This depressed me when i saw the movie and it depressed me when i read the story. Still depicted as a religious story which I've never got true fully. the story is a wild escape across the ocean from a sinking ship. only half the tale is after the ship sunk the rest is the setup. so on top of everything it's a slow burner. the final wrap-up depressed me the most but was the only part that needed reading IMO. i never connect with Pi as a whole. Even him as a tiger!

"It's important in life to conclude things properly. Only then can you let go. Otherwise, you are left with words you should have said but never did, and your heart is heavy with remorse."
― Yann Martel, Life of Pi

I have struggled to write this review. Not because I didn’t love Life of Pi, because I absolutely did, but because it is difficult to put into words where this incredible tale has taken me.

Throughout the reading, I have found myself utterly horrified and fascinated in equal measure. I can honestly say I’ve never pondered life, religion, survival - and how far a human can be pushed - as deeply as I have since I began my journey with Piscine Molitor Patel. I questioned faith and contemplated how far it could carry someone who's hanging on by a thread. I asked myself if I could have survived even half of what Pi had endured? Probably not, but who knows how strong the will to live is until it's put to the test? This is undoubtedly a book that gave me pause for thought.

Nature is as volatile as it is beautiful and, as an animal lover, I must warn those who might be disturbed by scenes of savagery (i.e. the natural order of life and death as it exists in the animal kingdom).
This story is dazzling, funny, gruesome, allegorical and altogether unforgettable.
Life of Pi is a powerful read.

One of those books that sat on my shelf for ages before I finally got around to reading it, and I don't know why I waited so long. This book is an adventure story, but there's so much more to it than that. I loved seeing the world through Pi's eyes, and especially reading his thoughts on things like animals and religion. The writing is sophisticated but easily readable, and the story is a perfect mixture of action and emotional intensity. The ending is amazing and I loved that the author left it up to the reader's interpretation. I know I'm going to be thinking about this book for a long time to come.

ليست رواية قدر ماهي رحلة روحية..رحلة البحث عن الذات..و الله

والفيلم المقتبس عنها ليس مجرد مؤثرات وتمثيل..بل لوحة فنية قدمت جزء من روحانية الرواية بشكل فني بديع

لذا لا تكتفي بواحدة وتترك الأخري
It's One big journey into the Pacific Ocean.
Just you ,an Indian small boy and a royal Bengal Tiger.


But before you're thrown to that small life boat into the wide ocean...you learn so much about your companion Indian boy.. his curiosity about Life, the Creator, Ultimate Reality, Brahman, God ,Allah..

Little Pi picked the best and the greatest manners of every religion ; Hinduism,Christianity, and Islam..

His life in the quite Indian small city 'Pondicherry' which was -for me- the best part of the book with its spiritual events, the zoo beautifully,amazingly colorful illustrated by words described in the first Part of the novel.


But That was calm before the storm and the events of the Part 2 where you stick at that boat with them as I've said before..
So hard those 227,boring sometimes, bit disgusting but most of the time thrilling and exciting..
Into a wondrous ocean.. amazing life, tense with a wild tiger..fear and love...and searching for the Mercy of God..


Then the final part...and the Hardest ever....and it make u think ....and believe if you think by your heart and soul..
A Twist like no other...and a very great raw conclusion for this very spiritual journey.

----------------------
The Movie Vs The Novel..


Well it may be the first time that I can't say which was better the movie or the novel..

The thing is the movie was stronger in some points "of course the visual effect and cinematography was BRILLIANT , a true piece of art" but otherwise it missed some important spirit of the novel..

**some points of the story itself, some switches in the characters -like the father role as the unbeliever was better in the movie than in the book-

**The journey at the ocean was less boring as the book and successful removed the very brutal and disgusting parts that filled that part at the book.

**BUT the novel was stronger at the spiritual points as I call some of the chapters :"A Journey through 3 Religions " "A Clash of 3 Religions" ,
but otherwise it's almost the same.

So Still I prefer the movie a little bit..the adaption was almost honest ,make more depth to the beauty of the journey.. manifest the beautiful spirit despite all the hardness of the journey ...

Mohammed Arabey
20 March to 2 April 2013

my first review before reading it

11-1-2013 "The Movie is amazing... so deep and visually amazing. Can't wait to read the book"


Just for fun

I have no doubt in saying that Life of Pi is the novel that until now has moved my soul more deeply. So deep that it was one of the reasons why I decided to start writing my first novel, Luces en el mar. Life of Pi is one of my favorite books, not only by the fresh, warm and almost innocent way Yann Martel tells the fantastic journey of Pi but above all by the poetry that resonates in each of its words and pages. Life of Pi is a poem, a painting with vivid colors, a symphony able to ruffle the hair of the forearm, a photograph that captures a deep emotion, it's a masterpiece. It's a novel with a humble narrative, but that contains reflections so large and deep as the sea that the character is forced to cross aboard a boat with the dangerous company of a tiger. I recommend everyone to read this wonderful story, with a so overwhelming and surprising ending that will leave you quite sure a trace in your heart for the rest of your life.

Spanish version:
No tengo ninguna duda en decir que "La vida de Pi" es la novela que hasta ahora más me ha removido el interior, tanto que es uno de los motivos por el que yo mismo me pusiera a escribir mi primera novela, Luces en el mar. La Vida de Pi uno de mis libros favoritos, no solo por la manera fresca, casi inocente en que Yann Martel nos cuenta el fantástico viaje de Pi, sino sobre todo, por la poética que resuena en cada una de sus páginas. "La vida de Pi" es un poema, una cuadro con vívidos colores, una sinfonía que te eriza el vello, una fotografía que captura las emociones, es una obra de arte en mayúsculas. Esta es una novela de apariencia poco presuntuosa, de narrativa sencilla pero con un contenido y unas reflexiones tan grandes y profundas como el mar que el personaje se verá obligado a cruzar a bordo de una barca y junto a la peligrosa compañía de un tigre. Recomiendo a todo el mundo que lea esta maravillosa historia, de final tan sobrecogedor y sorprendente que de bien seguro te dejará huella de por vida en tu corazón.

Sjajna knjiga, jedna od onih nesvakidašnjih... Prva knjiga dobitnik Bukerove nagrade koju sam "ubola" pre nego što je dobila nagradu... I objavila ju je Narodna knjiga pre 10 godina... S njom je započeo niz od osam uzastopnih "ubodenih" Bukerovaca pre proglašena dobitnika... Za razne izdavače gde sam ih birala najpre kao urednik ili kasnije plasirala kao skaut... A pre 10 godina sam imala zadovoljstvo da upoznam i autora... S njim je otpočela moja ljubav prema kanadskim autorima koja traje i danas... Kanadjani imaju sjajne pisce i knjige...

On the surface Life of Pi is a funny little book, heart-warming and audacious, but dig a little deeper and you’ll see how complex the story actually is.

The magically real elements make the story doubt itself; they call into question the probability of these events actually happening because they are so ridiculously unrealistic. As Pi says to those that disbelieve him:

n  "I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality.”n



Such an assertion questions the truth of fiction. The details aren’t important. Change but a few of them and the journey Pi goes on remains the same. It does not matter if he was trapped on the boat with a bunch of zoo animals or people that reflected the animals in his life, the story remains the same: the truth is not changed. Belief is stretched to absolute breaking point and sometimes it needs to be with a story like this.

And such a thing harkens to the religious ideas Pi holds. He practices several religions believing they all serve the same purpose. This never wavers despite the violent and desperate times he eventually faces. And I really did appreciate this idea; it demonstrates unity in a world divided over matters of faith when it should not be. Again, are the details really that important? To a religious zealot such a thing boarders on blasphemy, though the harmony of such an idea speaks for itself in this book.

“If you stumble about believability, what are you living for? Love is hard to believe, ask any lover. Life is hard to believe, ask any scientist. God is hard to believe, ask any believer. What is your problem with hard to believe?”



Although I disagree with many of the sentiments in this book, sentiments that may belong to Pi as our narrator and perhaps even to the author himself, I appreciated the degree of time taken to clarify them. The stance on religion was an interesting one with disbelief being compared to a lack of movement in one’s life (not something that I see as truth.)

Zoos are also described as places of wonderment for animals rich in safety and easy living, which can be true in some cases, though the horrors of bad commercial zoos and the cruelty and exploitation that go with them are completely ignored. For me, this is not a point that can be overlooked in such fiction or in life. To do so is somewhat naïve no matter the good intentions of Pi.

I did not love Life of Pi, I never could, though it is a book that made me think about the purposes of fiction and the power of stories, true or untrue.

There is a compelling story in here, but unfortunately it's burdened by excessive explanation, confused religious allegory and mediocre writing.

The Author's Note promises that the story will make you believe in God. The problem was not that I didn't find the message persuasive, it was that the message was so confused it wasn't clear what it actually was, or in what way it was supposed to point towards a confirmation of God. I get the impression that the aim was less about persuasion, than it was about reinforcing notions of the importance of faith that are already held by believers.

From a literary standpoint, there is not much to redeem it. The book is poorly structured, the prose is often tacky and the story is longer than it deserves to be. The reader is constantly assumed to be unintelligent - every metaphor is explained, every connection pointed out, and any potential matter for contemplation is quickly snatched away by exposition.

The plot however, for the most part, is engaging. It's basically a story of survival against the odds, and so has all the tension and anticipation you'd expect. The narrator does possess some humour and charm, however the story seems to get lost after a while, and takes a pointless detour or two towards the end. But overall it's entertaining enough to keep you reading.

The ending is clever and surprising, and it casts the preceding story in a new light. But in some ways it also seems to undermine what has been developed. There is an implied lesson here about the truth being what you want it to be, which I don't agree with: the truth is what it is regardless of your attitude towards it. You can choose to deny reality and make up a less troubling version for yourself, but that's not a good choice in my opinion. Maybe that's why I didn't find the book's message all that convincing.

DID NOT FINISH. Not much to say about this one. Thought I'd give it a quick read because I'm about to watch the movie version for the monthly "scavenger hunt" over at film social network Letterboxd.com; then read the first third and found it so unbearably fucking shitty that I couldn't stand the thought of reading even one more page. Martel has never met a simple one-sentence declaration that he couldn't string out into three pages ("The sky is blue? Why, it's positively azure! In fact, now that I really look at it, I suppose you could almost call it aquamarine, while the Hindus might say that..."); and I really resented the bait-and-switch nature of this book suddenly turning into a pro-religion "YAY GOD!!!" story after promising at first to be an innocuous magical-realism dramedy. (Also, we'll see for sure after I read other people's reviews, but I suspect I'm not the only one deeply uncomfortable with this Caucasian author giving us lectures on what Indian people think about the ins-and-outs of India's political history.) I get that the Dan Brown mouthbreathers might love this facile book in droves ("YAY GOD!!!"), but for the life of me I can't understand how it possibly could've won the Man Booker Prize, except maybe if the committee was trying to be politically correct and were all proud of themselves for giving the award to an author of color, just to wake up the next morning and realize in horror that Martel is actually a pasty white Canadian. Uuuuuggggghhhhhhh.

Before I get started, I would like to mention some triggering sections of this god's forsaken book.
Trigger Warnings
There is a section at the end that is very...uncomfy. Gory. Violent. Page 337 to 345 to be exact.
So if you can't deal with that stuff, skip it. Or don't read the book.
*whispering* I would recommend not reading the book because it wasn't that good.

Did I expect to enjoy this? No.
Did I enjoy it? Also no.
Am I surprised? No.
Disappointed? Sort of.

Surprisingly, this is one of the better books that I've been forced to read for school.
Maybe that's because I did a lot of skimming. A LOT of skimming.
Or maybe it's because I read the majority of this book between 11pm and 1am.
That must have something to do with it.

But it was not as bad as I expected it to be.

“You must take life the way it comes at you and make the best of it.”

That's it. That quote is basically the theme of the entire book.
End of review, no need to read the book because I just summarized the entire thing.

In all seriousness, there were sections that held my attention, or triggered some nice existential crisis. Those were interesting, which is why I'm not rating this 1 star.
Kids. Here's a life lesson. That quote. Follow it. Even if you hate the rest of the book *cough* like me *cough*

The plot was extremely slow. This man is just stuck out in the middle of the ocean for most of the book and, unsurprisingly, that's not very interesting.
He has an existential crisis, some mental breakdowns, he finds God...again.
Yeah yeah yeah.

He did all the things that one would expect you'd have to do if you were stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean.
And being stranded on a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean would be very boring.
Just like this book.

I didn't feel any connection to the characters because I just didn't care. Maybe it's my bad attitude going in, but I couldn't get invested in any of it.
I don't even really have anything to say about the characters. That's how little I cared.

The entire beginning was a slog through overexplained animal habits and religion.
Really overexplained.
The entire first chapter gave a nice detailed description of the behaviours and habits of the three toed sloth.
Not the two toed sloth.
The three toed sloth.
That's very important, and apparently could not be stressed enough.

Religion is a major theme in this book. It comes up constantly. And there's a massive chunk at the beginning explaining Pi's journey in finding religion...I mean religions.
Look. I believe in God. I have no problem with religion. But it was explained in so much detail and so extensively that I was entirely done with everything by the time I got past it.

Mind you, I skimmed most of it.

The actual sinking of the ship took hardly any time at all. Which was disappointing, considering that I am weirdly fascinated by sinking ships.

So the boring parts are super lengthy.
And just when you think some interesting shit is gonna go down, the chapter ends and everything went by too fast and you wish some of those dragged out religion monologues could have been removed so you could have more detail in places such as the sinking of the ship.

So overall, I felt there were lots of parts that were dragged out too much, and some parts that could have been described more.
The themes of the story of important.
And the message is ~thought provoking~
But I read books for entertainment, not for existential crises.

2/5 cannibalism is not okay, kids.

Oh finally I get it. I read this a couple of years ago and it was supposed to be all about God. But no, it's not a religious allegory at all. It's about the collapse of communism. As the ocean liner of communism sinks under the weight of its own massive incompetence (a good idea, but the captain was drunk and the crew were sticky-fingered rascals), you leap overboard, clamber on to the only available boat (capitalism) only to find that there's a giant tiger on board which will eat you unless you can keep feeding it your hapless fellow-creatures.

When I thought this novel was about God I gave it 2 stars. It didn't make sense. But now I realise - it's a perfect metaphor - three stars.

Niesamowicie zafascynowała mnie ta książka. Przepełniona wątkami religijnymi oraz zoologicznymi(?), no po prostu było dużo o zwierzętach.

Była ona pełna opisów, czasami bardzo szczegółowych co jak najbardziej mi odpowiadało.

Mam jakąś wewnętrzną słabość do książek, których miejscem akcji jest morze, ocean, woda.

Zakończenie… Ummm zniszczyło mnie, muszę się pozbierać po nim i zastanowić co i jak.

REREAD 2024
Genialna? Genialna. Wrażenie jakie wywarło na mnie zakończenie jest niestety, naturalnie słabsze. Dobrze wiedziałem co się wydarzy. Zastanawiałem się czy po drugim przeczytaniu bardziej uda mi się zrozumieć tę historię. Odpowiedź brzmi: nie XD. Nadal nie wiem w co wierzyć i to chyba piękne.

Wydaję mi się, że będę jeszcze do niej wracał nie raz.

Natura, izolacja, chaos, samodzielność, wiedza...

Ocena: 5,0.