My bedside table should have at least a couple of books, whether or not I read them in regularity. One book has been lying on my bedside table for the past 4 months; I had not gone beyond first 10 or so pages in all this time.
Not that the book was not interesting, I was just plain disinterested. The last weekend of July was the salvation of the book.
And I am wowed, by the book.
'Life of Pi', by Yann Martel is one of those books, which gives an idea about how far and daring human determination can get and how survival is the strongest intuition in the most adverse times. I was vaguely reminded of 'Papillon', by Henri Charriere, as that book (which is an autobiography) too has the same underlying idea: Portrayal of the strength of human determination and endurance.
And there is a beclouded humor, charming to the mind, in the early parts of the book, in the parts where Pi is not a castaway. The style of narration is too realistic and simplistic, from the mind of a boy of 16 who has strange profundity in his thoughts. At times, some elaborate explanations were putting me off a little, no fault of the author, my fault, mea culpa. I prefer to shy away from cloyingly ingenuous explanations.
A book not to be missed. It won the Man Booker Prize too. I am glad I bought that book.
10 comments:
Looooong gap. Good that you came back.Thought you had abandoned your baby blog. Will try and read the book ,thanks for letting us know.
Ho thanks for letting me knw..will read it
the same book was lying on the desk of a colleague waiting to be picked.. i was curious, and read something like 20-30 pages while just browsing during a work break..gonna complete it.
Cool! Now its on my list as well!
Hi,
Nice to be back here after a real long time.
Coming to the topic of the post, I found the Book to be very very factually inaccurate, and hence proba bly my bias...
I somehow find it simplistic to generalize, but I somehow didnt like the book and am beginning to wonder if all Booker Prized books are of the same clan... I found Arundhati Roy's "GOD of small things" really sad, and Kiran Desai's "Inheritance of Loss" I couldnt travel beyond the first few pages...
Cheers,
Sathya
one of the better stories...loved the narration and its a classic.
anonymous & cm-chap>> Yeah, Read the book, a good one.
arunem>> Did you finish the book?
Black king>> Cool!
Sathya>> factually inaccurate...Hmmm..I never felt so, also, usually I never look for factual accuracies in fiction...
Ghost particle>>definitely!
"Life of Pi" is a great novel and I hope every one will read it.
Young Pi Patel, raised in Pondicherry, India, practices Islam, Hinduism and Christianity, having seen merits in all three religions.
I like the part where he says "I just want to love God."
This book can read, enjoyed and reflected upon in a variety of ways.
As an author of AM I A HINDU? I hope to see many more books like this.
My bedside table should NOW have at least a couple of books, whether or not I read them in regularity....!
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