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Book Description
Winner of the 2002 Man Booker Prize for Fiction
Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?
Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.
Pi Patel is an unusual boy. The son of a zookeeper, he has an encyclopedic knowledge of animal behavior, a fervent love of stories, and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for new homes.
The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and Richard Parker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexist with Richard Parker for 227 days lost at sea. When they finally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to the jungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities who interrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tell them "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story, a story much less fantastical, much more conventional-but is it more true?
Life of Pi is at once a realistic, rousing adventure and a meta-tale of survival that explores the redemptive power of storytelling and the transformative nature of fiction. It's a story, as one character puts it, to make you believe in God.
- Book Details
- English Books
- Rating:
(257)
4 stars 
3 stars 2 stars 1 star - Audio Cassette
- ISBN-10: 0007162294
- ISBN-13: 9780007162291
- Publisher: Harpercollins Pub Ltd
- Pub date: Nov 30, 2002
- Also available as: Mass Market Paperback, Paperback, Hardcover, Audio Cassette, School & Library Binding and Others
- In other languages:
... and other languages繁體書, Deutsche Bücher, Libros Españoles and Libri Italiani
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Mirage
Raquel 
janzing
Dinotherer
kensington
Amy
Annam_Mathew...
Kip
Julie
Joey Doll
A well told story with an intriguing ending
This book was really slow. I can't believe I kept reading and didn't just give up. I thought the end was really good though, so it was worth it!
Unlike most people i have talked to i just didn't get into this book too much. I thought that the book could have been cut in half and still gotten the same message across.
Seems like for a while everyone was talking about it ... so I feel like I have to add it to my list.
I've read quite a few survivalist books in my life, but this one is definitely unique. I still can't quite figure out what to make of the ending though. I listened to the audio version and it was great. The whole book was read in a thick Indian accent. I thought it would drive me nuts, but it de ... Continue
I've read quite a few survivalist books in my life, but this one is definitely unique. I still can't quite figure out what to make of the ending though. I listened to the audio version and it was great. The whole book was read in a thick Indian accent. I thought it would drive me nuts, but it definitely added more to the character than I thought it would. It actually made certain parts of the book pretty funny when I would have just skimmed through it if reading.
To me, the book gets kind of past the mid-point of the story, in direct relation to the fact that life on a small boat with only a tiger as your companion must be dull. Perhaps that's just the way it should be.
This is in fact another book that tricks me into buying by having a beginning that ... Continue
To me, the book gets kind of past the mid-point of the story, in direct relation to the fact that life on a small boat with only a tiger as your companion must be dull. Perhaps that's just the way it should be.
This is in fact another book that tricks me into buying by having a beginning that's drastically different from the main part of the story. But somehow I feel less "betrayed" than in the case of South of the Boarder, West of the Sun. Don't know why.