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 enlarge | Author: Yann Martel
Publisher: Harvest Books
Category: Book
List Price: $15.00
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Rating:  1842 reviews
Sales Rank: 3963
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 336
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.7
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.2 x 1
ISBN: 0156027321
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780156027328
ASIN: 0156027321
Publication Date: May 1, 2003
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Condition: Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Philosophy for the dimwitted November 2, 2008
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
A juvenile story which poorly masks religious/philosophical messages. To make it worse, at the end the author explains the whole thing for those who somehow miss the insipid point.
 A fantastical story that is one of the best stories I have ever read. October 31, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Read this book. Some have said that the first 45 pages or so are a bit of a slog. I disagree. Those early pages set the story up in a necessary way. Then, it takes off. It is funny, warm, sad, deep, happy, meaningful and glorious.
 Bad October 10, 2008
2 out of 4 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
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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