Life of Pi

A couple days ago, I started a book called, "Life of Pi" by Yann Martel. I got this book a long time ago, but I never got around to reading it. I wanted to see the movie based on this book, but I decided it would be better to read the book first.

The "Life of Pi" is about the of a boy name Pi and his life in India. Things suddenly change when Pi and his family move to Canada. Pi's journey on a ship to Canada is not smooth sailing.

I predicted that the book would start off more intriguing and compelling based off the commercials for the movie. Instead, the book started off very slow. First you learn about what the main character is currently doing. You mostly learn about Piscine's (aka Pi) college studies in zoology and theology. Then, people starts pointing at him whispering, "Is that the guy?" I instantly become more intrigued to read on about how random people on the street knew him. Pi then turns away from them and keeps to himself. This gives me the impression that something terrible happen to him, so now Pi had built walls around himself. At this point in the book, you don't really know a lot about Pi or where the setting takes place.

I began to learn more about Pi, when Yann Martel then goes on to tell the readers about Pi's childhood.  Pi grew up in India in the mid-1970s. Pi's father owned a zoo. They were neither rich or poor.  I now understand why Pi's college studies revolve around zoology. He didn't have many friends, so he was constantly taking care of the animals. One of the reasons why Pi didn't have a lot of friends was because he was devoted to three religions; Christianity, Muslim, and Hindu. Pi closed himself off from his family because his dad was always saying, "Why can't Pi be more like his brother Ravi?" This was a very boring start, but the reader needs to know Pi's background to understand why he is in the particular situation that he finds himself in at this point of the book.

To learn more about the author, Yann Mantel, click here.