Life of Pi by Yann Martel Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Life of Pi
Book Review: A magical journey you'll want to believe in.
Summary: 5 Stars
I don't believe in god. The jacket of this book claims that this story will make me want to. This is a magical tale of survival, full of wonder and beautiful prose. It tells the story of a boy called Pi cast adrift on the Pacific Ocean after a shipwreck. For company he has a strange menagerie of zoo animals, the most important of which is 450 pound royal begal tiger. I couldn't put this book down; but the nearer the end I got the more slowly I read, not wanting it to stop. The twist in the tale did not make me believe in god; but what it did make me believe in is the power of the imagination to make us see the world in its best light.Book Review: brilliant
Summary: 5 Stars
i was unsure as to whether at first this was a real story, as he tells us that the story was inspired by a meeting with an elderley man who was a friend of Pi, knowing what i knew of the story this compelled me to read it though i had decided to buy it even before because of the front cover.from the first page its a strange, beautiful, twisted, funny and ultimately sad story of one boys remarkable attempt not to give up on life despite his situation and how his faith in God helps to seem him through it along with the friendship he develops with Richard Parker the bengal tiger.
I don't want to say to much without giving it away, you just have to read it, it's wonderful, one of the most original books in years.
Book Review: Life-changing
Summary: 5 Stars
I believe in God already - so I wasnt expecting a religious epiphany - however this book took me through so many emotions: Laughing out loud, utter amazement - and the deepest sense of happiness.Pi is a character you truly begin to love and bond with almost from the very beginning - and at many times I marvelled at his intelligence.
I was desperate to find out if this story was true... and I wont say what the answer is... but either way it shows that life is amazing and profound in so many ways - and also assures readers that Martel is a master storyteller.
Brilliant!
Book Review: Perhaps the most important book of the last quater century
Summary: 5 Stars
This book should be studied as a psychoanalytical treatise forever. There is an obvious (although not until the end) movement betweent the ego, super-ego, and id. It is flawlessly constructed, perfectly construed, and among the finest books I've ever read, from both a storytelling, and a philosophical point of view. Sort of a cross between Dostoevski's _Brothers Karamazov_ and _Robinson Crusoe_. A study of Religion, zoology, and most importnatly, the lengths to which the human mind will go to protect us from the horrible truth.
Yann Martel is not merely an artist, but a genius.
Book Review: Life and How to Live It
Summary: 5 Stars
At the time of writing, Life of Pi is on the shortlist for the Booker Prize, and by the time of you reading this, it has either won (hurrah) or lost (hurroo). Because of the three novels I've read from the shortlist, Life of Pi stands head and shoulders above the others for being entirely original, good-natured, sparky (unlike the sluggish, grounded others), and extremely moreish: it took me only two days to navigate its 320 pages. You can put it down but it's such enjoyable fun why would you want to?The blurb is somewhat misleading, suggesting that Life of Pi is only about the travails of a boy trapped on a lifeboat with a tiger: in fact there are 100 pages before this main event. But the miracle is that even when restricted to one human character and a twenty-odd foot lifeboat, Martel is never boring, and never resorts to childish anthropormism with the animals either: Pi really does have to survive with a 450-pound Bengal tiger, hungry and uncartoonish and nearby.
Speaking of miracles, the narrator's pushy insistence throughout the book that it will "make you believe in God" is the only chunk of the novel I couldn't quite swallow. There's no godliness whatsoever - unless it's moving in mysteriously subtle ways or something and I'm just too much of an atheistic blockhead to see it - unless you count the instances of Pi praising God when something good happens to interrupt the terrible attrition of life on the lifeboat. And frankly who wouldn't hedge their bets a bit in such a situation? In fact, thinking of it, one particularly memorable section of the book - the island, a staggeringly inventive set piece which put me in mind of the land of the mulefa in Philip Pullman's The Amber Spyglass - indicates, if anything, evolution at work rather than Creation, and the narrator even makes respectful mention of Darwin.
However. This small gripe does nothing to detract from the fact that Life of Pi will have you grinning like a tiger for days. Prize-winner or not, if it doesn't become a classic in the next few years, I'll eat that carton of emergency rations. Well he won't be needing it will he?