Life of Pi by Yann Martel Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Life of Pi
Book Review: A Boy and a Tiger Adrift at Sea? Yep!
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this book while browsing through a book store. I got hooked from the description on the back cover. Then, as I always do, I read Amazon book reviews before reading the book. Several reviewers claimed to have been bored by the pages, and pages, and pages of description devoted to the main character being adrift at sea.
I have a differing view in that I did not find it boring at all. I found that I kept reading and the book held my interest from start to finish.
To top it all off, the ending was so unexpected and surprising that it made me want to read the book again. I recommend this book highly, but I would not recommend it to my mother or any others with weak stomachs.
Book Review: A Captivating Tale
Summary: 4 Stars
I thoroughly enjoyed this work, which takes us along the journey of an ordinary (albeit precocious) young man thrown into extraordinary circumstances. For those readers who may pick this up and find themselves perplexed in the first 50 or so pages: keep reading. Soon enough you will be pulled in and you will not want to put the book down. I found myself thinking about this story for weeks after I had finished reading it. The link between animal instinctual nature and one's spiritual nature was presented well within a rather simple tale. There has been much discussion about whether or not this book "may make you believe in God". That may be an exaggeration, but it will at least make you think about the human need and yearning for tangible answers when unbelievable things happen. This story often takes turns that are quite unbelievable - yet remains oddly palpable at the same time. That's the whole point.Book Review: A Classic for Life
Summary: 5 Stars
"I have a story that will make you believe in God." - Pi Patel
"I know what you want. You want a story that won't surprise you. That will confirm what you already know. That won't make you see higher or further or differently. You want a flat story. An immobile story. You want dry, yeastless factuality." - Pi Patel
This novel was easily one of the most unique books I have ever read and far from "dry, yeastless factuality". While reading it, I often wondered if it was not based off of a true story in some way simply because the story seemed too unbelievable to NOT be true! This book would appeal to a variety of literature-minded tastes as it covers topics that range from philosophy, religion, travel, and biology to suspense, horror, and even comedy.
On the surface, the story is about an Indian boy that survives on a lifeboat with a lone Bengal tiger after his ship sinks, taking the remains of a zoo and his entire family with it. Woven into the plot are threads of Pi Patel's passion for religion as a whole. He seeks to survive - both mind and body - 227 days at sea, using both the knowledge of three world religions and the experience of growing up in a zoo.
What makes this book rise above the general expectations of the fiction genre is that the main character's frequent monologues on his present circumstances inadvertedly cause the reader to evaluate his or her own life in light of Pi's words. Take for instance Pi's explanation of the battle between good and evil:
"These people fail to realize that it is on the inside that God must be defended, not on the outside. They should direct their anger at themselves. For evil in the open is but evil from within that has been let out. The main battlefield for good is not the open ground of the public arena but the small clearing of each heart." (Ch. 25)
Page after page, chapter after chapter, Pi's personal philosophy is laid out as his life hangs in the balance. At one of his lowest points he discusses the power of fear:
"I must say a word about fear. It is life's only true opponent. Only fear can defeat life. It is a clever, treacherous adversary, how well I know. It has no decency, respects no law or convention, shows no mercy. ... The matter is difficult to put into words. For fear, real fear, such as shakes you to your foundation, such as you feel when you are brought face to face with your mortal end, nestles in your memory like a gangrene: it seeks to rot everything, even the words with which to speak of it." (Ch. 56)
In the midst of reading this highly imaginative text, I realized that the musings of this castaway were reflections of what any person standing on dry land could be feeling at any given moment:
"When you look up, you sometimes wonder if at the centre of the solar system, if in the middle of the Sea of Tranquillity, there isn't another one like you also looking up, also trapped by geometry, also struggling with fear, rage, madness, hopelessness, apathy." (Ch. 78)
My favorite part of the book was when in the midst of a storm, Pi was nearly struck by lightning. The description of this encounter in chapter 85 put me in nearly as much awe as it did Pi Patel and reminded me of how the Holy Bible often described the voice of God as the voice of a great thunder, which completely fit in with the overarching theme of religion as a framework for life.
When at the end of the book, Pi Patel offers an alternate, more-believable version of his survival at sea, I realized that this novel could be read as an allegory to symbolize life and its survival. This is what truly allows The Life of Pi to make the leap from contemporary fiction to enduring classic.
Book Review: A Compelling Story of Survival
Summary: 5 Stars
I'm only an 11-year old boy, but I loved this book.
Unbelievable. If I could write this book review in one word, that is the word I would use to describe it. I cannot tell you how much this book pulled me in and how compelling it is. This is a story no one would ever believe, but once you've read the book, it's even more amazing and unbelievable.
Pi Patel is a teenager who lives in India. He grew up living by the zoo but now his family wants to move to Canada by boat. While on the boat it unexpectedly sinks and he is forced to go in a lifeboat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. He quickly realizes there is nobody on it with him but he discovers there is a living thing on it. He's terrified when he finds out that he is being accompanied by a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Pi must endure harsh weather, struggle for food, and sometimes even hang from one finger on the cliff of death. But most of all, he has to get it in the tiger's mind that he is more powerful than the tiger.
The first 150 pages or so were a real struggle for me but once I broke through to the other side, I knew I had done the right thing. Yann Martel, the author of this novel, won the Booker Prize (England's version of the Pulitzer Prize) for this book, which does not surprise me. Also, I find his writing style very interesting and likeable. He has had a wide range of occupations such as a dishwasher, a tree planter, a security guard, and a writer. Martel is an outstanding writer which is why I loved this book and couldn't put it down.
This is an adult book, which explains why it was pretty difficult reading for me. However, I would still recommend this novel to anybody over 14 who likes adventure and survival stories. This fiction story is what I would call absolutely unbelievable.
Book Review: A Delightfully Entertaining Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
A young Indian boy discovers religion, and is so taken with the idea of faith that he commits to Catholocism, Hinduism, and Islam. Then, in its voyage across the Pacific to Canada, the ship carrying the boy and his family, as well as a menagerie of zoo animals (his father is a zookeeper), sinks, leaving the boy alone in a lifeboat with a tiger, an orangutan, a hurt zebra, and a nasty hyena. The respective struggles for survival ensue, making up the majority of this fascinating, fast read. How do these two seemingly disparate parts of the novel connect? The answer is subtlely. Yann Martel is a quirky writer, and he's written a quirky book. It might be easy to finish this novel and think its various parts don't necessarily mesh, but I have a feeling that even if you felt that way, you'd enjoy it anyway, because the parts in and of themselves are so interesting. But actually, what the young boy Pi learns about religious faith has a great deal of bearing (and also is greatly influenced by) what happens to him during his ordeal.This novel always keeps its sense of humour, but be prepared for some harsh brutality. After all, the struggle for survival is never pretty, and the natural world, while offering many beauties, can be incredibly violent as well. During his journey, Pi learns that faith in general is much more important than faith in its specifics, and whether or not you're Hindu, Catholic, or Muslim matters little when you're simply trying to figure out how to capture enough water to prevent yourself from dying before the day ends. "Life of Pi" manages to be both thoroughly entertaining and thoughtfully profound, but never in a self-conciously literary way. Martel's writing style is loose and easy, and the pages fly by.
I was greatly touched by the novel's ending, and it introduces a startling ambiguity that will immediately make you want to read the book again, accepting perhaps a completely different interpretation of events.
I'm not exaggerating when I say this book is quite unlike anything I've read before. It manages to be truly original and heartfelt, containing an important message for our troubled, hate-filled times.