Life of Pi

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. 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, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."

An award winner in Canada, Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. --Brad Thomas Parsons

I was a little skeptic to start a book with a tiger on a boat, and was still a little skeptic as the first section wore on about religion. When I finally trudged on to the second section with the ****spoiler alert*** boat sinking and the zoo animals, as well as Pi, being stranded on the boat together*** I was enthralled. I didn't stop reading except to sleep!

Not sure what amazes me more: Yann Martel's extraordinary literary gifts or the ho-hum reviews for this book on amazon.com. Folks, if you thought this book was "boring" or "pointless", you have, sadly, missed the point. Whether read from a storytelling, philosophical or spiritual viewpoint, this book has more to say about the human condition than our little pea brains can even manage. Must be savored and discussed, read and re-read. A book, and an author, to be cherished.

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Life of Pi is good, there is no debating that. I began this book and thought I would love it. During Part One, Pi Patel is a character describing his life. I enjoyed it. Thinking Part Two would be the same, I eagerly awaited what Martel had in store for us next. However, I thought the story began to drag. It was almost two hundred pages with next to no dialogue. You are placed in Pi's head, having him narrate the story as he experienced it. It was hard to push through those two hundred pages. It got old after a while.

Currently a high school junior, I got to the end of this book with one thought. Huh? I found it confusing. I am not sure if that is because I do not understand the deeper significance, but I found it hard to comprehend. I am unsure of all the praise this book has gotten, because I don't understand what people found so great about it. I thought it was good, but not praiseworthy. Although I enjoyed the ending, I thought it was very anti-climactic. It was a good book and the writing was very good, but it was just not the book for me.

You have to be really interested in zoos or really want to force yourself to believe in the literary judgement of the Man Booker Prize committee to like "Life of Pi."

The best part of the book is its prologue, where the author writes with sparkling prose a purely fictitious introduction to how he came to write the book "Life of Pi." From then on, while the prose stays clear and sometimes poignant, the story descends into absurdity. Absurdity is often amusing ("Family Guy" and "Fight Club" are both good examples), but it's not so amusing in "Life of Pi."