Chain Reading

This is a great book. Yann Martel jumps in and weaves a wonderful story, humourous and tragic at the same time, and the book leaves you with some interesting things to think about. The end of the book leaves you skimming through the whole novel in your memory, putting things together as you go.

The book takes numerous unexpected turns, perhaps most of all at the very end. Worth reading, but not worth spoiling, so I won't go into any details!

It was very engaging book although I don't think it was necessarily as religious as it was said to be. I mean, its apparently made people believe in God? Whatever your beliefs in God are, don't let any of that stop you from picking up this incredibly written book!

After finishing this, I felt as though I'd read several different books about the same person, Pi Patel. Yes, it is divided as so, but each section really is so completely different from the other & its really not that long of a book! :) I absolutely loved & admired Mr. Pi & was left wondering if what I'd read was truth or fiction.

I recommend this to everyone!

This is a very difficult book to write a review for because 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.

Along with the namesake and Shadow of the Wind, a contender for my absolute favourite book.

What the other reviews dont mention is the relevance of naming the Bengal Tiger Richard Parker and how much this adds to your experience of the novel, if you are planning on reading this it's worth reading this extract by Yann Martel on the name as it changes your understanding of the book.

In 1884, the Mignonette, a yacht, set sail from Southampton, England, for Australia. She had a crew of four. In the South Atlantic, the seas were heavy. Wave after wave struck the vessel. Suddenly, she broke apart and sank. Captain, mate, hand, and cabin boy managed to scramble aboard a dinghy--but without water or provisions except for two cans of turnips. After 19 days adrift, starving and desperate, the captain killed the cabin boy, who was unconscious and had no dependents, and the three remaining survivors ate him. The cabin boy's name was Richard Parker. His fate, in itself, is not particularly noteworthy. Cannibalism on the high seas was surprisingly common at the time. The reason Richard Parker--or, more accurately, "the case of the Mignonette"--has gone down in history, at least in knowledgeable legal circles, is that upon their return to England, the survivors (they were rescued shortly after killing R.P. by a Swedish ship) were tried for murder, a first. Up till then, murder committed under duress, because of severe necessity, was informally accepted as justifiable. But with the Mignonette, the powers-that-be decided to examine the question more closely. The case went all the way to the Lords and set a legal precedent. The captain was found guilty of murder. To this day, the only excuse for murder remains self-defense, and any British legal team that tries to argue otherwise will get a lecture from the judge about the Mignonette. Murder committed in extreme circumstances for the sake of sustaining life remains illegal (though those who commit it usually get light sentences). That's one Richard Parker.

Fifty years earlier, in 1837, Edgar Allan Poe published his only novel, The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym. It was a commission that quickly lost Poe's interest. He finished it with a mix of reluctance and slapdash hurry that is not a recipe for great literature. Pym is a sloppy work that would have vanished without a trace if weren't for its author's fame. In the story, the ship upon which Pym and a friend set sail from Nantucket overturns in a storm. Survivors cling to the hull. After several days, hunger and despair push Pym and his friend to eat a third man. His name is Richard Parker. Remember, Poe wrote Pym 50 years before the sinking of the Mignonette.

And then there was the Francis Speight, a ship that foundered in 1846. There were deaths and cannibalism aboard. One of the victims was a Richard Parker.

So many victimized Richard Parkers had to mean something. My tiger found his name. He's a victim, too--or is he?

Gino's Review made this book, which I finished in a marathon reading session last night, even more poignant. (Don't worry about a spoiler if you have not read the book) What an amazing story. Although it is not "Literature", it is well written, EXTREMELY readable, enjoyable and the symbolism is amazing. The very end weaves everything together into an emotional (without shmaltzy sentimentality) punch. What a book, it is one that I will recommend it to ANYONE. Be prepared to not want to put it down.

Totally insane and totally engaging. Sounds far fetched but it's a very good read. With a young male lead that feels like it could be more appropriate kids than myself, I totally enjoyed the book and recommend it to anyone who likes something a bit different!