Life of Pi by Yann Martel Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Life of Pi
Book Review: Fascinating, funny, philosophical.
Summary: 5 Stars
Life of Pi is one of the best books I have read recently. It did not make me believe in God, but it did make me see a lot of things in new and different ways and it did make me think deeply about some religious issues.The beginning of the book deals with Pi's life in an Indian Zoo, where his father is the owner and chief zookeeper. It paints a fabulous picture of Pi's childhood and you never realise until much later how important this early schooling in the ways of animals is going to become. I love the conversation on the sea front between the three religious ministers, one each from the three religions that Pi has espoused - Islam, Christianity and Hindu.
When Pi is marooned in the lifeboat with the animals, I never thought I would find his adventure and his ordeal as compelling as I did. I thought that the animals would have to talk, the novel would have to become magic realism, otherwise it would not hold my attention. But I was wrong - the story of Pi's survival in such extreme circumstances is absolutely beautiful, poetic and gripping to the last.
At the end, when Pi plays with the story and changes everything around to suit the preconceptions and prejudices of the men from the Japanese Insurance Company, you want to say to Pi, "No, don't let them make you change your story! Tell them the truth!" Then you remember that none of it is true - in this sense it is similar to the ending of Ian McEwan's Atonement. Yann Martell seems to remind us playfully that the whole thing is just a yarn, the whole journey is merely a fiction springing from his imagination. And what a brilliant imagination it is.
I couldn't stop reading Life of Pi. Just because it says it will make you believe in God, please don't come to it expecting some kind of religious tract - you will be very disappointed! It is a wonderful, life-affirming, poetic flight of the imagination that is utterly convincing and real as you read it, but in the end is just another beautifully written story. It won't make you believe in God unless you already do.
Book Review: And I alone survived to tell you
Summary: 4 Stars
The crux of the story is this: in the absence of objective evidence (whatever that is), is it better to believe in a colourful fiction or a mundane fiction? In the story of creation, of gods and goddesses, magical powers and miracles, or in the story of the Big Bang, evolution and the infinite universe? Wouldn't we all prefer to believe in the former, given the choice? I mean, the latter is as tasteless and dry as a lifeboat's biscuit, whereas the former has tigers and meerkats and great sargasso islands.Martel is certain where he puts his faith. The book sets out to convince you to believe in god, and is presumably affronted if you come away from it, as I did, as sceptical as ever. In the centre of this novel is a 200-page adventure story in which a young Indian boy is shipwrecked and spends 227 days adrift on the Pacific in a lifeboat. That's no secret: the tale begins with these facts, and by its nature (a pretend narrative by the survivor, told to the author years later) you know he's going to survive the ordeal. Torn free of the rest of the novel (the 100-page prelude and 20-page postlude) it's an excellent piece of writing, an elemental tale of courage in the face of adversity with shades of "The Old Man And The Sea". A five star yarn.
But Martel ruins things with an extremely dislikeable preamble in which he pins his colours too firmly to the mast. You WILL believe in god, he demands, since atheists are idiots. After 100 pages of this rant, you're ready to give up. If you read this book more than once, the chances are you'll skip the first and last parts altogether, and go back to that shipwrecked boy on the lifeboat. And rightly so. Cut the moral, here's the adventure.
The worst moment of all is near the beginning, when Martel spends page after page attempting to convince you that animals are happier in a zoo than in the wild. In a cage, he says, they are free from parasites and predators. They have a secure access to food and water. They are looked after. Isn't this, he concludes, just like religion? Well, in an ideal world, in a zoo in which you weren't aware of the bars of the cage, this might be a good thing, but this ideal world doesn't exist. Most zoos keep their animals in unnatural, cramped cages with concrete floors and the animals react by exhibiting signs of madness, by pacing up and down the walls of the cage, by eating their own excrement and chewing their own tails. This is indeed like religion, imposing a set of unnatural restrictions on its followers, caging them in prohibitions and flogging them daily with notions of original sin. Freed animals, Martel states, often return to the comfort of their cages. Given the choice, he snorts, wouldn't we all rather run to the safety of our religious cage than be out in the open? Maybe so, but that misses the point. It is a truly courageous man who dares stand in the wide open, hostile, indifferent space of the universe. The cowards are those who run to bury their heads in the straw of their cage.
"Life Of Pi" is an enjoyable read, but it is not a great novel. It takes a simplistic view of the nature of faith and shovels it down your throat as fast as possible in order that you're so overwhelmed by the quantity of food you don't stop to consider whether or not it actually tastes of anything. In the end it fails to convince because you must have started the book a convert in order to end the book with your faith reinforced. In the end, the only objective evidence -- understanding of course that this is a novel purporting to be reality -- is that Pi survived 227 days on a lifeboat adrift in the Pacific. What else we choose to believe is entirely up to us.
Book Review: A strange twist, a compelling read, an innocent boy
Summary: 5 Stars
Pi is the nickname of a boy who is as at home with religion as a fish is in the water. The first half of this Booker prize winning novel sets up the story, where Pi converts simultaneously to the 3 main world religions while living in his family's zoo. The second half describes a tale of great suffering, in very unusual circumstances (shipwrecked in a lifeboat, with a tiger, zebra and other animals). Both halves of the book are compelling. The writing style of "Life of Pi" is very simple and airy. But this style hides the author's cunning. A number of times in the story, the whole reality of what is being described is called into question. And these questions are never really resolved.
Please don't think this is some sort of "heavy" book, which is hard to read. It is as light as air, and as compelling as a breath of the same. But it has a twist that is both light, and heavy and dark. And the real twist is, I am not even sure if it was a twist! Even as I write this review, the implications of the (seeming) twist crawl deeper into me.
Put simply, this is a great read, it is great writing, it is great story-telling, and this writing is making a great, almost moral, point. When a book of such depth is so compulsive to read, then I feel I have had the best of both worlds and am totally satisfied! Or as satisfied as such a finally mysterious book can leave me feeling...
Book Review: Best Book Club book
Summary: 5 Stars
Having been part of a Book Club for over 3 years, and having read some amazing books (classic & modern) we enjoyed the best review meeting of our existence when we discussed Life of Pi. Everyone agreed that it was very well written, with beautiful descriptions of life in India (first part of the book). The trilogy of religions was carefully handled and made perfect sense. The second part of the book (the sea journey) was the main area of discussion. Some were convinced that this was a true story, while others felt that this was a clever piece of fiction - either way it is one of those books that keeps coming back into your mind weeks/months after you have read it. The final part is short in terms of pages, but has you thinking for the longest time. I did not end up having a religious epiphany as the author had promised but that is my only criticism of a well deserved Booker winner.Book Review: The maths don't work out
Summary: 3 Stars
The best thing about this book is the cover illustration, which incorporates the principal leitmotifs: sea, boat, boy, tiger, sharks, turtles, flying fish. Oh, and it doesn't take long to read.Despite the title, this is not a book about the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter. There is no maths at all, unless you count the probability of being eaten by a tiger on a lifeboat during several months in the Pacific (which apparently is zero). There is however quite a lot of cod zoology as well as tips on zoo-keeping and animal training (not to mention survival techniques). For the aspiring Ernest Hemingway there are also lots of short sentences. The chapters are of two varieties: curt and truncated.
In case you were curious, rather than a ratio (so-unspiritual), the eponymous Pi is named after a swimming pool (Piscine Molitor) and preferred the diminutive to avoid getting teased at school. He also has a keen interest in religion, practising Christianity, Islam and Hinduism, concurrently without apparent contradiction, in the city of Pondicherry, a rare French foothold in India.
I thought this book at heart was about coping with massive trauma and loss, and the way the mind can devise ingenious constructs to disguise and defeat reality. In the end we learn that religion is no substitute for a vivid imagination.