[lit-ideas] Tuesday review

  • From: Paul Stone <pas@xxxxxxxx>
  • To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 25 Apr 2006 10:04:48 -0400

LIfe of Pi -- Yann Martel

It's the story of a boy who finds himself in a small boat with some very curious companions at sea for a 227 day adventure on the open seas.

I enjoyed this book quite a bit -- but with qualifications. It was easy to read and I couldn't wait to see how things ended. In reading some other reviews of this book after the fact, I noticed some people actually complained that there was a sort of a jolt around page 100, but HEY, something had to happen. Until then, the story was quite mundane indeed. I liked Martel's writing style, but, like a bad CSI episode, some of the 'clues' were a little too obviously placed. At times I asked myself "why did he put THAT in there?" when of course the answer had to be "because he's going to purposefully refer to it later." Curiously, for a fantastical sea adventure, there were no red herrings.

However, I had three basic problems with this book:

Firstly, the main character is supposed to be 16 years old. I did not know this going in and as I read, it did not strike me that Pi was anywhere near 16 years old. From his boyish insouciance, I would have put his age at about 11 or 12. Yes, he was from another country and this story was set quite a few years ago, but still he was positively UNWORLDLY for a 16 y/o. I couldn't quite buy that in retrospect. The story I read was from the eyes of a very young boy.

Secondly, although it's an adventure along the lines of "Robinson Crusoe", Martel didn't quite go far enough with the story. Reading Defoe's book (RC) one marvels at his amazing ability to convey a feeling of verisimilitude by having the reader actually believe that all those feats are the work of our one hero. Pi was mildly amusing at times and quite interesting at others [in an "oh, that's quite interesting" kind of a way]. But I never thought that Martel (or Pi) was any smarter than I. I need to respect my characters -- especially when they are superheroes. In this respect I think Martel falls a little short.

Thirdly, the passion I had for Pi's shipmate (the Tiger) was quite overbearing. I was rooting for him all the way and it was profoundly sad later in the book with the resolution of his fate -- probably because I'm a selfish human (you'll understand if you read it). But, I guess that's realism. Funnily enough, after reading his (the tiger's) silly name hundreds of times, I can't quite remember it [Richard Parker?]. Perhaps that was Martel's [Pi's] idea -- to create a wild feline antagonist as a perfect foil to the hero of this long journey. The juxtaposition of a mistakenly named tiger (enhancing his already prominent anthropomorphic qualities] with a seemingly feeble innocent is quite effective. It would certainly have been boring to recount 227 days at sea by yourself -- have you seen "murder in the first"?

As far as the reference to "Pi" goes, although there are absolutely no overt references to [3.14159] Pi, perhaps the 'transcendentalism' that Martel was trying to capture is a weak reference. The only thing I can think of is that the [non] number "pi" brings just as much of a buzz as did Pi's story of adventure at sea. After finishing, I wondered: Did the two policemen who meet him believe his story? Does it really matter? Maybe the book's about "Martel's Wager" -- Pi made himself interesting because it's better that way. It's better that the number Pi is enigmatic, because we like it that way. That's all I can say.

paul

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Paul Stone
pas@xxxxxxxx
Kingsville, ON, Canada


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