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Yann Martel - Life of Pi


Kell

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I've had the paperback of this on my shelf for many years now, but still haven't got around to reading it yet - I just never seem to be in the mood for it, and my friend read it and didn't like it, so I think this has put me off a bit too.

 

The restrictions on the search on the forum to only allow four letter or longer words does make it tricky to find some threads, particularly for a book title like Life of Pi! I did find another thread for it though, http://www.bookclubforum.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/343-yann-martel-life-of-pi so you can have a look at what some of the other members who have read it have to say about it :)

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This is yet another book that I plan to re-read one day, some day, eventually.

 

Its books like this one that make me glad I carried on reading it regardless. It seemed to be going nowehere for most of the beginning and the story didn't acutally start until Pi ended up in the raft but from then on I really enjoyed it. I did feel disappointed at the very end but then I could laugh it off and all was forgiven.

 

Its one of those books thats hard to talk about without spoilers though.

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I'd agree with that Easy reader - the first section you wonder " when is this going to get started? All this explanation about circus animals and zoo's and religion? It pays off in the actually part on the lifeboat though.

 

It almost became too unbeleivable for me when he gets to the island (like being on a lifeboat with a tiger, Zebra Hyena etc IS beleivable! :huh: )

 

I'm very glad I read this, and think a re-read will be in order soon

 

Ian

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  • 4 months later...

Love the polarity of views here about the Life of Pi... it really sums up the completely contradictory views my husband and I had after reading it at the same time! He hated it and I loved it. I loved the uncertain ending, because for me that is what "faith" is all about - believing in something when you have no proof - and loved the fact the book ended that with doubt over the legitimacy of the original story. My husband - who likes fact and certainty - hated the way it ended and how empty it left him feeling.

 

Definitely a "marmite" book as many people have said :D

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  • 5 months later...
I started this book a couple of years ago but couldn't get into it. Will give it another go one day to see whether it was my lack of reading mojo at the time or the book itself that was the problem.

For me Life of Pi was an easy read in the sense that it totally caught me from the first pages and it didn't take long to finish the book. I liked the way in which realistic and unrealistic things started to get mixed - storytelling like that always fascinates me.

 

Double posting, but I thought of how they're making a film based on this book, and I'm affraid it's not going to be good enough to do the book justice.

It's just a specific story and I'm affraid it's going to be either boring or just not...touching enough. Or at all.

Yeah, neither I think that Life of Pi can be made into a film very well. The sense of time (how it passes painfully slowly when Pi is on the raft, etc) is in my opinion an important factor in the whole story and from the book it comes out well. But a film, then, just doesn't allow the makers to let the story evolve and pace forward as slowly as it should. Or that's how I feel.

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  • 1 month later...

I haven't read the book, but I was privileged to work with Yann Martel a couple of months ago and found him to be a really great guy. :) My friend Jeff, who's a television screenwriter, commented that it would be a hard book to turn into a movie but apparently they're doing it nonetheless, with Ang Lee in the director's chair. The release date is December 21st.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I haven't read the book, but I was privileged to work with Yann Martel a couple of months ago and found him to be a really great guy. :) My friend Jeff, who's a television screenwriter, commented that it would be a hard book to turn into a movie but apparently they're doing it nonetheless, with Ang Lee in the director's chair. The release date is December 21st.

 

It will be difficult to pull off, but I would be intrigued to see the results!

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I haven't read the book, but I was privileged to work with Yann Martel a couple of months ago and found him to be a really great guy. :) My friend Jeff, who's a television screenwriter, commented that it would be a hard book to turn into a movie but apparently they're doing it nonetheless, with Ang Lee in the director's chair. The release date is December 21st.

 

I always assumed if it was going to be made into a film it would be animated. I had pictured it to be done in the style of The Snowman, but obviously with less snow :D

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I haven't read the book, but I was privileged to work with Yann Martel a couple of months ago and found him to be a really great guy. :)

 

The coolness of this statemenent is overwhelming :D

 

I was thinking of re-reading it sometime soon, cos it's a comforting read for me.

Though I do often re-read certain parts when I need some positive energy :)

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  • 2 months later...

I recently read this book under the recommendation that it would change my thoughts on the existence of God. It didn't quite do that, but I did find it to be a good book. It was a little slow in the beginning but oh well, many books are. Unfortunately, I saw online that the story was very similarly written in 1981 in a book called Max and the Cats. Takes a little bit of the creative power away from the book. I am excited to see how they interpreted to the book to be on the silver screen though.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This has been on my TBR list for quite some time now. I started reading it but I just couldn't get into it and got a bit confused with it but that was a while ago and so many people have said they've enjoyed it so I'm going to have to give it another go soon. Hopefully, I'll enjoy it more :)

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  • 3 weeks later...

I enjoyed Life of Pi, in many ways I found it to be very originally written. I liked his new ideas on religion and thought that it was very comical the way a child could find the similarities in the differing faiths, something religious scholars are often unable to master. Once Pi was shipwrecked, I thought the story was slow but I almost found that added an extra depth to the book, in that the reader could empathise with the mundane life Pi was forced into. I didn't find it boring, per say, just a different type of interesting, who knew I'd read chapters about knot tying?

 

I didn't, however, enjoy the ending. I don't necessarily believe books should end with an overly-contrived conclusion, but I think the author should comment on where the characters ended. I liked the idea of the animals in the boat but thought it juxtaposed with the possibility of them being human to be an unnecessary addition and ultimately, it left a bad taste in my mouth. Perhaps it was due to the beauty of Martel's writing and the dehumanising of people towards the end that I found almost distasteful.

 

I did give it a 7/10 rating, however, because I did enjoy the book and did find it, until the finale, encaptivating.

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  • 2 weeks later...

This is one of my favourite books, and despite not being a fan of Ang Lee, I actually think he's perhaps a good choice to pull this off in a movie format. Apparently the 3D is stunning too...

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  • 7 months later...

I agree with some of the comments about the ending. It felt contrived to me and jarred with the way the rest of the book was written. I kind of enjoyed it until then. I'd really like to read it again one day or see the film, to see if I feel the same way about it knowing the ending in advance.



 

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  • 7 years later...

The allegorical aspect to this book, completely pased me by at the time I read it, back in 2005.

 

I read it as a straight biographical adventure, which probably accounts for the problems I had with it. 

 

The beginning was very interesting, particularly the way in which Pi managed to manufacture his own faith by an amalgamation of the varieties of often conflicting religions around him.

 

I was able to stretch my imagination far enough to accept the shipwreck and the early days on the life-raft, but was unable to suspend my disbelief when it came to the island, and couldn't wait to get to the end of the book to start on something else.

 

I have trouble with 'magic realism', but at least you know what you are dealing with when a book is wierd from the start!

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