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Life of Pi Review

This book blew my mind. It is so different from other books and it is not always a comfortable read but one not to be missed.

Life of Pi Feature

ISBN13: 9780156027328
Condition: New
Notes: BUY WITH CONFIDENCE, Over one million books sold! 98% Positive feedback. Compare our books, prices and service to the competition. 100% Satisfaction Guaranteed

Life of Pi Overview

The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.

The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is it more true?

Life of Pi Specifications

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

life of pi - lauriejbravo -

i loved the book and it came EXACTLY in the condition as explained to me. It was a most positive purchase.

great book - Netta Sadovsky - SAINT LOUIS, MO, US
Just a wonderful book. Poetic, perfectly framed, mesmerizing. The book arrived in good shape at a great price!

You have to be kidding me. - S. Gualtier -
I waited several years to read this book, and somehow managed to sidestep any knowledge of the "plot" or ending. How I wish I'd read the one star reviews here before picking this up. They sum up my feelings exactly. This book is the Da Vinci Code of magical realism. It's a lowest-common-denominator pander to a public desperate for any semblance of spirituality or intellect but unwilling to or incapable of picking up the classics.

I notice that there are a lot of high school students reviewing the book, stating that they had to read it for English class and talking about how deeply spiritual it is. That's about the level on which the book is written. It might make me laugh if the fact that English teachers are taking time away from legitimate literature to peddle this drivel weren't so tragic. Look, I get it... you want the non-reading gruesome video game crowd to get excited about a reading assignment. But seriously?? This book is so thinly plotted and poorly conceived, not to mention gratuitously violent and disturbing, that I couldn't even take it seriously.

The marketing machine behind it must have been tremendous. If you're looking for depth rather than dull pseudo-intellectual garbage, I'd look elsewhere.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Sep 07, 2010 05:26:04

Books Literature & Fiction

Tuesday, September 7, 2010