Life of Pi
Yann Martel
Canongate Books, 2003
ISBN: 184195425X
So I have been wanting to write an entry about this book since I started this blog. Today I ready some bits and pieces of it again and I suddenly knew again why I had wanted to write something about it. But indeed, it is difficult to find a point where to start, so let me begin with the story:
After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan ... and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.
As incredible as this description might sound, it does not prepare you in any way for what is to come. It starts off nicely with Pi's childhood in India, leading all the way up to that trip with his family on the cargo ship. And then there comes the tale of the time he spends on the boat. Ultimately it is a story about believing. Believing in yourself, in God, in the world and in your own tale.
I liked this review from the Financial Times:
"Absurd, macabre, unreliable and sad, deeply sensual in its evoking of smells and sights, the whole trip and the narrator's insanely curious voice suggests Joseph Conrad and Salman Rushdie hallucinating together over the meaning of The Old Man and the Sea and Gulliver's Travels."
Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963, of Canadian parents, and currently lives in Montreal. He is the author of The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and Self.
Available at Amaazon in English and Deutsch
Tags: English, novel, fantasy
Canongate Books, 2003
ISBN: 184195425X
So I have been wanting to write an entry about this book since I started this blog. Today I ready some bits and pieces of it again and I suddenly knew again why I had wanted to write something about it. But indeed, it is difficult to find a point where to start, so let me begin with the story:
After the tragic sinking of a cargo ship, one solitary lifeboat remains bobbing on the wild, blue Pacific. The only survivors from the wreck are a sixteen-year-old boy named Pi, a hyena, a zebra (with a broken leg), a female orang-utan ... and a 450-pound Royal Bengal tiger.
As incredible as this description might sound, it does not prepare you in any way for what is to come. It starts off nicely with Pi's childhood in India, leading all the way up to that trip with his family on the cargo ship. And then there comes the tale of the time he spends on the boat. Ultimately it is a story about believing. Believing in yourself, in God, in the world and in your own tale.
I liked this review from the Financial Times:
"Absurd, macabre, unreliable and sad, deeply sensual in its evoking of smells and sights, the whole trip and the narrator's insanely curious voice suggests Joseph Conrad and Salman Rushdie hallucinating together over the meaning of The Old Man and the Sea and Gulliver's Travels."
Yann Martel was born in Spain in 1963, of Canadian parents, and currently lives in Montreal. He is the author of The Facts behind the Helsinki Roccamatios and Self.
Available at Amaazon in English and Deutsch
Tags: English, novel, fantasy
posted by Tolk at
19.3.06
