them. I wiped them guiltily on my napkin. He had no idea how deeply those words wounded me. They were like nails being driven into my flesh. I picked up the knife and fork. I had hardly ever used such instruments. My hands trembled. My sambar lost its taste.
Continues...
Excerpted from Life of Pi by Yann Martel Copyright © 2003 by Yann Martel. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
1. As Pi’s father says, when he is explaining the ferocity of the zoo animals to his sons, “Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.” In what ways does Pi defend himself in this novel?
2. With his stories about zoos and zoology, Pi teaches us that the ability to adapt is crucial not only to animals but to humans, and is rooted in the will to survive. How do Pi’s theories of zoo-keeping play out on the lifeboat? Does Pi go through a transformation on his journey? What does he learn?
3. Our author discovers the story of Pi Patel after an elderly man in an Indian coffee house tells him, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” As a young man, Pi shocks his family and local religious officials by embracing Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, and sees no reason to pick just one. And on the lifeboat, it is God that Pi turns to in his despair. Discuss the role of religion, and religious stories, in this novel.
4. When Pi meets with the Japanese officials at the end of his journey and tells them his story, they do not believe him and ask what really happened. Pi provides them with a new story, one of “dry, yeastless factuality,” without animals, and then asks which one they prefer. Discuss the nature of storytelling and belief in relation to Life of Pi, and to life.
5. “As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.” “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” As a story of death, loss, fear and destruction, Life of Pi has at its heart a number of very tragic events. However, oneof the most pervasive elements of the novel is its very matter-of-fact humour. Why do you think this is? What is the effect on you, as a reader?
6. Near the end of Life of Pi, Pi and Richard Parker come ashore on a free-floating island comprised entirely of algae and inhabited only by many, many meerkats. Why does Pi decide to leave the island? What is the significance of this story? Is there a difference between survival and life?
7. Whereas the bulk of this novel is told by Pi Patel — “in his voice and through his eyes,” our author tells us — we also see the current-day Pi through the eyes of the author, and read “excerpts from the verbatim transcript” of the young Pi’s interview with the Japanese officials. Why? Discuss the effect of and possible reasons for the narrative structure of this novel.
8. The Author’s Note ends with a what seems to be a call to arms: “If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.” In reviews of Life of Pi, Yann Martel has been equally and abundantly praised for his realism and his great imagination. Do you see a conflict between these approaches to writing fiction? What is the role of “truth” in fiction?
9. In Life of Pi we know Richard Parker to be a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger mistakenly named after the hunter who captured him, and Pi’s companion during his seven months at sea. But there are further nautical stories involving Richard Parkers, outside of this book: Edgar Allan Poe’s Richard Parker was eaten by his shipmates in the novel The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, a real-life cabin boy named Richard Parker was eaten by his fellow castaways after the sinking of the Mignonette in the 1870s, and so on. Who is Richard Parker? Why might Yann Martel have chosen the name Richard Parker for this tiger, and this novel? Discuss the importance of names, and naming, in Life of Pi.
1. As Pi’s father says, when he is explaining the ferocity of the zoo animals to his sons, “Life will defend itself no matter how small it is.” In what ways does Pi defend himself in this novel?
2. With his stories about zoos and zoology, Pi teaches us that the ability to adapt is crucial not only to animals but to humans, and is rooted in the will to survive. How do Pi’s theories of zoo-keeping play out on the lifeboat? Does Pi go through a transformation on his journey? What does he learn?
3. Our author discovers the story of Pi Patel after an elderly man in an Indian coffee house tells him, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” As a young man, Pi shocks his family and local religious officials by embracing Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam, and sees no reason to pick just one. And on the lifeboat, it is God that Pi turns to in his despair. Discuss the role of religion, and religious stories, in this novel.
4. When Pi meets with the Japanese officials at the end of his journey and tells them his story, they do not believe him and ask what really happened. Pi provides them with a new story, one of “dry, yeastless factuality,” without animals, and then asks which one they prefer. Discuss the nature of storytelling and belief in relation to Life of Pi, and to life.
5. “As for hearing, the sloth is not so much deaf as uninterested in sound.” “To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.” As a story of death, loss, fear and destruction, Life of Pi has at its heart a number of very tragic events. However, one of the most pervasive elements of the novel is its very matter-of-fact humour. Why do you think this is? What is the effect on you, as a reader?
6. Near the end of Life of Pi, Pi and Richard Parker come ashore on a free-floating island comprised entirely of algae and inhabited only by many, many meerkats. Why does Pi decide to leave the island? What is the significance of this story? Is there a difference between survival and life?
7. Whereas the bulk of this novel is told by Pi Patel — “in his voice and through his eyes,” our author tells us — we also see the current-day Pi through the eyes of the author, and read “excerpts from the verbatim transcript” of the young Pi’s interview with the Japanese officials. Why? Discuss the effect of and possible reasons for the narrative structure of this novel.
8. The Author’s Note ends with a what seems to be a call to arms: “If we, citizens, do not support our artists, then we sacrifice our imagination on the altar of crude reality and we end up believing in nothing and having worthless dreams.” In reviews of Life of Pi, Yann Martel has been equally and abundantly praised for his realism and his great imagination. Do you see a conflict between these approaches to writing fiction? What is the role of “truth” in fiction?
9. In Life of Pi we know Richard Parker to be a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger mistakenly named after the hunter who captured him, and Pi’s companion during his seven months at sea. But there are further nautical stories involving Richard Parkers, outside of this book: Edgar Allan Poe’s Richard Parker was eaten by his shipmates in the novel The Adventures of Arthur Gordon Pym, a real-life cabin boy named Richard Parker was eaten by his fellow castaways after the sinking of the Mignonette in the 1870s, and so on. Who is Richard Parker? Why might Yann Martel have chosen the name Richard Parker for this tiger, and this novel? Discuss the importance of names, and naming, in Life of Pi.
Anonymous
Posted October 27, 2009
"As an aside, story of sole survivor, Mr. Piscine Molitor Patel, Indian citizen, is an astounding story of courage and endurance in the face of extraordinarily difficult and tragic circumstances." This quote, taken from the end of Life of Pi by Yann Martel, easily summarizes this great novel. Piscine Patel, also known as Pi, endures a trying journey through the Pacific Ocean. After living in a zoo for most of his life, his family decides to move to Canada in the hopes of a new start. During their travel, however, a violent storm hits their boat, and they eventually sink - along with many animals brought on board to be sold in North America. Pi takes refuge on a lifeboat, stranded with a Bengal tiger, a zebra, a hyena, and an orangutan. Before long, Pi and Richard Parker - the Bengal tiger - are all who remain. Pi must survive for many months in the ocean, praying to be rescued.
During the course of his journey, Pi eventually comes upon an uninhabited island. Here, he begins to restore his strength by exercising and feeding on delicious algae and fish. However, like most things, there is a terrible drawback: the island turns out to be acidic. During the night, the algae releases an acid that slowly but surely devours everything. Personally, I greatly enjoyed this part of the novel. It was engrossing and unbelievably creative. The idea of this 'carnivorous' island thrilled me, and even managed to frighten me.
Also, Pi faces many challenges during his everyday life on the boat. Imagine living for 227 days on a lifeboat with a hungry, 450 pound Bengal tiger, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Yann Martel wrote wonderfully from Pi's perspective, capturing the hopelessness, the terror, and even the madness that Pi went through. The author wrote beautifully, with fantastic descriptions and a simply amazing plot.
Lastly, I particularly enjoyed the religious debate captured within the beginning of the book. Pi is a highly religious young man, who simply wishes to love God however he can - and truly does. Born into Buddhism, Pi also devotes himself to being a Christian and Muslim. The beginning novel deals with much of the criticism that Pi must face for being multi-religious, and includes many intelligent debates on religion in general. Pi continues his three-religion practice even after being shipwrecked, believing that God would help and save him. Even though I am not religious myself, I found this to be beautiful and very interesting.
In conclusion, Life of Pi by Yann Martel is a fascinating tale of the human will. No matter the odds or difficulties, Pi continues to struggle on, continues to live. The author intoned this book with hope, courage, and the beauty of life. Suspense fills the pages, and I found it hard to put the book down. I found it to be a highly enjoyable read, and recommend it to all.
25 out of 26 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.danja
Posted March 18, 2012
I Also Recommend:
Very well written. I enjoyed this story. would recommend.
19 out of 19 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.soccerstar4ever
Posted December 8, 2008
In Life of Pi by Yann Martel, Mr. Martel gives an detailed account of the survival of a boy named Pi. He was ship wrecked and thrown over board into a lifeboat on the Pacific Ocean. He had to survive 227 day¿s in the company of a Bengal tiger. He was frightened and did not know what to do. Growing up he was taught a lot about tigers because his father was a zookeeper. He had a small understanding of tiger behaviors, and
how to control them. The author Yann likes to drag out every detail which
puts the book in a boring mode. His over all thought in this book was that anything is possible with the help of God. Yann likes to show you in this book that survival is not rocket science. You only have to trust in God and believe that all things are possible.
I believe without the tiger Pi would not have survived. With the tiger he had to come up with ways to train him. Without the tiger, Pi would have not used his brain as much to keep his sanity. You have to use your brain a lot in order to survive desperate situations.
I found the way Mr. Martel expresses his moral values that anything is possible with the help of God is a very intelligent way to push ahead. He does not tell you the moral, he simply makes you believe it whether you like it or not. Like the book hook reads, it can make you believe in God. Pi loves his family and when he losses them in the boat crash he does not know if he will ever see them again. He is not sure how he is going
to handle this change, let alone survive on his own. We all know change is hard, but for Pi it is even harder. How would you feel if you had to live on a small raft with a tiger stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? Pi defiantly does a good job of surviving and it is very interesting to read everything he does while stranded.
From fishing, to training the tiger, to catching a turtle and straddling it. He defiantly floats on a journey of a life time. Yann is right on everything he is trying to get across to the reader. I do not think he does a good job of it though because he loses your interest after awhile. He needs to keep it more interesting to grip the reader and want him to continue the book. He puts too much time into the ocean survival of pi and this draws out the book to a boring end.
11 out of 26 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.One of the best books I've read in a long time! I highly recommend it. Martel's writing style is wonderful, and I firmly agree with the quote on the front of the book: "Life of Pi is a real adventure...It's difficult to stop reading when the pages run out.." I didn't want this book to end. I wanted to know more about Pi. LOVE THIS BOOK!
8 out of 8 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted January 27, 2009
Life of Pi is a book about a young child name Piscine Patel, who describes his life as a child living in a Zoo and his different types or adventures and facts that he knew. He knows everything about an animal the way they act and the way they eat and interact with other animals. The book is a great story for ages 15 and older because the book gets pretty graphic in some parts. The book overall is different because is talks about Pi believing in 3 different religions which overall is about over 30 different gods. He is a Muslim, Hindu, and Christian in this movie which is impossible. The book was great and really pulled me in because of the detail and one can feel part of the book due to all the detail.
Life of Pi was a great book due to the author Yann Martel¿s detail who can basically make the reader be a part of the book through is sophisticated adjectives and interesting dialogue. One part of the book that was really well written was the scene in the church. In which Pi enters and describes the area around him from color to the amount of doors. Also the dialogue between Pi and the pastor was interesting because the Pastor says that Pi is Christian due to Jesus being in his soul and his belief in Jesus. Pi then goes on to talk about his time in a Muslim area of India in which he meets the leader of the Mosque the Imam who tells him all about the religion. Then Pi is then turned into a Muslim but at the same time he is Hindu and Christian which is impossible due to the fact the each religion prohibits certain things to another one. Such as Islam prohibiting the worshipping of idols but Hinduism you must. Just this section of the book will get you hooked, because you may think to yourself ¿How is this possible?¿
Life of Pi was a great book and never got boring especially at the end. The reason this book was never boring was because of the end, it just kept me hook due to all of the challenges Pi had to face in order to live. He had to live with 3 wild animals on one boat which I¿ve never read about in any other book. However the detail again never gets so vivid describing Pi¿s emotion as he is stranded at sea with 3 animals that are just as hungry as him. It then describes Pi¿s methods of survival. This part of the book was just amazing due to its detail and its way to pull any reader in who just wants to read a good book.
Life of Pi is a book I¿d give 5 out 5 on because it was just an amazing book because of Yann Martel and what he was able to do by using very well written language.
4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Mr.Bezuk
Posted December 5, 2008
People either seem to love this book or not care at all. I liked it a great deal and found it to be entertaining and thought provoking. I think that the degree to which you believe Pi's second story of his events is the degree to which you are a pessimist.
4 out of 6 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.USCGuy
Posted April 9, 2010
I picked up Life of Pi after a good friend recommended I read the book. This book is one of the few books that I nearly read through in one sitting, and then later re-read at a slower, more leisurely pace.
Yann Martel immerses his readers in an exotic, yet familiar setting of a zoo in India, and then takes you on a wild journey across the world.
The key question that my friend asked to me to consider after I finished reading, and which I have posed to other friends that I encouraged to read this book, is which story do you believe - fantasy or 'reality'?
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted November 13, 2009
The novel that I read entitled Life of Pi was a very interesting novel. The novel started with talking about his life at his father's zoo in India. The book talked a lot about his religious life and the conflicts he had with different beliefs. This is a reoccurring theme throughout the book. After a while spent on this subject, the family decides to travel to Canada to start a new life there. During the journey, the ship they are traveling on sinks, leaving Pi alone in a lifeboat with a male tiger from their zoo. The two of them end up being on the lifeboat for several months, with no help. They suffer thirst, hunger, and many other illnesses while out at sea. In one instance both of them become blind from some sort of an illness, but they recover. After being out at sea for a while, they come upon and island of grass and trees inhabited by meerkats and stay there for a while. After Pi realizes the island is dangerous, he leaves quickly. They stay at sea for a few more days before landing in Mexico where the book ends with Pi telling his story to two reporters who are trying to find out why the ship sunk. One important event in the book was at the very end when Pi was telling his story to the reporters. The reporters originally did not believe the story that Pi told to them. So Pi changed the story to include humans for the animals that were previously aboard the boat. The way Pi told his story this time very much grieved the reporters and they changed their minds about his story. This shows how Pi felt about this life changing event. Another significant event in the book was when the tiger was about to devour Pi. However Pi used his brains and wit to keep the tiger from attacking and eating him. He did this by reading an instruction manual aboard the boat that showed him how to keep the tiger from attacking him. This enabled him to keep alive during the entire trip showing the powers of his remarkable brain. Some of the content in this book was grueling, (for example when he ate some of the animals raw) but overall it was very interesting. This was an amazing story of human perseverance and survival. I am not sure when the time setting of the book was supposed to be, but it may have been back in the early 1900's or so. The book never did give a clear statement of what the time frame was. The language of the book was very straightforward and easy to understand. Whenever there was a language change, (which there was) the book would say what was said in English. Also there were some parts in the book that were hard to understand at the beginning, but you just have to keep reading to get the idea of what the book is about. Overall the book's value was very good. It taught a lot about perseverance; although I don't agree with the religious message the author was trying to get across.
3 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Mata-Reader
Posted December 18, 2008
I Also Recommend:
The Life of Pi, an amazing, award winning story by author Yann Martel. It is rich with details about the main character's life, his adventures, and his trials. What an immaculate fictional read.
The main Character is Pi Patel, a man from India, now living in Canada. He has different views on beliefs like, Christianity, Hinduism, and Islam. Though quoted, he just want's to, "Love God." He tried every single one, but was really affected by all in the end. The first part of the story is told from Pi Patel as an older man, no older than 40. It is from the view of his early life. Where he discovered his beliefs, and he talks about the environment he was raised and taught in. This part of the book is probably one of the most sensitive parts in any book, what he thinks about religion, and the ways of life are really something. It really makes you think about youself, and what you are like. As well as being very sensitive, Life of Pi also has many funny references and also many freaky references, like experiencing cannibalism! He looks at animals to compare them to life as well, the sloth is one of them. He quotes that the reason they survive so well is because of the fact that they move so slow that they are not seen. They have mosses that grow on their backs to camoflouge them. I think that he is reffering to the fact that some people move through life so slowly, and so quitely, that they are basically invisble to others. Yet to break that serious mold he talks about how they need to find branches to grab on to, and that they can sniff out the decaying branches...yet, there are many sloths found on the ground clinging to decayed branches! As seen it is a smart and serious paragraph, meant to make you think and then once you have thought, you either get it or not, and you move on!
The second part of the, Life of Pi, is another well-written part of the book, basically talking about what you see on the cover, a young, Indian boy lost at sea with a Tiger. The points that really grab you are the points that are somewhat false, yet true. For example, the whole premise of surviving with a Tiger that does not have any food is insane, yet it is a zoo Tiger, but once it is out of it's pampered cage, and in the big blue ocean with a little boy, as well as a couple of other animals in the boat, what happens after it "takes care of" the other animals. In this book, the Tiger's actions are mightily false. Yet, it does show you that we can live in harmony with our wildlife. One point to bring across is that, no matter a viscious wild tiger, or human being, show them that you have some guts, and will only use them if need be, and they will humble themselves to youm as shown by the bond between the Tiger and Pi.
The, Life of Pi is a tale of lessons, survival, and trials, and I have not covered all of the topics, but if you want to find out about the others, and find out more about this amazing book...get it yourself, and enjoy.
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.I picked up this book on a whim before a vacation. Never hearing of Yann Martel I didn't have huge expectations for Life of Pi. I was dumb to think that way. Right from the begining Life of Pi blew me away. It is so original. The main thing I liked about it was how much you feel for the characters. You are gripped into the plot. Yann Martel is a great auther. All of his books make you think. Life of Pi examines life in a very unique way. I would reccomend this to readers the ages of 16+ because a couple scenes are pretty graphic and the way it makes you think can be pretty heavy.
2 out of 3 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted October 20, 2008
Imagine being stuck on a life boat with a full grown Bengal tiger for two-thirds of a year. Does that bring some scary images into your mind? Well, this is what happened to a sixteen year old boy from Pondicherry, India in Yann Martel¿s book Life of Pi. Piscine Molitor Patel, also known as Pi, is stuck on a life boat with a full grown male Bengal tiger for 227 days and comes across a carnivorous island and another person stranded in the vast seas and much more in this excellent book.
In this fiction book Yann Martel makes it seem almost like book store has made a mistake when they say it is a fiction biography and not a biography. Making the perfect addition to add to its realism, Yann Martel added an author¿s note to open the plot of the story. With his meeting Pi and getting the story from him in the author¿s note, Yann Martel has written a book that will almost make you believe in God. I believe Yann Martel was trying to show human possibilities, and in this story he did an excellent job in showing this.
With Pi¿s ¿carnivorous man-eating island¿ encounter, Yann Martel does a very good job on showing the possibilities of things that are out there that have not be discovered. The seaweed that produces fresh water and the aquatic meerkats on the carnivorous island are the first parts of the book that you realize this is not an actual biography but a fictional one.
With Yann Martel¿s probability factors, anything can happen, and it does. At the time when Pi goes blind from lack of enough necessities, he meets another blind man stuck in a life boat with no necessities in the middle of the Atlantic or Indian Ocean. Martel somehow manages to still make this probability of zero believable.
In my opinion, Yann Martel did an amazing job on providing an adventurous story and showing the human possibilities when knowing nothing from fishing to taming tigers but still being able to survive in un-real odds. Yann Martel has done everything in this book from the most believable to seeming like the most un-realistic yet realistic when everything is made as though it was written by Piscine Molitor Patel himself.
Yann Martel¿s Life of Pi is a must read. From the author¿s note to the carnivorous island Life of Pi is one of the best books I have read.
Spaulding Basham
2 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.germangerm
Posted December 23, 2011
I highly recommend this book.It is an adventurous,thought-provoking and highly entertaining read.
I have noticed that most people don't understand the ending of this book. When Pi, after having survived the grueling journey with the tiger as his "shipmate", is interviewed by the insurance company, it turns out that there was no tiger at all. In fact the tiger was a person, as were the other two animals initially in the lifeboat. Pi turned them into fictive animals, because even in the aftermath of his journey, he could not deal with the reality of the situation and stay sane(that is my understanding)This is the final surprise (like a punch in the stomach) of this book; it made me want to read it all over again, from this new-and infinitely more cruel- perspective. This book is anything but boring!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.RockyRo0
Posted May 17, 2010
I Also Recommend:
Life of Pi is proclaimed to be a "book to make you believe in God". And for the discerning mind, it certainly can be. Yann Martel created something special in this book-- something greater than the simple plot (boy lost at sea with tiger on lifeboat), and more far-reaching than its main characters (the boy. the tiger.). Through the well-formed frame narrative, Martel forces us to decide, along with the characters, if fiction is worth believing.
Beyond that, his writing is witty and poetic. I found myself laughing all through the book!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Lalaith
Posted May 9, 2010
This remains one of my favorite books. It's one of the most moving books I have ever read and completely original. The author is amazing, combining certain aspects of himself with the character and keeping the book moving at a lighthearted but serious pace. It's dramatic and moving and it teaches you a lot about faith (you'll probably find yourself quoting this book several times a day). It is so touching- his style is earnest, wholesome and truly gets you to think about things.
You'll love the character, you'll love the plot, and you'll love the powerfully simple insights made. It's beautiful and you will fall in love with the main character and be depressed when the book is over. Fear not, though, it's always there to return to on rainy days. :)
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Swimshorty
Posted December 13, 2009
This book was very good and taught you many lesson. Some of the lesson Life of Pi teaches you surviving, faith and strength. Life of Pi is about a 16 year old boy who is named Piscine Patel (PI). Pi gets stranded in the middle of the Pacific Ocean with an adult Bengal tiger. This Bengal tigers name is Richard Parker. Pi was on the Tsimtsum, a Japanese ship with his family and there zoo. His family was taking some of their animals from the zoo to America. Pi was the only one who survived in his family. Pi and Richard Parker survived for 227 days on a life boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Pi did whatever it took to survive. Pi became very dehydrated and weak he even became partial blind because he was so dehydrated. He also went through many problems along the way. At first Pi thought that he would be eaten for sure, the animal that he thought would eat him would be the Bengal tiger Richard Parker. As it turns out Richard Parker did not eat him he was just trying to survive just like Pi. On the boat in there was a Bengal tiger, zebra, an orangutan, and a hyena. Pi thought that the hyena would defiantly eat him once he was done eating the orangutan and the zebra, but Richard Parker ate it. Pi then started to make a life raft out of life vest and stays on the raft for sometime before he reached a Mexican beach. If he wouldn't have not found this beach he would have defiantly died. Here the Mexican nurses nursed him back to health. Richard Parker and Pi were very tough survivors. I love this book because it taught me many lesson that I can use in life. Pi was very strong emotionally, if he would not have been so positive then I think that he would not have survived because he would have torn himself down and would not even have tried to survive. Also Pi at first had many religions and practiced them all he still did what he could on the boat. He went into this not believing in God. I think that he would not have been able to survive if it was not for God. I believe God was the one who gave him the strength to keep on going. I think that everyone should read this book it will be well worth your time.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted May 6, 2009
I thought this was a really interesting worthwhile read so anybody who likes books with adventures should read this!
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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Posted December 11, 2008
Imagine yourself sleeping then all of a sudden you get woken up by a bang you go outside from your room in the boat and its raining, next thing you know somebody has thrown you up onto a lifeboat and your in the ocean with a hyena. Now that usually doesn¿t happen to us but something that does happen sooner or later you will lose your family. As Pi Patel finally realized what was going on he went back to get his family but once he went down the hall it was flooded with water and he knew that he couldn¿t save his family but then once he was in the lifeboat he had hope that his family was still alive wondering where he was. He lost his family in harsher conditions but he still felt that he should stay alive to share his story. Another thing that happened was when the sailor threw him in the lifeboat, Pi thought the sailor was saving him but then he finally realized that the sailor threw him in the lifeboat so that the hyena would eat him and would jump out so that everybody else could get on the lifeboat. Now it doesn¿t seem like this happens to us but once you take out the hyena, the lifeboat, and the sinking of the boat. The sailor threw Pi only thinking of his life. We do this when we make fun of people and when we gossip or even cutting them off on the road. We don¿t think about the others persons feelings. The book I read was Life of Pi by Yann Martel.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Mrs.Cullen14
Posted December 6, 2008
Life of Pi is the story of a boy and his amazing adventure in the religious world, the animal kingdom, and the human civilization. It is a very interesting story of survival in the most impossible conditions. He is from India but the story does not begin there, it begins with an authors note explaining how he, the author, came across this man who told him that he would tell him a story that ¿would make you believe in god¿. Piscine was from Pondicherry, India, but this book is written in an interview way so he first recalls what he studied and how he felt when he first moved to Canada. Afterward Pi talks about his family, how he got his name, and his love for animals. Pi later tells his journey of his religious search in Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam and how he practiced all three. His father decides to move to Canada with the animals and their family because of the political actions being taken in India. When the ship they were traveling in sinks, Pi is left in a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and a Bengal tiger. After time passes, only Pi and the tiger are left and they must endure many difficulties in order to survive.
One important event that happens in the story is when Pi talks with his biology teacher, Mr. Kumar. This is important because it is the first time Pi questions his religious beliefs, Mr. Kumar was an atheist. This makes him think about the different religions which lead him into learning two more besides Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. Another event that is important to the story is when he is thrown overboard by the Chinese when the boat was sinking. This part is important because, if it had not been for that act, Pi probably wouldn¿t have been able to survive the disaster.
This book is really detailed and graphic. It has many interesting facts and I liked the way the author wrote them in a humorous way. One example of that is when he is talking about how animals are territorial and how some people think that they are freeing them, when they really weren¿t. He gives the situation of someone going into your house and kicking you out the front door saying ¿Go! You are free! Free as a bird! Go! Go!¿ and how the people would respond to that. Life of Pi is an interesting book that anyone who wants to ¿believe in god¿ should read.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Kudos to Yann for taking The out of the title and just starting with the word Life. It sounds a lot more engaging that way. And kudos to my wife for convincing me to read this. She bought it a good half a year before I even heard of it and she read it on her flight to Hawaii and came back raving about it and I gave her the `whatever, I am already reading really good stuff so nyah!¿ roll of the eye. And then, my pile of good stuff ran empty and I found myself scrounging my house for a read like a junkie needing a fix and all there was in the house was this book. So I picked it up and oh boy am I glad I did!
Imagine a young boy, a young East Indian boy who is so religious that not any single religion seems to be enough. Hinduism is not enough. So he adopts Christianity and Islam as well and he keeps up with all the rituals and all the prayers and everything that his pastor/mentor/priest/whatever expects of him while living with his family in a zoo, because zoo-keeping is the family business. Well then, one day due to hardships they decide to move to Canada and they pack all the animals and get on a big ship.
The ship sinks, everybody dies.
Everybody except for young Pi, who finds himself in a lifeboat with a few other crew mates, namely an aggressive hyena, a sea-sick orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and an honest to goodness Bengal friggin¿ tiger. Needless to say, one by one lives are being lost in the raft and help is not on its way. Soon enough it is down to the boy and the tiger.
¿This raft¿is not big enough for the two of us.¿
That¿s not a quote from the book, I am just saying, it gets really interesting with some of the most cleverly written and amusing insight and heartfelt moments I have read on paper. This one, ladies and gents, is a buy, not just a run to your library so you can drop it back off later. Don¿t be stingy.
1 out of 2 people found this review helpful.
Was this review helpful? Yes NoThank you for your feedback. Report this reviewThank you, this review has been flagged.Anonymous
Posted March 16, 2008
First i will say that this is truly one of the most original novels I have read in my lifetime. This has to be one of the best book club books ever and believe it should be discussed in high school and college philosophy/ theology classes. I am almost 50 yrs old and i have read thousands of books but this is the first one I ever started rereading as soon as I was finished. Martels writing style is subtle and funny. Pi is a teen with a restless searching soul born into a secular indian family. He feels a hunger for religion so he befriends holy men of many faiths including the pragmatic athiest. Pi finds beauty and wisdom in them all. One of the funniest parts of the story is when he is confronted with all of these religious wisemen and they bicker over his soul. As the boys oddysee unfolds he becomes a true survivor on his own terms and finds little practical use for all the theology he studied. The author makes no judgements and leaves the 'fable' open to ones own personal interpretation. THIS IS WHY I LOVE THIS BOOK...It makes you think...it challenges your beliefs, values whatever. I think the people who trashed the book just don't get it. The irony is so profoundly brilliant. Readers should not perceive this story so literally. Its packed with symbolic mysticism and skillfully imagined metaphore. I read this book 4 years ago twice and i think its time I read it again. Up there with Moby Dick and Old Man and the Sea.
1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.
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LendMe™
Overview
Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for FictionPi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, ...