[BOOK CLUB] Life of Pi *no spoiler tags*

LoLth

Welcome to the first Book Club thread.

This Thread is for the discussion of the book THE LIFE OF PI by yann martel.
Any irrelevant posts will be deleted.

Spoiler tags do not have to be used. It is assumed that everyone who reads this thread will have read the book.

If comparing to another work try not to spoil the other work as some here may not have had the opportunity pick it up yet. Where possible include a quote from the other work to illustrate your point. There's really no point in saying "this book Y was like that book X. It's a blatant rip off".. no-one can agree or disagree unless they have read BOTH X and Y.

Discuss the book and the OPINIONS of the posters. Try to leave personal references out of it please.

Apart from those rules feel free to post whatever views etc you have. I will keep censorship to a minimum.

If you have not read the book please do not come crying to me when someone ruins the ending for you.

Please PM suggestions for the next book club poll to me.

thanks

LoLth

alleepally

I have to say this is one of the most imaginative books I've read in a long time. It's a few months since I read it but I really got engrossed in the storyline.

I was truly horrified by the second version of the story given by Pi to the two officials in the hospital and it was then that the enormity of what Pi had been through really struck home. I knew nothing of the book or story before reading and had no spoilers but I did suspect that the story with the animals was a bit fantastical. But then, who's to say either story given by Pi was actually the truth.

Who do you think was the blind frenchman? I'm not entirely sure myself but maybe it is the soul ?

LoLth

I have to admit, once the blind frenchman arrived on the scene I sort of guessed that the tiger was just a figment of his imagination. I didnt like the way he gave the "true" account - where the frenchman was the cook - at the end. I would have preferred if it had been left with a "did he or didnt he" feel.

I loved the island. I've always found praire dogs to be one of the funniest animals around Imagining an island carpeted with them made me grin like nutter.

Seeing as everything in the books, and the animals in particular, had some sort of symbolism attached. Anyone got any suggestions on what the island represented? Especially the carnivorous aspect?

davej

Quite a good read alright. I found his defense of zoos quite interesting as well as the flashfowards to his new life in Canada. I was given the audiobook of it as a present so I probably have a slightly different view of the characters....

Pi's embrace of the different religions was a bit trite/contrived though to be honest.

davej

eclectichoney

although it's quite a trivial part of the book, i thought the story of how richard parker the tiger got his name was quite cute imaging a tiger called richard parker is quite funny.

LoLth

Originally posted by eclectichoney
although it's quite a trivial part of the book, i thought the story of how richard parker the tiger got his name was quite cute .

I have always liked when authors take the time to add these little bits of flavour. Unnecessary to the story but makes the writing more of a narration. If you listen to someone telling a tale, there are always small embellishments and explanations thrown in to explain or clarify something. The author managed this very well in Life of Pi (havent read any of his other books so I dont know if it is a standard for him). I am assuming that richard parker was the tiger Pi's dad used to demonstrate how dangerous animals are and that the memory of this stuck with Pi and came out as the "tiger" in the lifeboat with him.


davej:

I was wondering about that too. Why did he become multi-religion? To make him more of an "everyman" type character? To stop people thinking "typical muslim" etc?
I probably missed the main substory of the book, but I didnt think the story was something to make you "believe in God". If anything, to me, it demonstrated the opposite by removing god from the equation and reducing everything to a personal level.

eclectichoney

I was wondering about that too. Why did he become multi-religion? To make him more of an "everyman" type character? To stop people thinking "typical muslim" etc?
I probably missed the main substory of the book, but I didnt think the story was something to make you "believe in God". If anything, to me, it demonstrated the opposite by removing god from the equation and reducing everything to a personal level.

i thought that too actually, I am in no way religious and didn't find it trying to push religion down my throat or anything.

hedgetrimmer

I don't it removed God. I see Pi as kind of a Job character - one of the messages I saw was that it doesn't matter *how* you worship God (or <name>), or *how* you have faith - all his teachers seemed to be wise, calm beings - even when faced with continual death, his faith waivered but never failed.

I think it has a Kierkegaardian message of belief - to make a leap of faith into the unknown, even in the face of adversity.

I see the book as a modern fable of faith, determination, fear and hope - even at his lowest times, in some form, he still has prayer.

Just my 2c

Draco

Utter filth.
The plot was a poor virtual prision/castaway type thing. Had it been a scifi, it would be laughed out of it for being derivative and trite.

Every threat was toothless as we knew how long he was going to be out there for and that he survived relatively intact. The lovecraftian island was the final straw. any plausiblity went out the window at that point.

The first 100 pages were as dull as dishwater. It came across as trying to say 'isn't he just wonderful? isn't he? how smart and tolerant he is!' Later on he came across as being thick and whingy.

His smug 'which story would you prefer?' bit at the end was infuriating. I would have much rather read a book that followed what actually happened to him that the poor makey-uppy story.

It was well written in a technical sense, but that's the only plus point. I shall not be reading any other book by the author.

RE*AC*TOR

Interesting read. And a very easy read at that. I'm still trying to tie together Pi's religious zeal to his telling of the "story". Is it perhaps a way of avoiding the harsh, dry, yeastless factuality.

I guess it ties in with his view in the early part of thebook on agnostics and atheists. Is religion a way for people to avoid the dry, yeastless factuality of life and death?

"In both stories the ship sinks, my entire family dies, and I suffer"

"...since it makes no factual difference to you and you can't prove the question either way, which story do you prefer? Which is the better story, the story with animals or the story without?"

Perhaps its significant that he asks which they prefer? Saying perhaps that we want to beleive in god etc because its the better story to beleive in. In the end you will die etc.

Not sure if I'm being coherent on this but this is the message i'm getting from this book.

*edit* this isn't the storming conversation i was hoping it would be

LoLth

Not a storming conversation at all.

10 posts and 4 of them are mine . Same old story, everyone agrees on an idea, very few actually bother to take part.

I will run another poll anyway, it's always a good place to get suggestions for a decent book to read.

RE*AC*TOR

Its may sound a little schooly - but we could be required to discuss under various headings. Characters/ Themes etc etc. Maybe its too much to try to have a successful free-form conversation about a book. Should set up a poll -
(a) i agreed to the book club and read the book and posted on the board about it
(b) i agreed to the book club and read the book but didn't discuss it
(c) i agreed to the book club but didn;t read the book

:dunno:

Funky

Not a great addition to the conversation but this is probably the only book I really really enjoyed and didn't know why, I've read it a few times now and every time theres moments that make me really 'laugh out loud'... Usually I'm more into the fantasy sort of stuff but this really clicked with me and I've no idea why... thats why I'm assuming its such a popular book...

RE*AC*TOR

I would agree with Funky - its an accessible book, and Martel certainly uses humour to good effect. But I at least was left with a very blackened sense at the end of the book with the revelation of the "truth".

Fence

I got in a discussion elsewhere about the ending of this book. I made some off the cuff comment about how it was a little depressing, given the ending.

But the person I was discussing it with said that they had taken the tiger version as the truth and the simple story as a fiction to get the investigators off Pi's back.

Which do you think is the truth?

Funky

The tiger version definitely... The battle of wills between them wouldn't be the same if it was a human...

LoLth

Ah but I took it that the tiger was his own urge for survival. His (and everyone's) ability to forget civilisation and resort to brutality to stay alive. The battle of wills was him not giving in to this inner beast. The reason I think it took the form of a tiger is a result of the "dangerous animal" section when his father fed the goat to the tiger in the zoo. His brothers comment of "you're the next goat" would also suit this (foreshadowing by the author) and the description of the goat being terrified would seem to suit the situation of a little boy caught in a shipwreck.

Also, it was Pi who threw the life ring to the tiger and pulled him on board. An imagery for him grasping for some way to deal with what is happening around him.

The Tiger kills the Frenchman he meets on the ocean (an unlikely coincidence) while Pi is incapacitated and unable to control him anymore. Pi giving in to rage?

I think the second story is the truth and the fable is Pi's way of making sense of a terrible situation.

Funky

That's pretty interesting, i never really considered the book indepth, i assumed if the second story were true that the Tiger was one of the other passengers on the lifeboat, but i'm thinking about that now as i type so where would that person have disappeared to on the beach... I really like that idea of the tiger being his own urge to survive

joe_chicken

Originally posted by davej
Pi's embrace of the different religions was a bit trite/contrived though to be honest.

davej

agreed... i found the whole tone of the book a bit "trite/contrived"... well the bits off the boat anyway

as far as the whole tiger thing is involved its easy

tiger=religion

we need religion to distract us from the harsh realities of life

you decide whether it existed or not... its all about faith

Unpossible

It was an easy read but the first part of the book seemed a bit boring (interesting points about the zoos though).

I found the lifeboat interesting as it told a survival story, but I didn't take it seriously until I read the second story, which is the one I believe.

I'll go into more detail later but im at work

LoLth

Originally posted by joe_chicken


as far as the whole tiger thing is involved its easy

tiger=religion

hmmm, so why'd the tiger run off into the jungle when he reached shore? Did Pi lose his faith after reaching safety?

me no thinks so....

RE*AC*TOR

tiger = the man in the "real story".
the comparison of the two stories presented to the investigators at the end, mirrors a comparison between religious belief and atheism. Pi asks the investigators which is the better story seing as how they make no difference. That could be mirrored as - we will all die - whether we beleive in god or not - but which is better/nicer to beleive in?

I suppose the investigators could be seen as atheists always trying to get the cold/hard facts, whereas Pi "creates" a magical story, which eases his pain and sufferring and ultimately gets him through a massive ordeal.

sweet-sue

Originally posted by eclectichoney
although it's quite a trivial part of the book, i thought the story of how richard parker the tiger got his name was quite cute imaging a tiger called richard parker is quite funny.

I loved that too, I also liked that after he finished the story of how he got his name he proceeded to call the hunter Thirsty None Given! Hilarious.

sweet-sue

Oh my goodness... I just finished the book today. I'm still not really sure if I liked it, it certainly was interesting but it was like a first draft, all disjointed and all over the place. And I didn't really think it was good writing, an interesting story but not an amazing piece of writing.
Then there's the fact that I didn't cop on to the "real" story at all. I didn't realise it was supposed to be seen as the truth, I thought he was just saying all that to please the people who were after the "facts" and to make a point about reality and faith. I'm confused as to what exactly was true, because the "real" story to me seemed a bit far fetched. Also, in the flashforwards to Canada it mentions something about still seeing Richard Parker sometimes... was that ongoing mental problems or something?!

RE*AC*TOR

Originally posted by sweet-sue
And I didn't really think it was good writing, an interesting story but not an amazing piece of writing.

Its a little ironic, that you started THAT sentence with "and". But i agree with you - it wasn't Nobel prize stuff, but it was above your typical trashy novel (Grisham, King etc).

Originally posted by sweet-sue
the "real" story to me seemed a bit far fetched.

Surely, less-so than the tiger on a boat story?

Originally posted by sweet-sue
was that ongoing mental problems or something?!

like the ongoing mental problem of believing in god?

LoLth

Time to unsticky this one and let it drift away.

Hope to see you all posting in the next thread. Catcher in the Rye. Should be a good fight or two over that one