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Hello! I've been lurking for a long while, too shy to post. But I'm here now so let's get rolling. Bane of my required reading this semester...
I should start by saying that this is a well-written book. Whatever I have to say about the story, the writing's very polished, though the style may not appeal to all. Survival stories really aren't my thing, but it was compelling enough that I was vaguely interested throughout.
It took me a while to realize why I didn't like this story: It's preachy and moralistic in places, and while I don't exactly object to the message of the story, I do think the book romanticizes believing in something that isn't true. While many parts of the story had potential, I feel like Martel's writing was so focused around making his point the potential went unexplored.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS if you ever intend to read this book, DO NOT READ FURTHER seriously
Quick recap: Pi Patel, son of a zookeeper, is on the Tsimtsum to Canada when it sinks. He ends up on a lifeboat with a tiger named Richard Parker, a hyena and a bit later on, an orangutan. When he finally reaches Mexico 227 days later, it's just him and Richard Parker.
In the end we find out that Richard Parker is actually Pi, and the hyena (who Pi killed) was a French cook, the orangutan was his mother and the zebra a Japanese sailor.
Part 1's entire purpose, as I see it in retrospect, was to set up context for Part 2 (the stranded-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean part); to set up a strong base for our belief in the story in Part 2, which would have been difficult to swallow if the reader was just thrown into it.
Unfortunately, I didn't know this when I was reading Part 1. So I spent most of my time wondering why the hell there were entire pages exploring the details of sloth behaviour, zoo conditions and other stuff that seemed extraneous to the set up. The ongoing "author's notes" are good example of an especially annoying bit of the story whose purpose becomes clearer (and even clever) later on but that are still annoying as all hell during the first read.
The exasperating part is that Martel is good writer, so even these passages were readable enough. Despite not understanding, I figured the set up was somehow necessary.
So I move on to Part 2, whose quality is similarly flagged by over-detailed explanations of seemingly trivial things. I do intellectually understand what their purpose was: by focusing on the explicit details of fish and turtle killing/consumption, tiger-training, survival manuals etc. and so Martel lends his story credibility while at the same time focusing attention away from the bigger picture, which is largely unbelievable. Was it still annoying to read at the time? Yes!
Now to the final part of the book, which is short and where all is revealed: the animals were various people, and Richard Parker was a part of himself. I thought the interview-style that most of it was in was a mistake: if there was anything that drove home to me how preachy and pretentious the novel was trying to be, it was the straight-forward no-frills interview transcript which allowed Pi's moralistic philosophy to show.
Finally we come to the message of the story which I have a major issue with. True or not, which was the better story? is the question Martel asks us. I know he's expecting 'animal version' but personally I would be much more interested to read the version with humans. The conflict and psychological stress would be fascinating, and I think there'd be way more potential for heart-breaking and emotional moments.
Speaking of the animal version, I was creeped out on the second read with Pi's attitude to the orangutan. The orangutan is Pi's mother, and it's a bit unsettling to see how he thinks about her recieves her eventual death. I understand it's his way of coping with the terrible situation, imagining the people are animals, and I can hardly judge him for it. However, Martel takes this situation and asks "what was the better story?". There's a smug implication that of course it's the animal story, but ultimately it's a "believe in the story that you want to" message. That's okay, right?
No. The concept of believing in something that isn't true as a coping mechanism is romanticized in this novel, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Quite cleverly he doesn't only tell us about the importance of believing what isn't true, but he lets us experience it: at the end of the novel we feel what it's like to have a strong-held belief about the novel's world turn out to be false. Many people's issue with the novel is here (a lot wtf reactions in class ensued), but my dislike goes deeper than frustration at this. Martel takes "sometimes the hardest things to believe are the things we need to believe the most" to an extreme and makes it look like a warm and fuzzy believe-whatever-you-like middle ground philosophy. Ultimately Pi was in an extreme situation and built himself a fantasy world to cope. Hardly healthy, but it was all he had. In situations where belief is a matter of personal survival, I can hardly fault someone for believing in something that isn't necessarily true.
However, to apply this philosophy to belief in general and regular every day life where you aren't stuck in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, seems dangerous to me. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but to me believing in what you need to can easily turn into believing what's most comfortable for you, becoming willingly blind to terrible things. I respect that is was Pi's faith that got him through his ordeal, I hardly think his state of mind during should be put on a pedestal. The idea is disturbing.
When I was rereading I could tell that pretty much everything in this novel was geared towards making Martel's point, setting up his, I admit, very smart "whoops, it was all a lie" reveal. I found Pi's multi-faith system of belief very interesting and wanted that to be explored more, but again it was only talked about long enough for Martel's point to be made later on. I feel like Pi more and more becomes Martel's vessel for The Message and less and less of an individual character as the novel progresses. There was so much unexplored potential in this story, in Martel's writing. The characters, plot and setting of the story is all explored inasmuch as it needs to be to add to Martel's message. In the end it felt like an annoying exercise in "look at me, I'm so clever" by a reasonably intelligent person.
There's a lot of religious content in this that atheists tend to get mad about, but I deliberately tried not to mention it. As an atheist my problem with this book is not it's message about god, but about belief in general. I'm used to my beliefs being presented as a coat the bitter and amoral wear, so this novel's affectionate if patronizing attitude towards atheism didn't even bing on my radar. There were a couple of pseudo-philosophical rants about agnosticism with questionable metaphors that made me wonder if Mr. Martel was letting his bias show. In the end I think the philosophy is middle-ground enough that it has potential to offend both sides: a Christian girl I knew said that she found that the novel catered to the "atheist agenda" that she felt was rampant in our school's book choice (we've done The Chrysalids and The Handmaid's Tale" so far).
Wow that felt good to get off my chest. It's my first time writing a review, so any concrit on how to improve would be greatly welcomed. Thanks for reading. <3
I should start by saying that this is a well-written book. Whatever I have to say about the story, the writing's very polished, though the style may not appeal to all. Survival stories really aren't my thing, but it was compelling enough that I was vaguely interested throughout.
It took me a while to realize why I didn't like this story: It's preachy and moralistic in places, and while I don't exactly object to the message of the story, I do think the book romanticizes believing in something that isn't true. While many parts of the story had potential, I feel like Martel's writing was so focused around making his point the potential went unexplored.
SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS if you ever intend to read this book, DO NOT READ FURTHER seriously
Quick recap: Pi Patel, son of a zookeeper, is on the Tsimtsum to Canada when it sinks. He ends up on a lifeboat with a tiger named Richard Parker, a hyena and a bit later on, an orangutan. When he finally reaches Mexico 227 days later, it's just him and Richard Parker.
In the end we find out that Richard Parker is actually Pi, and the hyena (who Pi killed) was a French cook, the orangutan was his mother and the zebra a Japanese sailor.
Part 1's entire purpose, as I see it in retrospect, was to set up context for Part 2 (the stranded-in-the-middle-of-the-ocean part); to set up a strong base for our belief in the story in Part 2, which would have been difficult to swallow if the reader was just thrown into it.
Unfortunately, I didn't know this when I was reading Part 1. So I spent most of my time wondering why the hell there were entire pages exploring the details of sloth behaviour, zoo conditions and other stuff that seemed extraneous to the set up. The ongoing "author's notes" are good example of an especially annoying bit of the story whose purpose becomes clearer (and even clever) later on but that are still annoying as all hell during the first read.
The exasperating part is that Martel is good writer, so even these passages were readable enough. Despite not understanding, I figured the set up was somehow necessary.
So I move on to Part 2, whose quality is similarly flagged by over-detailed explanations of seemingly trivial things. I do intellectually understand what their purpose was: by focusing on the explicit details of fish and turtle killing/consumption, tiger-training, survival manuals etc. and so Martel lends his story credibility while at the same time focusing attention away from the bigger picture, which is largely unbelievable. Was it still annoying to read at the time? Yes!
Now to the final part of the book, which is short and where all is revealed: the animals were various people, and Richard Parker was a part of himself. I thought the interview-style that most of it was in was a mistake: if there was anything that drove home to me how preachy and pretentious the novel was trying to be, it was the straight-forward no-frills interview transcript which allowed Pi's moralistic philosophy to show.
Finally we come to the message of the story which I have a major issue with. True or not, which was the better story? is the question Martel asks us. I know he's expecting 'animal version' but personally I would be much more interested to read the version with humans. The conflict and psychological stress would be fascinating, and I think there'd be way more potential for heart-breaking and emotional moments.
Speaking of the animal version, I was creeped out on the second read with Pi's attitude to the orangutan. The orangutan is Pi's mother, and it's a bit unsettling to see how he thinks about her recieves her eventual death. I understand it's his way of coping with the terrible situation, imagining the people are animals, and I can hardly judge him for it. However, Martel takes this situation and asks "what was the better story?". There's a smug implication that of course it's the animal story, but ultimately it's a "believe in the story that you want to" message. That's okay, right?
No. The concept of believing in something that isn't true as a coping mechanism is romanticized in this novel, and it makes me very uncomfortable. Quite cleverly he doesn't only tell us about the importance of believing what isn't true, but he lets us experience it: at the end of the novel we feel what it's like to have a strong-held belief about the novel's world turn out to be false. Many people's issue with the novel is here (a lot wtf reactions in class ensued), but my dislike goes deeper than frustration at this. Martel takes "sometimes the hardest things to believe are the things we need to believe the most" to an extreme and makes it look like a warm and fuzzy believe-whatever-you-like middle ground philosophy. Ultimately Pi was in an extreme situation and built himself a fantasy world to cope. Hardly healthy, but it was all he had. In situations where belief is a matter of personal survival, I can hardly fault someone for believing in something that isn't necessarily true.
However, to apply this philosophy to belief in general and regular every day life where you aren't stuck in a lifeboat in the middle of the ocean, seems dangerous to me. Maybe I'm just a cynic, but to me believing in what you need to can easily turn into believing what's most comfortable for you, becoming willingly blind to terrible things. I respect that is was Pi's faith that got him through his ordeal, I hardly think his state of mind during should be put on a pedestal. The idea is disturbing.
When I was rereading I could tell that pretty much everything in this novel was geared towards making Martel's point, setting up his, I admit, very smart "whoops, it was all a lie" reveal. I found Pi's multi-faith system of belief very interesting and wanted that to be explored more, but again it was only talked about long enough for Martel's point to be made later on. I feel like Pi more and more becomes Martel's vessel for The Message and less and less of an individual character as the novel progresses. There was so much unexplored potential in this story, in Martel's writing. The characters, plot and setting of the story is all explored inasmuch as it needs to be to add to Martel's message. In the end it felt like an annoying exercise in "look at me, I'm so clever" by a reasonably intelligent person.
There's a lot of religious content in this that atheists tend to get mad about, but I deliberately tried not to mention it. As an atheist my problem with this book is not it's message about god, but about belief in general. I'm used to my beliefs being presented as a coat the bitter and amoral wear, so this novel's affectionate if patronizing attitude towards atheism didn't even bing on my radar. There were a couple of pseudo-philosophical rants about agnosticism with questionable metaphors that made me wonder if Mr. Martel was letting his bias show. In the end I think the philosophy is middle-ground enough that it has potential to offend both sides: a Christian girl I knew said that she found that the novel catered to the "atheist agenda" that she felt was rampant in our school's book choice (we've done The Chrysalids and The Handmaid's Tale" so far).
Wow that felt good to get off my chest. It's my first time writing a review, so any concrit on how to improve would be greatly welcomed. Thanks for reading. <3