Jeff Yoak (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} yoak) wrote,@ 2007-01-29 06:17:00 |
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Life of Pi
I listen to audio books during my two hours of daily commuting. I take Great Courses. I read novels. I listen to a lot of non-fiction, from works on astronomy to business books.
But for an accident, I probably never would have found Yann Martel's Life of Pi. The accident is that it was misclassified on one of the audio book rental services that I use. I was browsing the math section and there it was. I didn't read the description... the title made it virtually certain that along with being in that section that I would find it interesting.
It became very quickly clear upon starting the book that it was misclassified, and it gave me the rare pleasure of reading a novel without knowing *anything* about it. I didn't know what you'd know from seeing the cover. I didn't know what you'd know from reading the blurb in the link I provided above.
I enjoyed the book a great deal. It is quite rambling. The author takes the liberty to babble about religion, metaphysics, zoology or just about any other topic for pages on end. Normally this would bother me, but this is one of the rare cases where the author writes in such a way that I'm happy to bask in the babble. This was all the more extreme an experience for having no idea where the author was going.
Those who have heard of the book or have merely clicked on the link above know that it is a story of a survivor of a shipwreck. (Since you won't even manage to buy the book without knowing that much, I don't worry about that much of a spoiler. Only my unique path enabled me to be surprised by this. The lifeboat is on the cover.) That said, for the first third of the book, we follow young Pi's life in India before his trans-Pacific voyage begins. After chapter upon chapter of talk of religion and animals, and a brief description of the voyage itself, the author's simple "We sank." is a typically jarring and fun transition.
Our hero ends up alone on a lifeboat save for a 450-pound bengal tiger. This tiger is no Disney-like tiger that becomes his friend. This is a plausibly hostile tiger that is the greatest danger to our hero but that he becomes psychologically dependent on as time drags on. The story is an inspiring one of courage and perseverance that never ceases to be fun.
I'd recommend this novel to any of you. If any of you have already read it, I'd love to know what you think.
I listen to audio books during my two hours of daily commuting. I take Great Courses. I read novels. I listen to a lot of non-fiction, from works on astronomy to business books.
But for an accident, I probably never would have found Yann Martel's Life of Pi. The accident is that it was misclassified on one of the audio book rental services that I use. I was browsing the math section and there it was. I didn't read the description... the title made it virtually certain that along with being in that section that I would find it interesting.
It became very quickly clear upon starting the book that it was misclassified, and it gave me the rare pleasure of reading a novel without knowing *anything* about it. I didn't know what you'd know from seeing the cover. I didn't know what you'd know from reading the blurb in the link I provided above.
I enjoyed the book a great deal. It is quite rambling. The author takes the liberty to babble about religion, metaphysics, zoology or just about any other topic for pages on end. Normally this would bother me, but this is one of the rare cases where the author writes in such a way that I'm happy to bask in the babble. This was all the more extreme an experience for having no idea where the author was going.
Those who have heard of the book or have merely clicked on the link above know that it is a story of a survivor of a shipwreck. (Since you won't even manage to buy the book without knowing that much, I don't worry about that much of a spoiler. Only my unique path enabled me to be surprised by this. The lifeboat is on the cover.) That said, for the first third of the book, we follow young Pi's life in India before his trans-Pacific voyage begins. After chapter upon chapter of talk of religion and animals, and a brief description of the voyage itself, the author's simple "We sank." is a typically jarring and fun transition.
Our hero ends up alone on a lifeboat save for a 450-pound bengal tiger. This tiger is no Disney-like tiger that becomes his friend. This is a plausibly hostile tiger that is the greatest danger to our hero but that he becomes psychologically dependent on as time drags on. The story is an inspiring one of courage and perseverance that never ceases to be fun.
I'd recommend this novel to any of you. If any of you have already read it, I'd love to know what you think.
