Tag Archives: Life of Pi

Nice little twist at the end, something that satisfies a writer's soul. Martel brings up the notion of story, and what is fiction and what is truth as Pi retells his story briefly to a group who interviews him when … Continue reading → Continue reading →

And, spoilers; though I'm sure no one reads my reviews without realizing that I care not a whit for such things, particularly since I'm discussing rather than reviewing, and more in a non-usual manner. But this: A man-eating island! Continue reading →

Too cute: I explored the island. I tried to walk around it but gave up. I estimate that it was about six or seven miles in diameter, which means a circumference of about twenty miles. (p. 340) Okay, pi. Continue reading →

It is quite likely one of the least controversial of ethical questions: cannibalism. I say least controversial because most people agree that it certainly shouldn't be an accepted practice, and only if forced by threatened survival–and then, only if the … Continue reading → Continue reading →

This is nice: At moments of wonder, it is easy to avoid small thinking, to entertain thoughts that span the universe, that capture both thunder and tinkle, thick and thin, the near and the far. (p. 295) Continue reading →

Interesting pattern of both passage of time and changes in character: Subsequently I went for smaller sharks, pups really, and I killed them myself. I found that stabbing them through the eyes with the knife was a faster, less tiresome … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Interesting to note here that Martel plays with the notion of time in many ways. He has brought in characters that have changed the time frame from present to past, meaning the narrator retelling Pi's story and then Pi's story … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Chapter 78 has some fine writing and some nice insight into how our character of Pi has matured in face of the situation of survival.  While the previous chapter got into some fairly gross specifics of what he has come … Continue reading → Continue reading →

While there is nothing in particular that I can call awesome in Martel's writing style, the voice and diction of the story is such that the reader does feel comfortable inside the storyworld. There were some very well put sentences, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Even as I wonder how a boat, a boy, and a tiger on the high seas can go on for a couple hundred pages, I see Martel filling up paragraphs with lists and details. While it is interesting enough, and … Continue reading → Continue reading →

For it looks like this is Pi's reality, and it's gone on a long while now and looks (okay, I skimmed ahead) like it's going to go on for most of the rest of the book: a boat, a boy, … Continue reading → Continue reading →

With every bang the animals jumped and looked alarmed, but they were not to be distracted from their main business of roaring in each other's faces. I was certain the shouting match would turn physical. Instead it broke off abruptly … Continue reading → Continue reading →

I love it when fantasy is so close to the truth that it is hard to tell the difference. Pi and his family have left India for Canada when their ship sinks and Pi finds himself on a lifeboat alone … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Just realizing now that the italicized chapters are those of author intrusion; Martel perhaps, as narrator, rightly in the future, looking back at his first meetings with the character, Pi. Maybe close reading is not close enough, or too close … Continue reading → Continue reading →

Not that I would take a novelist's opinion on religion any more as fact than I do some movie star's slant on politics, when there is a seed of thought to ponder, a different perspective, it's always an added bonus … Continue reading → Continue reading →