Life Of Pi
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Amazon.co.uk Review
Some books defy categorisation: Life of Pi, the second novel from Canadian writer Yann Martel, is a case in point: just about the only thing you can say for certain about it is that it is fiercely and admirably unique. The plot, if that’s the right word, concerns the oceanic wanderings of a lost boy, the young and eager Piscine Patel of the title (Pi). After a colourful and loving upbringing in gorgeously-hued India, the Muslim-Christian-animistic Pi sets off for a fresh start in Canada. His blissful voyage is rudely interrupted when his boat is scuppered halfway across the Pacific, and he is forced to rough it in a lifeboat with a hyena, a monkey, a whingeing zebra and a tiger called Richard. That would be bad enough, but from here on things get weirder: the animals start slaughtering each other in a veritable frenzy of allegorical bloodlust, until Richard the tiger and Pi are left alone to wander the wastes of ocean, with plenty of time to ponder their fate, the cruelty of the gods, the best way to handle storms and the various different recipes for oothappam, scrapple and coconut yam kootu. The denouement is pleasantly neat. According to the blurb, thirtysomething Yann Martel spent long years in Alaska, India, Mexico, France, Costa Rica, Turkey and Iran, before settling in Canada. All those cultures and more have been poured into this spicy, vivacious, kinetic and very entertaining fiction. --Sean Thomas
--This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
Review
'Extraordinary...Life of Pi could renew your faith in the ability of novelists to invest even the most outrageous scenario with plausible life.' New York Times Book Review
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Excellent read,
By BC (Warwickshire, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Life of Pi (Paperback)
I bought this book on impulse about a year ago and put it on my 'to read' pile. The book initially appeared to be a slow starter and the first few chapters were slow to get through, but then it burst into life with a fantastically original story, and with an ending that you will think about long after you put the book down. It's one of the few books I have wanted to re-read immediately upon finishing it. I'm resisting for now, but will re-read it again very soon. One of the best books I have read recently - this gets the full 5 stars.
101 of 114 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Big cats, big love, big impression,
By blurgirl74 "blurgirl74" (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Life of Pi (Paperback)
Life of Pi stands with Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude as the most surprising and inventive book I have ever read. The description I read of the book said simply that it was the tale of a boy marooned on a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific with only a zebra, orangutan, hyena and tiger for company. I was prepared for a fantasy with talking animals who help Pi throughout an adventure until they inevitably wash up on the shore. What I didn't expect it to be was a savagely brutal tale of survival teeming with blood, viscera, fear, despair and the very real teeth and claws of a 450 pound Bengal tiger. What I also didn't expect it to be was a beautiful, moving, heartfelt, loving exploration of loss, determination, belief and spirituality. That it can be both these descriptions at the same time tells you something of the power of this work of art. Life of Pi will be to some people a cracking adventure story, to some a philosophical treatise on the nature of belief and religion and to some a dizzying and confusing mix of the real, the assumed and the fantasy. To me it was quite simply astounding. The realisation of the point the narrator makes to the Japanese investigators at the end made me laugh and cry at the same time and for the first time in ages I felt a tug at my soul towards a higher power. Everyone in the world should read this book and after the last word, close it, take a deep breath and come out changed.
45 of 51 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
good story, rubbish ending,
This review is from: Life of Pi (Paperback)
This book promised to make me believe in God, but it fell well short of that mark. Without wanting to spoil things for those who haven't read it, I'll assume you know its about a 15 year old Indian boy who is shipwrecked and travels the pacific in a lifeboat with a Tiger. And since we know from the start that the boy survives to tell the tale, you can safely assume the Tiger doesn't eat him. And the tale of how this comes about and how the boy, Pi, survives, is a great read, compelling and well paced.However, Pi is a pompous man who pontificates with absolute confidence on many subjects (why agnositcs are totally wrong, why those who oppose Zoo's are totally wrong, why all his fellow students in Canada were... - you get the picture, he's a know all). And when Pi steps ashore after 200 odd days in the lifeboat, this extraordinary experience seems to have cemented his pomposity, to the point of smugness. The author makes the point that we are born, suffer and die, and this is inevitable whether or not we believe in God, but that life is richer if we choose to have a God in it. So, you mightn't believe that Pi had a tiger in his boat or that he encountered some of the strange (and totally unbelievable) things that he says he did, but its a better read if you believe his colourful version of events. I agree, it made for a good read, but to claim for it an allegory to the fundamental question of our existence is shameless. I think this was a good ripping yarn, but suspending disbelief while you read an extraordinary work of fiction is not the same as adopting a belief in God. I was left feeling that Martell had an excessively high opinion of his own literary powers.
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