I was extremely surprised by this book. Let me tell you why (it's a funny story):

On the Danish cover it says "Pi's Liv" (Pi's Life), but I hadn't noticed the apostrophe, so I thought it said "Pis Liv" (Piss Life) and I thought that was an interesting title at least, so perhaps I should give it a go. So I did. And... what I read was not at all what I had expected (I thought it was a book about a boy growing up amidst poverty and homelessness). It wasn't until I looked up the book in English I realized the title wasn't "Piss Life". I was deceived for longer than I like to admit and, well, not only about this.

When I first read it I also thought it was based on a true story. I'm not sure why I thought this, I must have misread something (I vaguely recall thinking the prologue was instead an introduction). It was a sad (and ehm, slightly humiliating) day when I discovered the truth lay elsewhere. I guess your romantic beliefs must die someday, and that was the day for me.

See, it's easier to believe in the world and be optimistic about it, when you also believe that world capable of containing a boy and a tiger co-existing on a lifeboat for 7 months and surviving.

The truth is this book probably changed my life, not in any grand, extraordinary way. But with the small things, the small observations. Like how Pi was afraid to run out of paper, to document his days in the lifeboat, and instead he ran out of ink. Like how he chose to embrace three religions, not just one.

This book, and Pi especially, represent and embody a way of life that I admire. It's not about believing in God, but about what it takes to believe in something, anything really. Yourself, the world, goodness, life, God.

If it seemed real enough for me to believe it had happened, perhaps the real world is indeed a place where it could happen. And that's what I want to believe, even if real life might tell me otherwise.

Story of a Hindu-Muslim-Christian boy who survives seven months in a lifeboat with a tiger. Gory in places, but believable and interesting ideas relating to zoology, philosophy and religion etc. The first third is very different in feel from the rest and although it describes Pi's life and beliefs, the images of India (surely a colourful place) are not as vivid as one might expect - it could (almost) be set anywhere.

n  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.n

This is a review I've been putting off writing. I read it almost two months ago, and I'm still not quite sure what to say about it that hasn't already been said. It has been on my radar for years, and then I saw the movie when it came out (knowing that I was committing a huge book nerd party foul since I hadn't yet read it) because it was just so beautiful, and that TIGER! Oh god, that tiger was amazing.

I read this book at the request of my friend who knew I was going through some stuff. She promised me that I was not going to be disappointed. And I most definitely was not. Oh no. I read this during a time in my life when I seriously needed to believe in something. Anything. And this book will make you believe in something. I believe now more than ever in the power of words. Art. Storytelling. Because this book may be about a lot of things. An Indian Boy named Pi. A tiger named Richard Parker. Survival. Desperation. Loss of innocence. Fear. Hope. Faith. God. But above all, this book is about stories, and how humans have this innate need to tell them, hoping that some kind of wisdom or truth may be passed along with them from generation to generation. We humans have this pressing need to be heard.

The first 100 or so pages of this novel can be interpreted as dull. Bland. Boring. This is the clinical side of Pi, the detailed and descriptive part of him. The part that desperately needs us to understand him. He tells the reader about his journey to find God. He first falls in love with the Hindu god Krishna, then the Christian Jesus, and finally the Muslim Allah. He embraces all three gods and all three religions as if they are one. His family and friends do not understand him, and think him odd, but Pi has this absolutely beautiful peace about him that even I, as only a reader, envied. Once Pi finds god, he goes on and on about his father's zoo, and more specifically about the science of zoology. What motivates different species to behave the way they do, how they interact with other species and each other. It was this part that I found the most intrusive and cumbersome, but honestly, it was only a small fraction of my reading experience. This clinical approach to his writing style comes into play much later, and I understood Yann Martel's decision to write in this way in the beginning. As you can find out for yourself by reading the back cover, Pi travels to Canada with his family and several animals after his zookeeper father decides to sell the zoo and leave India when the ship sinks and Pi is left as the only survivor. Well, the only human survivor.

Pi's journey has now begun, and in his telling of his beautiful story, a story which will make you believe in God, all of the clinical backstory of the first hundred pages begins to make sense. It is this knowledge of animals that sets Pi apart and enables him to survive with a 450 pound adult Bengal tiger on board a small lifeboat in the ocean for months. He understands how and why they behave, and this knowledge not only saves his life, but creates a certain bond with the beast, as much of a bond as these two different species can have. This relationship becomes truly beautiful, and I hungrily read page after page, waiting for it to develop. Pi became such a strong and memorable character for me, and never once was I bored in reading this. Martel weaves some beauty and magic in this telling of Pi's story, and I realized just how perfect this story was for me during a crazy time in my own life. The movie was breathtakingly beautiful, but words...words bring it to life.

Without being spoilery, I will say that at the end of the novel, the reader is faced with a choice of what to believe. We humans do tend to color our stories differently depending on our audience. Sometimes, two stories are colored differently, but the outcome is still the same. If the outcome is the same, does it matter how we get there? Just as art is an exaggeration of life, shouldn't words be the same? Isn't storytelling just another art form? Why shouldn't words express a more colorful world than the one the truth might offer? Pi Patel beleived in three different gods from three different religions equally. Each god has their own stories, their own myths, their own beliefs, values, and meanings. But really, in the end, all three are God. Sometimes it is the story of how we got here that makes us keep telling stories. And really, what are religions but a bunch of stories that teach us how to live? Did they happen exactly as they are told? Does it even matter? I got to the end of this beautiful book and realized that it doesn't matter what choice I've made and what it is that I believe. Both choices are the same, just colored in different ways.

4.5 stars.

Ridiculous, but I just finished reading this for the third time...and was excited to be doing so! My kid's book club picked this for their May meeting, and the parents are reading it as well. Going to do a dinner-discussion, then screen the movie in 3D!

There shall be pizza pi and apple pi served!

I cannot imagine there are very many readers out there who have not sunk their teeth into Life of Pi, but perhaps having viewed the movie at some point, there are those that think they've already consumed the whole tale. No - not so.

While the movie version was absolutely excellent, the allegory about life itself can't be condensed like a can of soup. Do viewers consider the why behind Pi's name? Pi is infinite with no beginning or end. We hear about alpha and omega in training animals, but if the boy - in order to survive - has a tiger within him, he is both. The story is Life of Pi; not THE Life of Pi because it is all our story if we let it be.

If all religious dogma has at heart only the concept of love, then taking a leap of faith makes no difference with religious preference. When Pi, a vegetarian since birth, has become animalistic in tearing apart live turtles and fish, when he is at the end of his life (or so he believes), he faces his sins and turns away from them. The 'Frenchman' who has killed a woman and a man but who is later killed by Richard Parker - in order to save Pi - is merely Pi's hallucinatory facing of a memory. It is his confession before dying...until the carnivorous island miraculously appears.

The island full of sustenance but with no solid roots symbolizes food and luxury and slothfulness - the things that can make one feel full and sated...but will kill your soul in the end. When Pi cleans the lifeboat, he removes a human skeleton as well as animal. Who did the killing? Is Pi also Richard Parker? Or did the tiger really kill another castaway in a boat? Such fantastic allegory!

I realize that the original concept of a boy stuck on a life raft came from an earlier work by a Brazilian author. If I were to write a book about a rooster sitting atop the back of a cat resting upon a dog who is riding a donkey, it would not imply theft. Martel reveals himself in Pi, and he is no thief in my opinion.

I am thrilled to be able to share this book with my teenaged child, his friends, and their parents. This is the story of life and love.

“It is true that those we meet can change us, sometimes so profoundly that we are not the same afterwards, even unto our names.”



As a sort of parable on the value of storytelling, Yann Martel's fantastical adventure, Life of Pi, is astonishing. In the most desperate of circumstances, while Pi is on his lifeboat with a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker, imagination and storytelling are the keys to Pi's incredible story of survival. Issues about believability, what really happened on the boat, take a backseat to wonder, love, creativity and to a certain extent, madness. The novel is heavy on spirituality, but it is compelling and Pi's evolving relationship with Richard Parker keeps their 227 days at sea interesting.

Big Bois.

Everyone's heard of them. The Libraries are full of them. But are they worth it?

Click the link for my video review of the big bois in my life.

The Written Review:

The beginning is rough.

It's all like - Why do we keep going on and on about religion? Where's the boat? Where's the tiger?

Stop and enjoy the roses.

The book will get to the tiger part when it wants to.

Young Pi ( Piscine "Pi" Patel ) spends the first part of the book joining the Christian, Muslim and Hindu faiths.

It's not a matter of he can't choose a religion - it's that he is able simultaneously believe in all of them.

The philosophical musings and religious prose provide an extremely interesting insight on how these religions intersect:

n  If Christ spent an anguished night in prayer, if He burst out from the Cross, 'My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?' then surely we are also permitted doubt. But we must move on. To choose doubt as a philosophy of life is akin to choosing immobility as a means of transportation.n

And then...you get to the tiger part!

Pi Patel's life quickly shifts from one of religious philosophy and animal care (at his family's zoo) to one of great uncertainty.

His family is closing their Indian zoo and they need to travel by boat to a new county. Whatever animals they couldn't sell or trade are on the ship.

Only, something goes wrong.

Very. Wrong.

The ship is capsizing and it looks like neither human nor animal will make it out alive.

Soon, Pi finds himself on a lifeboat with a menagerie of animals and within an adventure he will surely never forget.

n  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.n

Note:

Was I the only one who was upset with the ending?

I was so mad that we were given the two scenarios at the end of the story. It was like the rug was being pulled out from under me.

According to Pi, either we are to believe the tiger adventure happened or it was the alternate version: cannibalism and watching his family die in the boat.

I felt cheated and turned what was a huge triumphant moment into a truly giant downer.

Four stars because I have a selective memory and overall enjoyed the book.

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Yann Martel has said his inspiration for Life of Pi came from a Brazilian book called Max And The Cats A Novel by Moacyr Scliar. The premise of a boy sharing a lifeboat with a big cat is the same and it's an obvious connection. Other than this basic premise, I don't know how much the two books have in common.
But for tone and feel, I think the real inspiration for Martel is The Little Prince, a beautiful children's book with a philosophical subtext presented in a gentle whimsical manner. Both books are about being stranded all alone and then suddenly having to deal with an unpredictable companion, forced to question what is important and how one ought to approach life. Any writer striving after Saint-Exupéry has his heart in the right place. It is a hard act to follow however, and Martel's material completely gets away from him.

Life of Pi has absolute moments of brilliance and I loved many things about it. How I wanted this book to succeed! I was cheering for it like a soccer mom at her kid's big game. Imagine my face falling then, when the kid has a breakaway and is running with the ball the wrong way to his own end zone...

One of the ways things go wrong in Pi is Martel's complete lack of faith in the reader. He assumes we just won't get "it". He explains pretty much everything as it happens, and then re-explains it again later. Although I must say I'm not bitter about it because he doesn't do it in an insulting way. No, he's more like an enthusiastic child who is bursting with delight and cannot hold back.

The larger flaw is his fumbling of ambiguity, and for this story ambiguity is its heart and soul. These fumbles begin with his discussions of religion and philosophy, but it's really bad in the ending. I do not wish to add a spoiler, but I'll say that where a hint, an incongruity or even a single well placed word could have cast a doubt in our minds, Yann chooses rather to blast away and spell the whole thing out.

I bought this edition at the Goodwill! My favourite store. They wanted to charge $4.00, but I *proved* it was a kid's book by showing the pictures, and got it for $1.49. The unsound ethics of buying books second-hand got just that little bit worse in my hands ;-)

Life of Pi really inspires visual interpretation:

I wish I could convey the perfection of a seal slipping into water or a spider monkey swinging from point to point or a lion merely turning its head. But language founders in such seas. Better to picture it in your head if you want to feel it.

A few of the illustrations from my edition:

n
She came floating on an island of bananas in a
halo of light as lovely as the Virgin Mary


Lord avert their eyes from me, I whispered in my soul.



I quite deliberately dressed wild animals in tame
costumes of my imagination.
n

Illustrations by Tomer Hanuka:

n



n

Life of Pi covers:
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The Movie:
n  n

The Soundtrack:n  n

I found a lot of this book incredibly tedious. I tend to avoid the winners of the Man / Booker – they make me a little depressed. The only Carey I haven’t liked won the Booker (Oscar and Lucinda), I really didn’t like the little bit of Vernon God Little I read and I never finished The Sea despite really liking Banville’s writing. So, being told a book is a winner of the Booker tends to be a mark against it from the start, unfortunately.

I’m going to have to assume you have read this book, as if I don’t I won’t be able to say anything about it at all. Apparently, when Yann Martel wrote this he was feeling a bit down and this was his way of plucking himself up. Well, good on him. That’s just great. I was a little annoyed when I found out that the person the book is dedicated to had also written a story about a man in a boat with a wild cat and had considered suing for plagiarism.

The book is written by a member of that class of people who are my least favourite; a religious person who cannot conceive of someone not being religious. There is some fluff at the start in which atheism is ‘discussed’ (read, discarded) as something people inevitably give up on with their dying breath. But the religious are generally terribly arrogant, so it is best not to feel insulted by their endless insults – they know not what they do.

Parts of this were so badly over written that it was almost enough to make me stop reading. The bit where he is opening his first can of water is a case in point. This takes so long and is so incidental to the story and written in such a cutesy way that I started to pray the boat would sink, the tiger would get him … I would even have accepted God smiting him at this point as a valid plotting point, even if (or particularly because) it would bring the story to an abrupt end.

This is a book told as two possible stories of how a young man survives for 227 days floating across the Pacific Ocean told in 100 chapters. That was the other thing that I found annoying – much is made of the fact this story is told in 100 chapters – but I could not feel any necessity for many of the chapters. Just as I could not feel any necessity for the Italic voice that sounded like Tom Waits doing, “What is he building in there?” Well, except to introduce us again to Pi some number of years later. You know, in Invisible Cities Calvino has necessary chapters – this book just has 100 chapters. It was something that annoyed me from early on in the book – that the chapters seemed far too arbitrary and pointing it out at the end just made me more irritated. There may well be some Hindu reason for 100 chapters – but like Jesus ticking off the ancient prophecies on his way to martyrdom, I still couldn’t see why these chapters were needed in themselves.

Pi is the central character in the book who, for some odd reason, is named after a swimming pool – I started playing with the ideas of swimming pools and oceans in my head to see where that might lead, but got bored. He is an active, practicing member of three of the world’s major religions. There is a joke in the early part of the book about him possibly becoming Jewish (ha ha – or perhaps I should draw a smiley face?). The only religion missing entirely from the book is Buddhism. Well, when I say entirely, it is interesting that it is a Japanese ship that sinks and that the people Pi tells his story to are Japanese engineers. I’ve known Hindus who consider Buddhists to be little more than dirty, filthy atheists – so perhaps that is one reason why these Japanese engineers are treated with such contempt at the end of the book.

The Japanese make the connections between the two stories – but we can assume that they stuff up these connections. While it is clear the French Cook is the hyena, Pi’s mum is the orang-utang, and the Asian gentleman is the zebra, I’m not convinced Pi is meant to be the tiger. In fact, the one constant (that’s a pun, by the way, you are supposed to be laughing) in both stories in Pi.

My interpretation is that the tiger is actually God. Angry, jealous, vicious, hard to appease, arbitrary and something that takes up lots of time when you have better things to do – sounds like God to me.

The last little bit of the book has Pi asking which is the better story- the one with animals or the one he tells with people. I mean, this is an unfair competition – he has spent chapter after chapter telling the animal story and only the last couple telling the people story. The point of this, though, is Pascal’s wager said anew. If we can never really know if there is no god and it ultimately makes no difference if we tell the story with him or without him in it, but if the story is more beautiful with him in it – then why not just accept him in the story and be damned.

Well, because the story isn’t improved with the animals and life isn’t just a story and kid’s stories are great sometimes, but I often like adult stories at least as much – and sometimes even more.

This is yet another person all alone survival story, but one I don’t feel that was handled as well as it could have been – mostly because the writer had an ideological message that he felt was more important than the story – never a good sign. Worse still, in the end I really couldn’t care less about Pi – I knew he was going to survive and knew it would be ‘because of’ his faith.

He does talk about Jesus’ most petulant moment with the fig tree – so I was quite impressed that rated a mention – but, all the same, I haven’t been converted to any or all of the world religions discussed in this book.

Compare this tale with the bit out of A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters about the painting – I know, it is not a fair comparison, Barnes is a god, but I’ve made it anyway.

I didn’t really enjoy this book, I felt it tried too hard and didn’t quite make it. But Christians will love it – oh yeah – Christians will definitely love it.

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!

This is not a story of a boy and his BFF tiger.
This is nothing like Calvin and Hobbes.
The tiger is nothing like Tigger or Lassie.
This is not a YA book.

That is worth pointing out I think, because the movie poster and trailer gave me this impression.

This book has teeth.

My initial thoughts on Life of Pi is that it is a book that demands to be read slowly due to a rambling nonlinear narrative in the first few chapters. Actually it is not, it can be read fairly quickly once you hit your stride with it. Any way, the novel got off to a slow start for me though I found the intro "Author's Notes" immediately appealing. Initially I was also a bit confused about which part is narrated by the author and which by Piscine "Pi" Molitor Patel‎ the book's protagonist. That sorts itself out after a while as I settled into the author's narrative style and the book's structure. There are some expositions about about running a zoo and animal psychology which I find very interesting. I certainly know some people who believe zoos are immoral and all the caged animals should be set free, this book presents a plausible case for why this may not be such a good idea and that the animals are unlikely to be grateful to the liberators. I am not normally a fan of infodumps, but these expositions are affably written and mostly non-technical.

Once the main part of the story begins, where poor Pi is cast away on a life boat with some wild animals the books becomes very engaging and I was devouring his adventure and could not wait to find out what happen next. The ocean adventure part of the book is really a riveting read. As Pi settles into his life on the life boat the book becomes trippy and metaphysical in parts. If you read online discussions about this book you will find several interpretation of what it all means and what really transpires in the book. To go into too much detail about this ambiguous aspect of the book would risk spoiling the book for potential readers, suffice to say that the book left me with plenty of food for thought which is still swirling in my head as I write.

Art by Neanderthal-Jam

There are elements of humour scattered throughout the book, the style of humor tend to be fairly subtle, my favorite humorous scene involves three bickering wise men and a boy of multiple faiths. I also love how the major supporting character Richard Parker came by his name. My favorite aspect of the book is the prose style which is lyrical, accessible and generally very pleasant to read. Here is one of my favorite passages:

n  "I will not die. I refuse it. I will make it through this nightmare. I will beat the odds, as great as they are. I have survived so far, miraculously. Now I will turn miracle into routine. The amazing will be seen every day. I will put in all the hard work necessary. Yes, so long as God is with me, I will not die. Amen."n

Even if you are entirely irreligious you can still appreciate the eloquence of the writing.

This book is often classified as a fantasy but I wonder if it is actually more scifi? Some strange places and things are rationalized with scientific assumptions, particularly a mysterious island that appears in the last section of the book. Some people are understandably frustrated and annoyed by the epilogue of the book where everything seems to turn upside down, or not depending on how you want to interpret this part of the book. It surprised the hell out of me but adds to the enjoyment of the book, and I don't think it invalidates anything that goes on in the preceding chapters. Looking at other Goodreads reviews Life of Pi seems to be divisive among its readers. Quite a few people find the book pretentious and not as intelligent or profound as the author presents it to be. They may be on to something, I don't really know. Oftentimes I find the reviewers just as pretentious as the book they are criticizing, is this a case of an eye for an eye? Personally I just wanted it to be entertaining and interesting and it meets these criteria in spades. A little pretentiousness does not bother me as long as the book is a good read.

I have no qualms at all about recommending this book, may be you will love it like I do, may be it will make you mad and you will throw it at the wall. I really don't know how it will be for you. Totally worth a shot in my opinion.

Art by gluecifer

Pi talks about survival in a way which is full of fiction yet commendable. From Pondicherry to Toronto he endures an endless life threatening gimmick.

Richard Parker, a Bengali tiger who survives along with Pi is intense, subliminal yet authoritative in claiming his share despite being caught in the life and death situation.

Pi is confused, irritated, tormented but determined to get to his destination. Despite losing all his family and animals which he dearly loved and adored, he keeps going strong through each obstacle and learning all the way. One thing which helped him survive was his way of dealing with time, he forgot the very notion of it so time didn’t matter much. Hence he was able to survive for 227 days in the Pacific Ocean, equal to over seven months.

One thing which held importance in Pi’s life was the closure of things as it helped him let go off things. But Richard Parker's sudden departure left a void in his life, as he missed him dearly.

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