| Life of Pi | 
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Avg. Customer Rating:   (based on 1837 reviews)
Sales Rank: 76727
Category: Book
Author: Yann Martel
Publisher: Highbridge Audio
Studio: Highbridge Audio
Manufacturer: Highbridge Audio
Label: Highbridge Audio
Format: Unabridged
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Audio CD
Edition: Unabridged
Number Of Items: 9
Pages: 660
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 5.8 x 5.1 x 1.1
ISBN: 1565117808
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
UPC: 025024892349
EAN: 9781565117808
ASIN: 1565117808
Publication Date: January 13, 2003
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
Martel's novel tells the story of Pi--short for Piscine--an unusual boy raised in a zoo in India. Pi's father decides to move the family to live in Canada and sell the animals to the great zoos of America. The ship taking them across the Pacific sinks and Pi finds himself the sole human survivor on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. LIFE OF PI brings together many themes including religion, zoology, fear, and sheer tenacity. This is a funny, wise, and highly original look at what it means to be human.
Amazon.com Review
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
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| Customer Reviews: Read 1832 more reviews...
 Bad October 10, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Having been raised by Great Depression Era parents I was steeped, as a child, in that greatest of all sins- waste. This sin is most noticeable in contemporary writing. I have railed for years against the prose broken into lines that passes for poetry these days, not stating it's prose merely because it lacks music, but because it goes counter to the notion of concision as a poetic ideal- the most said in the fewest words. Of course, real prose is not immune to the sin of waste. Contemporary memoirs, such as Dave Eggers' A Heartbreaking Work Of Staggering Genius go on for hundreds of pages when they lack the well written paragraphs and actual story to fill even a ten page short story.
Such is the case with Yann Martel's best-selling novel Life Of Pi, which comes in at 354 pages, yet is, at best, a solid-good short story of perhaps 25-30 pages, consisting of perhaps five of its first part's 103 pages, twelve or so of its 215 page second part, and eight pages in its final 36 pages. Add in a few pages to connect and there you'd have it. But, I'd still have advised Martel to go back, condense the tale, then add some leavening narrative connectors.
As it is it is a bad novel, whose critical praise seems dependent upon its being merely a bad novel vis-a-vis its competitors horror as novels. You see, Martel actually tries to do something different than the self-indulgent, flatulent prose that passes for fiction these days, and for this alone the book has gotten wild praise. Yet, the truth is that risk entails a greater chance of failure, and Life Of Pi fails grandly, however nobly. Part of why it fails is the setup the author gives the novel in a postmodern, self-serving, Author's Note that starts the book. In it he tells how he stumbled upon the idea for the story, is a `story that will make you believe in God.' Already the savvy reader is thinking anything less than something on a Moby-Dick scale is gonna really piss me off. I can assure you that this book is no Moby-Dick. What a tag line like that was really angling for was a nod as an Oprah book club selection....The lack of any deep thought can be summarized in this excerpt from a Martel interview: `The theme of this novel can be summarized in three lines. Life is a story. You can choose your story. And a story with an imaginative overlay is the better story.' Except that Martel's `real' story of Pi is better narrative, and better written, as I've shown. That he does not get this is because his whole argument is that imagination, be it Pi's fabulous tale, or religion, is always better than the real. This is in line with his nonsensical PC damning of religion on the one hand, yet accepting it as the better alternative, on the other. Thus, all tales and religion are one, and Pi comes to love Richard Parker, the tiger, for the two are also one. Real deep, I tell you. Or, as Martel says through Pi: `Hindus, in their capacity for love, are indeed hairless Christians, just as Muslims, in the way they see God in everything, are bearded Hindus, and Christians, in their devotion to God, are hat-wearing Muslims.' Were this a sly dig after a real exploration of depth it might be a good wink or feint. But, this is truly the level of analysis and depth Martel provides about the differences in organized religion.
Boy, it would be hard to come up with a more banal revelation than `God is good because God is not real life'. In other words, God is a myth, but a nice myth that gets you along. Yet, this is a major fulcrum. Of course, since Pi rejects the major religions, yet accepts them all, he is really a New Ager that picks and chooses reality, and can therefore feel able to get away with utterly meaningless statements and those void of profundity- like the first sentence in the book: `My suffering left me sad and gloomy.' Wow. I always thought suffering left one with wisdom and joy! Isn't that a koan, too? Art and suffering. No? Oh well, if the book can be willy-nilly in its approach so can its author. The only positive thing that the opening line, in retrospect, gives is that no one should be expecting any greater level of profundity nor insight later on. This is a very lowest common denominator book that only appears deep to those suckled on Dave Eggers-level puerility. Any deviance from the poor norms of the day are praised just because they are different. As for the ending- there is too much explaining, after the real story is revealed, as if the obvious parallels and symbolism could be missed by anyone. Not to mention the pointless, and hell-mell, use of a weird font when Pi is interrogated.
As with so many other books that reach print I have to ask `Where the hell was a competent editor?' 350+ pages? C'mon! This is a possibly solid 25-30 page short story, and maybe a decent 80 page novella if there were some meat added, in the form of well-written passages, and a real aim. Because it has neither any props I might be tempted to give it for trying I take back. It also leaves little for a reader to imbue, because it does not involve a reader, but most telling of all there is not a thing here that no one else could not have written, and the indelible stamp of a particular writer is the hallmark of a great writer. There is none here. In a sense, with all the animals, I felt I was reading a sort of bad Babar tale from my youth, save there were no elephants. This is not Moby-Dick, nor is it a lean The Old Man And The Sea. It is a banal, half-hearted endorsement of religion, and a gray mush of a to b to c writing that really does not deserve such explication, but what the hell? If Yann Martel and Pi Patel can waste 350 or more pages of my attention then I can take a few pages to warn you. That's karma, or caramel, or something in between, sort of like Life Of Pi, or a slice of pie, or....I shall not waste!
 Great Fable October 8, 2008
This book rates in my top 5 right next to The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho. What you need to keep in mind is that it is a STORY, a FABLE, not meant to be perceived as reality. Although, I found a lot of it believable. Maybe not the meerkat island, but even that bit of the story was intriguiing. I wish he had stayed on the island a little longer.
I absolutely loved the meshing of three religions, the way he believed that God is everywhere. I loved the part where he thanks the Hindu diety for introducing him to Jesus. I think the main point in that part of the book is to say that there are many paths to God.
The castaway part was very intense, despite his being on a lifeboat alone with a tiger for so long.
In the end, you get to choose between the unrealistic story and one that is more beleiveable. Personally, I liked the animal story better. The second one is really sad. Again, keep in mind that the story is just that... a STORY. Otherwise you'll get caught up in all the mistakes and unrealistic details.
Overall, a wonderful story about God, survival, and self-preservation.
A masterpiece September 25, 2008
Wow, where did Yann Martel come from? This author has an extraordinary ability to use the English language to convey thought, emotion, and physical experiences in such a profound way. He turns words into music. The story is both gentle and shattering, both tragic and ecstatic, both carnal and spiritual. I felt as though I was having a firsthand experience right alongside the protagonist, Pi Patel, whose involuntary adventure is both uniquely original and subliminally familiar. I will remember this book fondly for many years to come.
THE RIGHT BOOK AT THE RIGHT TIME September 24, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Sometimes a reader is graced with what I like to call:
The right book at the right time.
LIFE OF PI is that book.
If you are in the appetite for a plot driven tale of survival you will find that here.
And if you hunger for a spiritual journey revealing the inner workings of human nature... that's also available at this banquet of fiction.
I read a few reviews of LIFE OF PI... and I am thinking that some of the reviewers did not read the whole book.
Truly.
What a shame.
I love books like this one.
You are taken on a journey, you enter the world of the author, and putting the book down is difficult because you do not want to leave that world.
And the best is yet to come...
I found this to be one of those books that changed me.
His words resonated in my soul.
In a few sentences, Martel gave voice to things I sensed in my life, but could not place into words.
When we read for something beyond mere entertainment...
isn't that what we hunger for?
A chance to see life from a new point of view.
To feel renewed.
A book that will follow you after you have finished it.
A book that MUST stay with you on your bookshelf.
LIFE OF PI is my silent friend now, on a shelf of honor in my book collection.
A new friend who will be there with me on this life's journey...
ready to speak to my heart any time I lift it from the shelf, open the pages, and invite the author to speak to me, yet again.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Yann Martel
Here is an excellent resource about the birth of this novel written by Yann Martel (and just fascinating in general to any writer about the process of preparing oneself to create a work of fiction). If you plan on reading LIFE OF PI, read the author's notes AFTER completing the book:
http://www.powells.com/fromtheauthor/martel.html
Leaves you thinking about it long after you are finished September 19, 2008
This is a totally different kind of book than I've ever read. As many others have said, this book is written in three parts.
Part One is explaining how the author came upon the story and the childhood of the main character. It gives you insights into Pi Patels life that help you understand the rest of the book. This part is interesting and is helpful in setting up part two.
Part Two tells us how he and his family are on a cargo ship that sinks and he ends up a lone human in a boat with a Bengal tiger, a hyena, an orangatan and a zebra with a broken leg. After the hyena has attacked the zebra and the orangatan, the tiger attacks the hyena. The rest is an adventure of how this teenage boy survives 227 floating in the ocean. Though I must admit parts of this section does tend to drag on, it is not too horrible to keep reading. Especially since you are dying to know how it ends.
Part three offers a second more probable story, that makes you rethink the whole book and will leave you thinking about the book long after you are finished and searching for anyone who has also read it so you can discuss it with them.
This is a great book to read in a book club (and I highly suggest it.) As for it making you believe in God, that is up to the reader to decided!
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