Wednesday, December 26, 2012

Life of Pi by Yann Martel


Life of Pi


This is one of those books that will stay in my memory for ever. I listened to it on CD and it was very well read.  The story is that of a man in a lifeboat with a tiger, which doesn't sound too interesting, but it was. Somehow, despite the picture of the tiger on the front of the book, I didn't realize what it was about when I started to read it, so the part where Pi (yes that's his name) realized there was a tiger on board was a complete surprise to me. From there the book just got better and better. 

The book recently came out as a movie and, while I don't usually go to the movies very often, I did go and see this one as many people were saying it was a really good movie. Everything about the movie was excellent: the acting, the animals, the story line and the whole production. I heard the criticism that the movie was too long, but I didn't find it so.

I did read Yann Martel's second book, Beatrice and Virgil, and very much disliked it. The reason being that it was the story of an author who had had a very successful book who was struggling to write a second book. I felt it was autobiographical, and not very good in itself. Usually if I like one book from an author, I like all of them, but not in this case. It just didn't have the feel of quality of the Life of Pi. People suggested that the book was an allegory and had a double meaning, but I didn't see it.





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