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Life of Pi
 
 
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Life of Pi (Hardcover)

by Yann Martel (Author) "My suffering left me sad and gloomy ..." (more)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (185 customer reviews)

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Product Description

Amazon.ca Canadian Essential

Yann Martel's second novel, Life of Pi, appeared in Canada in 2001 to enthusiastic reviews and moderate sales. A year later, it came out of nowhere to win the Booker Prize and became an international publishing phenomenon (and Amazon.ca's first blockbuster). In a wonderful display of storytelling verve, Martel takes a distinctly unpromising premise--a "story that will make you believe in God" about a boy trapped on a lifeboat with an enormous tiger--and pulls it off with complete and winning confidence. --This text refers to the Paperback edition.


Amazon.ca

Serious novels about young boys being drawn closer to God while trapped on lifeboats with dangerous wild animals ought to be impossible. Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, proves they're not. Its plot stretches the limits of credibility into new and exciting shapes, and the fact that Martel has made his materials into an enchanting story is almost unbelievable. Martel's Pi is Piscine Molitor Patel, a boy from Pondicherry, one of the few Indian towns to be colonized by France. Pi is an intelligent, unusual child: he has a scientific turn of mind but is also a practising Hindu, Moslem, and Christian. Pi's family runs a large zoo, but they decide to sell their animals to zoos in the United States and emigrate to Canada. Crossing the Pacific (with their animals), they're shipwrecked halfway between China and Midway. Pi survives, only to find himself sharing a lifeboat with an injured zebra, a spotted hyena, an orangutan, and Richard Parker--an immense Bengal tiger.

Most of these animals are doomed, but Pi and Richard Parker cling to life, establishing a tacit order on the lifeboat. Martel handles this part of the story perfectly: one would expect Life of Pi to become cute, or perhaps preachy, but it is neither. Life on the boat proceeds in strict accordance with the rules of ecology and territorialism, and the interdependence of the passengers is both believable and absorbing. Life of Pi is a superb novel, both for its story and for its rich examinations of religion, isolation, and love. If this is an indication of what is to come, we can expect great things from Yann Martel. --Jack Illingworth

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My suffering left me sad and gloomy. Read the first page
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Customer Reviews

185 Reviews
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Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (185 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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21 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars His life, so far, Jul 11 2007
By C.W. (Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Life of Pi (Mass Market Paperback)
THE LIFE OF PI is one of two of the most unusual books I've ever come across. The other was McCrae's KATZENJAMMER. (A third was ME TALK PRETTY ONE DAY by Sedaris, though that book is quite funny as well). LIFE OF PI is told by the central character, Pi, whose real name Piscene (pool) has been distorted in childhood to Pissing, assumes a name that measures the diameter of a circle, the symbol of omniscience, omnipresence, and omnipotence. Pi tells two stories of being lost at sea--one story of a miraculous survival for 277 days of a boy on a boat with a Bengal tiger and another story of cannibalism and murder on that same boat whose occupants are Pi, a cook, Pi's mother, and a Taiwanese sailor. Pi says, "So tell me . . .which is the better story? And so it goes with God." Life of Pi concludes with the investigators for the shipwreck's cause choosing the first story in which the caged animals somehow all escaped from their cages as the ship Tsimtsum sank suddenly to the bottom of the Pacific as the more believable, but is the reader to do so? Before choosing to believe the first story, Mr. Chiba, one of the investigators, makes associations between the hyena in the first story and the cook in the second; he sees the zebra in the first as the Taiwanese sailor in the second. The orangutan in the first was Pi's mother in the second, and the tiger Richard Parker from the first is Pi in the second. Then Mr. Chiba asks, "What about the island? Who are the meerkats? What about the teeth? I don't know. I am not inside this boy's head." Must also recommend KATZENJAMMER by McCrae and the novel BARK OF THE DOGWOOD for two other great reads.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Read it for the sake of reading it!, Oct 30 2005
By Christine Pinnock (Manitoba, Canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Life of Pi (Paperback)
When this book is described to people especially by Martel himself, it can come across as thrilling, a book that will capture you from begining to end!! But once you get into it you realize you've been duped. This book is extremely boring with an upsetting, and confusing ending. Though it is one of those books that keeps reading, it is not because you can't wait to see what happens next, but rather because with such a good writing style SOMETHING MUST HAPPEN NEXT, but it doesn't.
A very dissappointing novel. If your looking for a good read though, "The Secret Life of Bees" by Sue Monk Kidd, was absolutely amazing and completely fulfilling.
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4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars Too much hype, Dec 20 2003
By Alex (canada) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Life of Pi (Paperback)
After seeing all the hype surrounding this book and reading nothing but good reviews, I had to buy the book to find out for myself. And after putting so much expectation on the book, I began to read. While I was reading I realized, it wasn't that great!
Sure, it has it's good parts. But I found myself dragging through to the end- when I usually finish a book in a few days, this took a few weeks. It's a bit unexplained at times and it trails off at parts. I just wasn't as impressed as the rest of the world. I think I just had too many expectations. But, to each his own!
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 		 Most recent customer reviews

1.0 out of 5 stars Wow - what a bad book.
This book sucked. It was very boring...the author went on for like, 60 chapters about how Pi was fishing for dorados and cutting up turtles and drinking their blood. Read more
Published 1 month ago by Uni Student

3.0 out of 5 stars The Novel Hovel Say, "A survival story for the ages"
Pi Patel is an unusual boy. Son of a zookeeper, he is almost more familiar with the ways of the animal world then that of the one in which he lives. Read more
Published 3 months ago by The Novel Hovel

5.0 out of 5 stars Life of Pi
I truly enjoyed this book. As a matter of fact, it still comes to mind frequently. Even after finishing it a month ago. It was the subject of my monthly book club meeting. Read more
Published 6 months ago by temp

5.0 out of 5 stars Ying & Yang?
Simply stated: A good read!
Balance and steadfastness in the face of adversity are the requisites for survival / sanity! Read more
Published 8 months ago by Guy Marc Gagne

5.0 out of 5 stars Philosophical Realism
I bought this book several years ago but believe or not I never got a chance to read it until a few days ago. Read more
Published 8 months ago by Coach C

5.0 out of 5 stars EXCELLENT!
I picked this up on a whim, knowing nothing about it - and couldn't put it down! finished it in 24hrs and I need to read it again. Read more
Published 14 months ago by 30 something

4.0 out of 5 stars Great book, very clever
I just finished reading the book Life of Pi. I had to read it for school. To tell you the truth, some parts are good but some are long and may get boring at a certain point, but... Read more
Published 22 months ago by A. Cloutier

2.0 out of 5 stars Loved the last page
A friend recommended this book to me and advised that the "first 50 pages" were slow. I found the first 400 pages to be slow and the only reason I finished it was because of my... Read more
Published 23 months ago by Spacey Colleti

5.0 out of 5 stars Okay read
While one of the excerpts read ?a novel of such rare and wondrous storytelling that it may, as one character claims, make you believe in God,? Read more
Published on Oct 27 2007 by Can of peas

5.0 out of 5 stars Incredible story

The sheer number of views posted on this title and the publicity it has generated tells a lot about what should be expected from the story. It is catching. Read more
Published on Oct 10 2007 by Mike

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