Life of Pi

I started reading this book because I remembered that a lot of people did their Independent Study Unit on it, back in high school, because I overheard some people having a strange argument about whether or not a tiger was real, because it had an award, and because it was written by a Canadian. Of course, that last reason doesn't stand, since Canadians make terrible writers. Generally, they make creative use of the English language, are technically unflawed, and have unique concepts, but in the end, somehow, are just boring. I'm no exception to the rule (but I REALLY want to find an exception, so I can have hope). If there's something I've learned about good literature, it's that it's always greatly flawed and written by someone annoying.

Life of Pi is an exception to the Canadian norm, but not because the book wasn't boring. It's because it wasn't technically unflawed. At the end, when he tells the two different stories to those Japanese interviewers, one of the interviewers makes the parallel that the hyena kills the zebra, then the orang-utan, and that the zebra had a broken leg, while in his second story, the French chef kills a man with a broken leg, then a woman. Also, the man in the boat that tried to kill Pi had a French accent. See the parallel?

But it's WRONG! According to the actual book, it wasn't the man in the boat that had a French accent, it was Richard Parker, and Richard Parker is the one that says he killed first a man, then a woman. Chapter 97 consists of only two words, "The story." But what it should have said was, "The story, except I told them a bunch of different stuff than what you just read."

Don't try to say that the chef was the tiger, and not the hyena. The hyena killed the zebra and the orang-utan. The hyena chewed off the zebra's leg before the rest of it's body, like the chef with the sailor. The hyena beheaded the orang-utan, like the chef with or Pi's mom. The hyena and the chef both tried to eat flies to survive, and they both didn't put up a fight when they were offed.

Richard Parker killed the hyena. Pi killed the chef. Pi and Richard Parker are the two survivors.

The two stories Pi tells at the end sync up. The story of the book doesn't.

Now, as I said at the beginning of this review, it can be forgivable for an author to make a mistake, but really, the book's just not worth forgiving.

When reviewing 1984 on my other blog, I said this:

"It's usually easiest to make the main character a writer because people who write books are generally writers, and it's easiest to write one's own opinions and views through the perception of someone they empathize with. I'm not saying that some books can't be told from the perspective of a writer. In some cases, especially when it comes to first-person narrative that requires an insightful protagonist, it's useful, but in the literary world, main characters that are writers seems to be a little over done. I'd say that more often than not it's a self-indulgent move that limits the spectrum of perspectives expressed through the writing world and shows limited expansion on behalf of the author."

Whoa! 17-year-old me was one sharp cookie! I don't know if I can compete!

Anyway, I'd say that this is a big problem in Life of Pi, because the book is told from the perspective of a writer, who's listening to the protagonist tell the story that the book revolves around. Also, the writer in the book is also the author, Yann Martel. There's absolutely no reason to do this. He has nothing to do with the story, and the end of the book doesn't even include him, which basically confirms his pointlessness. All it was was self-indulgent self-insertion.

So that should've been cut out. Also, Part 1 should've been shortened to something MUCH smaller. One chapter at the most. It's a completely different genre from the other two parts, and literally every person I spoke to about this book before I read it said they'd started it, but couldn't get into it.

If a book can't draw you in, it doesn't deserve to keep you. My grade 12 English teacher said to give a book seven pages, but most people go with only one. Part 1 of this book is just the life and times of some kid, who's the son of a zookeeper and is interested in religion. It's got some bearing in the book, but really, a tidy little overlook of it would've done the trick.

Looking away from the book's structure, I thought Pi, as a character, was a little annoying. Too poetic. An example of this is when he's hit across the face by a flying fish, and he thinks it's an attack by Richard Parker. What would you say if you thought you were being attacked by a tiger? I think I might say "AAAAAAARRRRGGG!!!!" or "NOOOOOOOOO!!!!" But definitely not "Go ahead, Richard Parker, finish me off. But please, what you must do, do it quickly. A blown fuse should not be overtested." To make this worse, the reason he talks about a blown fuse is because, during the attack, he reflects on life being like a fusebox. In other words, he references his own poetic thought aloud to an animal that he believes is attacking him. He's like this throughout the story. Even if you say this is his retelling of events to himself, and that it doesn't have to be logical, it's still annoying because you don't know that until you reach the end.

Well, that culminates my thoughts on Life of Pi. It would've made a better novella, really. It's not too large a book, and most of my suggestions are to cut or shorten things.