Yann Martel: Life of Pi

[Stiffelio]

Life of Pi by Yann Martel (Booker Prize 2002).

I Loved this novel. It had me daydreaming for days. A shipwrecked Indian boy having to share lifeboat territory with a Bengal tiger? Talk about suspension of disbelief! Yet Martel pulls it off magnificently. Imagine Rushdie meeting Conrad and you'll get an idea of the kind of writing. And to think that I had bought this book years ago at a Waterstones' 3x2 sale but kept pushing it back into my shelf to gather dust. It was only thanks to New Year's cleaning that the book caught my eye again.

In the introduction to the novel Martel tells us that he was having trouble finding a good story to write about. He chances into an elderly man at a coffee house in Pondicherry, India, who after a while says to him 'I'm going to tell you a story that will make you believe in God'. And so this beautiful novel starts spinning its incredible threads. And I'm so happy to have read it. Please, read it and have your children read it too. ****0+

[Igu Soni]

I read about seventy, eighty pages, then had to stop because I was parting with the book's owner. No shipwrecks by then, just lots of religious romanticism.

[waalkwriter]

Yes, the Religious romanticism is a little dense in the novel. But, skipping the first section of it, and reading it entirely as an adventure novel make it a fun read.

[miercuri]

I think the first section is important for setting the character's background. I don't remember it being very tedious, but it's been a long time since I read the novel.

[waalkwriter]

Oh the first section is incredibly tedious, at least I found it so. Maybe more pretentious and heavy-handed than tedious. I read 10-15 pages, then skipped a few to see if it lightened up, and read 10-15 more, and finally just went ahead and skipped to the second section.

The second section was a breath of fresh air, I especially liked kind of being thrown in with the character I didn't know; indeed the novel didn't need all the pseudo-journalistic tripe and trappings that I could easily see through, the pointless stylistic flair or shock value or whatever Martel did it for. It didn't need the incredibly boring first section at all. The second second lives on its own; it's a terse, intense fight of survival, an existential situation of a boy floating on a boat in the middle of the ocean and fighting to survive. Discussions of God and spirituality are of course much more relevant and interesting in such a setting. I particularly loved Martel's use of colors, his subtle suggestion of colors for the Religion; Green is the color of land and life, the color of Islam, Orange is the color of light, of the sun in the sky, and blue, the color of the ocean, is the color of Christianity.

A very satisfying adventure novel several layers deeper than most of its kind.

[Raphael Lambach]

I don't know if most of you know but, Life of Pi is a plagiarism of "Max and the Cats" of Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar. Martel was accused by Scliar of stealing the main idea (a cat with a human being in a boat) to his book. Of course, martel denied it and said he'd never chose a bad writer as Scliart to take anything. I love Scliar's works and I think you'll love it too. I sell books, then once I refuse to sell Life of Pi 'cause it's not a "real book, only a copy.

[waalkwriter]

I don't know if most of you know but, Life of Pi is a plagiarism of "Max and the Cats" of Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar. Martel was accused by Scliar of stealing the main idea (a cat with a human being in a boat) to his book. Of course, martel denied it and said he'd never chose a bad writer as Scliart to take anything. I love Scliar's works and I think you'll love it too. I sell books, then once I refuse to sell Life of Pi 'cause it's not a "real book, only a copy.

Life of Pi is about as much a plagiarism of Max and the Cats as Interview with a Vampire is of Dracula. Literature is all about building off of ideas. A boy in a boat with a jungle cat. That's the extent of the connection. Scliar didn't sue because he had no case and was just drumming up publicity for his own work. Martel denied plagiarizing his story from Scliar, which is quite obviously the case, though he has said he read a review of the book some years ago and was interested by the idea.


"To be influenced by other writers is very common, mainly when someone begins writing and has not developed his own style yet. But to copy is something very different. It is plagiarism."[34] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi#cite_note-33) After talking with Martel, Scliar elected not to pursue the matter.[35] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi#cite_note-34) Martel said that he had not read Scliar's book, but did read a review of it many years prior to writing Life of Pi. A dedication to Scliar "for the spark of life" appeared in the author's note of Life of Pi.

Martel didn't bash Scliar at all. Please don't make up facts and slander a work you don't appear to have read based on half-concocted opinions.

In other news, I met Yann Martel a few months ago and got a chance to speak with him. He was a very cool guy. And he gave me a very satisfying answer about why he included the floating island of green coral in the story. He was also a great, if somewhat risky speaker. He gave a great lecture on the holocaust and fiction, and on writing.

[Liam]

Yann Martel... was... cool... very satisfying... great... somewhat risky...In other words, GREAT LAY!!! Congrats, Waalkie! :p

[Stiffelio]

And he gave me a very satisfying answer about why he included the floating island of green coral in the story.

Which answer was what?

[waalkwriter]

Which answer was what?

Basically, (and he stood and talked about it for 10 minutes with me), his intention was to challenge people's suspension of disbelief. The way he put it was, "Okay, shipwreck, I can believe it. The tiger, it's a stretch, but he's making me buy it." With the island he wanted to create a symbol so outrageous that there was no way people could buy into it without taking a leap of faith into the story. In essence, the real point of Life of Pi is that clear and clean logic, (Martel apparently studied a lot of philosophy in college and was disenchanted by it), doesn't always touch at the true being of the human experience. Its pro-religion message truly lies in that push for the reader to take that leap of faith, and culminates in Pi's devastating destruction of the entire story at the very end, when talking to the company representatives, after which he essentially asks, "But which would you rather believe." The floating island of green coral is sort of symbolic of religion; its absurd but at a critical moment it saves the main character.

It's what I like most about the book. It's very pro religion, but it's not bashing any religion or obtusely promoting certain beliefs, it's just endorsing the idea, in a very opened-minded way that explores 3 major religious groups. I'm sorry, I really didn't say it as well as Martel, but that is the essence of what he spoke about with me.

[hdw]

I don't know if most of you know but, Life of Pi is a plagiarism of "Max and the Cats" of Brazilian writer Moacyr Scliar. Martel was accused by Scliar of stealing the main idea (a cat with a human being in a boat) to his book.

Reminds me of "The Owl and the Pussycat went to sea / In a beautiful pea green boat / They took some honey and plenty of money / Wrapped up in a five-pound note."

£5 notes were much bigger in those days. Nowadays, when you can get one, they are scruffy limp rags that you couldn't wrap anything in. Shopkeepers usually say, sorry, we don't have any fivers, and weigh you down with heavy change.

Obviously Lear's honey motif was stolen by Michael Bond for the Paddington Bear books.

Harry

[Mirabell]

God how I loathe this book and this writer.

[waalkwriter]

God how I loathe this book and this writer.

And yet you are fascinated by Johnathon Edward's theology and Heidegger's philosophy. You know M, sometimes I think I'll never understand you.

[Stiffelio]

God how I loathe this book and this writer.

Why? and Why?

[waalkwriter]

Why? and Why?

I've learned to never try to understand Mirabell's swings. He is pretty much like the Christian god; he works in very mysterious ways sometimes, though he's generally spot on. I suppose he perhaps found the first section of the book to be ham-handed and shallow, and then found the symbolism and visceral fight for survival in the second half to be trite. Who knows, I very well might not appreciate this novel as much if I were to read it today. But then again I probably would. I'm enjoying Heinlein's Starship Troopers right now, and trying to resist the uncanny urge to join the military.

[Daniel del Real]

Finished this one yesterday and overall I found it mediocre and truly boring at many moments. First part, you can totally skip it. All about a passionate mysticism for religions without really getting deep into the topic. Just weak and basic facts about the three religions that doesn't go anywhere. Second part, the longest in the book, starts ok with the shipwreck, but after that, it just goes plainly boring. Besides, the author miserably fails to make the story plausible at many times (Two days in such a small boat and not realizing the damn tiger is there? come on!) not building a solid backup on the boys ordeal.
If he would have given his novel a fantastic approach instead of a fact-based incredible but true novel, the result would have been very different. But he expects us to believe in everything like a person can believe in god or in a dogma, and this is all his explanation to the reader? That's weak, mediocre and truly enrages me.
Of course there are good things about the book which is the description of sea life, colors and textures (no wonder why the movie crew based themselves on it) and the part about the island could have been an amazing fantastic short story.
The third part is the last and final attempt for the author begging the reader: please believe all I'm saying, believe in me as you believe in god. That is just lame.
Still wondering why this won the Man Booker Prize. A sad and poor decision.

[Stiffelio]

First of all, welcome back Daniel. This forum was becoming a bit boring without your interventions :-)

I am afraid I must disagree 100% with your appraisal of Life of Pi. Maybe we have different sensibilities and perhaps this story is not for everybody, but I truly loved it from first page to last. I don't think Martel needed to "explain" anything or ask for the reader's suspension of disbelief. It all followed naturally for me and I let myself go. The middle section is a masterpiece of story-telling and, for that matter, the whole metaphor of the novel is indeed about story-telling. Religions are about story-telling. The Pi's adventure is perhaps nothing more than a story he made up. Forget the implausibilities; that's what novels are for. By the way, I also loved the movie. I thought the novel would be impossible to translate into a movie, yet Ang Lee managed the impossible.

[Daniel del Real]

Hi Stiffelio, it's nice to be back :)

I know your point of view on the novel is totally different as you started this thread with much enthusiasm a few years ago. Probably I went to far to tell it enraged me at some moment, because that wasn't the actual truth. The first part, was slow, specially because you know what follows and you want to reach to the shipwreck ASAP. Although the description of the zoo and its animals it's quite peculiar at the beginning, the story about the three religions and its particular representatives, although necessary thought it was too long and tedious. Then we go to the shipwreck and it's quite interesting for the first pages, but then it falls into a kind of fable that for me wasn't completely believable (the tiger situation the first two days, the meeting with the other guy from the shipwreck). Then it the story surfaces towards the end of that second part and finds truly grandiose moments, probably the best from the book, when he arrives to the island. The third part seems unnecessary to me.

Haven't seen the movie, but I'm quite curious to see what Ang Lee did with such an amazing imagery Martel portrays. Must be spectacular. I'll try to watch it next weekend.

Read you later my friend.

[kpjayan]

I did read the book, soon after it was awarded the Booker. I wasn't greatly impressed at that time. I watched the movie, and went back to the book for a quick recap, and did not find anything to change my initial impression. To give credit to Ang Lee, I think he managed to make the mundane narrative to a bit more crispy.

But, if the book is about the narrative process, which the book is and the movie is not ( where the visuals had taken an upper hand), then the book is to be seen in a different perspective. But as a story, it is far from convincing, even if we want to give in to the 'metaphor' and all that.

[Remora]

It's been awhile since I read it. I enjoyed it immensely, and I especially liked the part where the narrator quips of how if you adopted every religion in the world, you'd be in a state of permanent holiday.