Book Club: July - Life of Pi

[abbey]

Discuss the book here!

Rules:
You don't have to be finished reading the book to comment on it.
Make sure to tag and label your spoilers.
Say what chapter you're talking about even if you don't have spoilers in your post.
CONTRIBUTE. If you just post something like "I'm liking the book so far" and that's all, you're going to get a Time Out. Either comment on something you think should be discussed, or talk about what someone else has said.
All other forum rules apply. Read them if you haven't.

And that's it!

[docmartens]

WHOLE BOOK
So I read the whole thing, and it was really good. I loved the characters and the interview at the end with the Japanese scientists was hilarious, but I was really pissed that I got invested in a 200 page story and then in the last twenty pages, they tell me it could be a lie :l The connections to be drawn between the two stories is really good though. The tiger kills the hyena without a fight, Pi stabs the Frenchman without a fight, etc. All in all, a really good book for book club.

[Tinyb]

I need help I am about half way through this book and have nearly lost all interest. I really liked the style to begin with but the novelty of that very quickly wore off and now its jst a bit irratating. Can anyone give me a good reason to keep reading?

[docmartens]

Resolution?
Conclusion?

[Scrotemeal]

Chapter 38ish?

I just got to the part where we find out that Richard Parker is a hugemongus tiger. Ha, awesome.
So, I read the intro before reading the book, and I'm kinda regretting it, it helps me to understand the chapters in italics, but it sort of ruins the rest of it. And I agree with the writing being a little frustrating, but now I really want to know what happens and how it ends.
And I'm finding the religious parts really interesting as well.

[jewishjosh]

I'm up to the end of Chapter 16. No blatant spoilers in this post but if you haven't gotten this far you probably should skip this post.

I find the style of the book to be pretty real, and the story of a wide-eyed naive Indian boy is well-crafted and captivating. However, I don't feel like the story of his life so far is building up to anything. His astute observations about animals and religion are interesting, but they're not groundbreaking revelations by any means. His description of the Hindu faith is little more than that: he says that he'll show us why he's a Hindu but he never really answers why, only what, almost as if we're expected to connect with the character on a deeper level and understand on our own accord. Even if he elaborates later in the story, I've been down those roads in my head already, and the author's gotta give me something deeper to go on if I'm going to be able to tell people that this book was as great as they said it was.

At this point, the only thing I can foresee happening is the juxtaposition of science and religion continuing to affect Pi's outlook on life, but I don't feel like the seeds have really been planted for anything else to happen. Hopefully I'll be pleasantly surprised - for a book with high expectations it's probably a good thing that I don't know what to expect.

[Ureshii]

WHOLE BOOK

Like you docmartens I found the end a bit anti-climatic. To find out it may be fake was a bit annoying. Up until the part where Pi meets the other castaway and Kelp/seaweed Island part I was convinced it was a true story. I guess I was being pretty naive. Never the less, I thought The Life of Pi was an excellent book which deserved its Booker Prize.

[ZulieKat]

WHOLE BOOK

Overall, I think the book was decent: I'm glad I read it, but I will never open it again.

The first section had some interesting religious speculations, but I found it hard to get through. For awhile it did not seem that there was really much of a story to it, just bits and pieces that seemed to only fit together loosely. In the context of the whole book, I see where it was somewhat relevant, but still think it was a little bit too drawn out.

The second part seemed very real for the most part, until the end with the other castaway and the island. Still overall there was good.

Unlike some of the other people that commented, the ending made the book for me. Near the end of the second section, it seemed to be turning from a realistic-ish fiction into more fantasy. The ending and alternate story of what may have happened, made things seem to fit together better and I like that a lot.

My only remaining question is the parallels between the two stories... the characters as each being an animal makes sense, but what does anyone else make of the island and meerkats? Is there something else there that I may be missing?

[Shagg]

I've read the book prior to the Book Club and I enjoyed it to a certain level. I liked how Pi was very open to different religions and cultures, but I felt the overly religious themes could have been toned down a bit. And I didn't really understand the plant-island or whatever it was. I liked how the animals might have been a metaphor for the people on the boat, but I wasn't so sure if that was true or not.

[jewishjosh]

End of Chapter, uh, 93? The one where Pi leaves the algae island because he realizes it's carnivorous

The book definitely picked up after the boat crashed. The story is compelling and it is very well-written. All the neat shit Pi came up with in the first part seems to be showing through during his time on the lifeboat, like he's taken random trivia from his stable life in India and turned it into practical life lessons to apply for survival. His religious lessons, knowledge of animal behaviour, and most importantly (and at the root of both of those) his observational skills and quick thinking are all bringing his character full circle and also keeping him interesting. There are lessons to be learned in almost everything he does, and his situation puts them in perspective. In no way does the story seem too absurd to believe, given that it is fiction.

I'm looking forward to finishing the book and seeing how the tale wraps up. I like how the author did away with his own narrative chapters for the "at sea" part (I've really gotten hooked on Pi's tale without disruption), but I'm expecting him to pull that aspect of the story back into the fold cleverly to finish the book.