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Life of Pi
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by: Yann Martel
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Sales Rank: 74430
Highbridge Audio
Released: 2003-01-13 |
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Media: Audio CD (9)
Also Available in: Kindle Edition, Paperback, Hardcover, Paperback, Mass Market Paperback, Turtleback, School & Library Binding, Unknown Binding, Paperback, Hardcover, Library Binding, Library Binding, Audio Cassette, Hardcover, Unknown Binding, Hardcover, Paperback, Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover, Hardcover, Audio Download, Audio Download, Audio CD.
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Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion." An award winner in Canada (and winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize), Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. --Brad Thomas Parsons
Product Description
Martel's novel tells the story of Pi--short for Piscine--an unusual boy raised in a zoo in India. Pi's father decides to move the family to live in Canada and sell the animals to the great zoos of America. The ship taking them across the Pacific sinks and Pi finds himself the sole human survivor on a lifeboat with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and Bengal tiger called Richard Parker. LIFE OF PI brings together many themes including religion, zoology, fear, and sheer tenacity. This is a funny, wise, and highly original look at what it means to be human.
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Life of Pi
- Audio CD: 660 pages
- Publisher: Highbridge Audio; 2003-01-13
- Label: Highbridge Audio
- Format: Unabridged
- Studio: Highbridge Audio
- ISBN: 1565117808
- Average Customer Review: based on 1827 reviews
- Sales Rank in Books: #74430
Avg. Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: A story about choice, not faith 2008-08-28
Comment: Life of Pi has been widely lauded by prestigious professional reviewers, but has also garnered some impassioned criticism. Much of this criticism hinges on the idea that the book promotes irrationality; that it supports an anti-intellectual worldview of a mutable universe, ignoring the absolute existence of the world and suffering. Upon some reflection, I feel that this criticism is entirely unsupported. Certainly the main character, Pi Patel, is particularly religious (he in fact actively practices three religions). However, Pi realizes that there is no evidence of the existence of god, but chooses to believe because it makes the story of his life more personally meaningful. He consciously chooses to suspend disbelieve in order to make some sense of his suffering. In all other ways he is eminently rational; he works hard and sensibly towards his own survival, never depending on faith or prayer. The novel chronicles Pi's unlikely survival at sea following a tragic shipwreck. Ultimately Pi provides two distinct, though related, stories chronicling his time at sea, and we and Pi are left to choose which to believe. Pi's decision, and our own, mirrors our choices concerning the existence of god, although it is interestingly unclear which story correlates with which philosophical viewpoint.
Certainly the universe really exists, however all scientists will tell you that in a certain way in exists outside ourselves, and ultimately outside our understanding. The real world is unavoidable flavored by passing through our senses and our minds before we can attempt to perceive it. For this reason we can, in a limited way, change our reality by changing our minds, and that is the point of Pi's story.
That being said, Pi's story did not "make me believe in God". Although not a wild fan of religion, I have no problem with the type of conscious faith that Pi uses, not to control his fellow man or secure his immortal soul, but to tell himself a more compelling story.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: Good but not great 2008-08-26
Comment: Life of pi is a good book. It will keep you entertained even though I did get a bit irritated at Pi sometimes and even at the story... But overall it is good and Martel writes really well. Even if I can't say I'm a Pi-fan I would still recommend it to everyone because it is a good book.. just not great...
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining 2008-08-25
Comment: I tore through all 330 pages in just a few days. I was fascinated by the story. It was refreshing to read soemthing so different; I couldn't put it down.
Martel really did a fabulous job with this book. He gives the reader vivid imagery without being wordy. He keeps things entertaining throughout!
This book was a little outside my traditional reading genre, but I absolutely loved it.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: A good book with a few drags 2008-08-25
Comment: While I enjoyed most of this book, I had trouble deciding exactly how to rate it. I loved the angles about the animals, the details of training and behavior, and the descriptions for everything from meercats to elephants. The character of Pi is one I won't soon forget: likable, heroic, and undeniably human. We also get to know the Bengal tiger, Richard Parker, on an intimate level. The plot is extraordinary yet believable, especially due to the knowledge Pi learned at his zookeeper father's knee.
Part three of the book is hilarious, hitting a whole other tone.
The only downside is that a few parts dragged and went into things that, while interesting, could have been summarized or left out. Like a lot of the stuff at the beginning of the story about his family and his religious views could have taken up fewer pages. The stuff about the three religions he belonged to definitely needs to stay in to explain his views on things, but the other stuff really didn't play into the main story. There were a few too many fishing stories.
On a side note, I think I actually learned a few survival skills by reading this novel.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Customer Rating:
Summary: One of my fav fiction reads 2008-08-19
Comment: I am not much of a fiction reader... but, this is top on my list of favorites.
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