This post contains spoiler information about the Li of Pi. If you are a high school or college student writing a paper or studying for a quiz on the Life of PI, get off the damn computer and read the book. And if you use my comments for your paper, your teachers will bust you for plagiarism. So control yourself and don’t steal from me. However, if you are a non-student and just want to know what the hype is about or this book is the current selection for your book club, read my thoughts before cracking the book.
Fears. I have a few. Getting my hand chewed up in a garbage disposal, being asphyxiated by mashed potatoes, and being nabbed by men in ski masks who will toss me into the back of a fast-moving white van are my among biggest fears. But, I have no fear greater than being mulled to death by an animal; therefore, I am terrified of just about every member of the animal kingdom. Dogs no matter how big or small frighten me and there is simply not enough anti-anxiety medicine available for me to ever enjoy a zoo.
Animals kill. I accept this truth and act accordingly. I do not make animals my pets; I don’t visit them in enclosed settings where they will be really pissed off when they escape. Heck, I have even banned Wonder Pets, Backyardigans and Webkinz from my home. So of course, reading about a boy trapped on a life boat with Bengal tiger for 227 days did nothing for me but induce panic attacks, nauseousness, and headaches.
My symptoms were mostly brought on by violent animal mutilations, excessive vileness and extreme boringness of a lost at sea tale all found of in Yann Martel’s Life of Pi, the winner of the 2002 Mann Booker, a New York Times Best Seller and a supposed modern classic that is rapidly among the ranks of novels taught in high schools and colleges throughout the world. This novel was praised as a “fantastical tale” by USA Today, and the San Francisco Chronicle calls it “…a real adventure…It’s difficult to stop reading when the pages run out.” Coast to coast, continent to continent, Martel’s novel has garnered great reviews and has been acclaimed as an exquisite, original masterpiece by critics and scholars who do not have the gumption to point out that this novel, which touches upon big issues such life, death, the existence of God and the importance of storytelling, is merely derivative of some of literature’s most canonical works.
Despite the hordes of critics and scholars who praise this book, there is a reasonably large and growing population of disgruntled readers who are coming together to give this award-winning novel poor reviews on the websites for both Amazon and Barnes and Noble. They are also using social networking tools to pan Martel’s work. Although I rarely associate myself with the group of folks known as “common readers,” I too felt compelled to join not one but two groups on Facebook dedicated to disparaging and denigrating this novel – Life of PI Sucks and Life of PI Sucks Ass. I quickly disjoined the groups once I realized I was the only one over the age of twenty and well-read enough to know that Life of Pi is Robinson Crusoe meets Jungle Book meets Moby Dick meets Aesop’s Fables meets Old Man in the Sea meets Heart of Darkness meets Fight Club.
This is the tale of a sixteen-year-old Pi Patel, a son of a zookeeper who is simultaneously Christian, Hindu, and Muslim and finds himself alone in a lifeboat with a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker after a ship carrying his mother, father, brother and a zoo full of animals traveling from India to Canada sinks. This sets up a clever spin on the survival tales. Not only does Pi have to survive for months but he has to ensure that the tiger does not eat him. Interesting idea but the delivery is dry and the figurative language is quite unremarkable. Within the second part of the novel, there is a lot of rigmarole about water, food, feces, dangerous sea creatures and a mythical island with man-eating algae. The journey is long for Pi but even longer for the reader until Pi is rescued and a stunning ending occurs.
Thus, Martel gives us the ending that has launched thousands of book club discussions. Does this book reinforce a belief in God or just the opposite? And, on and on and on for book clubs. In the end, the story matters but the delivery of the message is equally as important as the message. So although I think that the big themes of Life of Pi are fascinating, I argue that Martel’s delivery is not the caliber typically associated with Man Booker Prize winners and for this reason, I am making a recommendation that I have never made before as a librarian and hope to never make again. Instead of reading Life of Pi, read the books that influenced Martel, read the Cliff Notes, check out some scholarly criticism and when this book makes it to the big screen, by all means, watch the movie. But, I would recommend skipping this book that fails to deliver a story as compelling and engaging as the profound timeless themes that are contained in this meandering and tedious survival tale.
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