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"Life of Pi - Spoilers contained within"

Why?
Why did this get praise? Why has it been this overly loved thing?
It's awful.
Plot? From the back, you'd think it's about a bloke on a boat with some animals. And he gets castaway with the animals.
Right?
So possibly the animals talk (or at least in his imagination) and there will follow ruminations on the nature of man and beast, or perhaps a skillfully written piece about animals together in a confined space?

WRONG

First half of the book is about Piscine's search for religious identity by mixing 3 major faiths, with existential thoughts on the nature of religion and divinity.
And some talk about zoos and animals in zoos.
Imagine Johnny Morris mixed with Salman Rushdie cornering you at a party and shouting into your ear "I love jesus and allah and buddha and leopards and goats and zoos" until you want to punch him in the face.

Then comes the castaway (covered by "the ship sank with a metallic burp").
You then have about 150 pages of Piscine on a boat with a tiger (and a couple others but they get killed).
And that's it, except for the magical floaty island of killer algae and trees.
The animals don't possess personality, there's no imagined talking.
He doesn't fret for survival because the lifeboat is well stocked with goodies.

The first half is "My dad ran a zoo. I liked the idea of Jesus but couldn't understand the suffering, so I had some Buddhism with a little bit of Allah"
The next few pages are "I was afraid of the tiger but he didn't eat me"
Then "The island was my salvation, except it was trying to kill me. Meerkats were cool though"
The last third is "What a stupid story, I don't believe you" from doctors.

Avoid. Really, unless you're the sort of person that thinks by letting others see you reading a "hot" book, they'll be impressed and want to be your friend and suck you off on the tube late at night.

Bunch of pseudo-metaphysical ass.

***edit***
Vernon God Little is fantastic though, so that made up for it.

Still the kids name is swimming pool in french right?

I like the irony.

I tried re-reading it, in case I was suffering from hype-fatigue.
And nope, it still blows tigers.

Thoroughly underwhelming.

Told you it would take me a while to get through it. In fact, I only picked up the pace because I never give up on a book, and someone bought me something else I wanted to read, so I had to get it out of the way.

Some of the bits on the boat were alright, but most was just "so he'll get saved in a minute?"

Plus, because I'm really thick - or wasn't paying attention, I was having a conversation whilst reading the last few pages - which version of the story is actually true? I take it the one with people, and he mae up the animal stuff, because the other wasn't pleasant. But if that's the case, why doesn't it all equate, only the easy stuff? Was his mother a 'tard? Otherwise making her an orangutan would be highly insulting.

Also, didn't we lose a thread somewhere? Before the shipwreck wasn't it interspersed with chapters in which 'the author' went to meet Pi, and he was surprised that he had kids and stuff. Didn't that bit just peter out? That's the problem wit htaking so long to read dull books, you forget half of what went on at the start whilst you struggle through to the end.

And that's why books sell I suppose - because a book that I find wearisome and written by an autistic tiger-fan is loved by somebody whilst I book I thought was fantastic is treated the same.

I know I'll be avoiding Yan Martel like a Vampire avoids long haired men in trenchcoats

On the Vernon/Pi divide I'd take a totally reverse stance. VGL was underwhelming, something Douglas Coupland may have written during his bathroom breaks.

Conversely, I really liked the Life of Pi, mostly for the understated-ness that seems to bug you. I love the way the ship's sinking is covered by a mere metallic burp, anymore is irrelevant. The way chapters are filled with seeming banal details about routine and longed for food, but zip past as enjoyably as any obvious thrillers. Then the climatic reversal; the Other Version of the sugared pill of a parable that went before. Brilliant. Take what religious messages and comments out of it that you want, but totally separately it also stands as a fantastic survival yarn and with some awesomely brave prose.

Edit: some wierd formatting went on with the puncuation on posting!

The back of the book was a little bit misleading.


I still liked it though.



Weren't you even the least bit interested by the animal psychology?

Heh, what did I say the other day in that other thread you started about books you'd recently read.

Something along the lines of:

"I started it and quite liked it at first, then kind of slowed down when he started on about religion."

I still haven't bothered to go any further, but will finish it one day.

(Oh, and I didn't read all the post, I don't want it to be 'spoilt' for me...)

Why?
Why did this get praise? Why has it been this overly loved thing?
It's awful.
Plot? From the back, you'd think it's about a bloke on a boat with some animals. And he gets castaway with the animals.
Right?
So possibly the animals talk (or at least in his imagination) and there will follow ruminations on the nature of man and beast, or perhaps a skillfully written piece about animals together in a confined space?

WRONG

First half of the book is about Piscine's search for religious identity by mixing 3 major faiths, with existential thoughts on the nature of religion and divinity.
And some talk about zoos and animals in zoos.
Imagine Johnny Morris mixed with Salman Rushdie cornering you at a party and shouting into your ear "I love jesus and allah and buddha and leopards and goats and zoos" until you want to punch him in the face.

Then comes the castaway (covered by "the ship sank with a metallic burp").
You then have about 150 pages of Piscine on a boat with a tiger (and a couple others but they get killed).
And that's it, except for the magical floaty island of killer algae and trees.
The animals don't possess personality, there's no imagined talking.
He doesn't fret for survival because the lifeboat is well stocked with goodies.

The first half is "My dad ran a zoo. I liked the idea of Jesus but couldn't understand the suffering, so I had some Buddhism with a little bit of Allah"
The next few pages are "I was afraid of the tiger but he didn't eat me"
Then "The island was my salvation, except it was trying to kill me. Meerkats were cool though"
The last third is "What a stupid story, I don't believe you" from doctors.

Avoid. Really, unless you're the sort of person that thinks by letting others see you reading a "hot" book, they'll be impressed and want to be your friend and suck you off on the tube late at night.

Bunch of pseudo-metaphysical ass.

***edit***
Vernon God Little is fantastic though, so that made up for it.