Wednesday, April 20, 2011

No More Pi For Me.

Well, here we are at the end of Life of Pi and you'll be happy to know that I'm not super pissed off. But I do have some criticisms (and some praise). First, where the hell did Richard Parker go? I'd gotten to know that guy for most of the freakin' book and he just runs off? Not okay. It's like half the story left with him, seeing as he was one of two main characters. Plus he was a tiger... okay I'm just rambling now but you get the idea. Something I found interesting however, is the downplay of Pi's "superreligion" as I have dubbed it, and his subsequent transformation into a cynic full of sarcasm. It's kind of interesting to watch. And as for his interviewers? Let's just say if I'd just survived 227 days on the ocean with nothing but a tiger to keep me company, I'd expect bettter treatment. And then came the alternate story Pi told involving humans instead of animals, which kinda sucked in comparison to the real story. It only goes to show that most things are warped once you add humans. But overall, I liked liked Life of Pi, and it's ability to take a certain death situation and turn it into a pretty good story. Well played Martel, well played.

Almost Out Of Pi

Annnnd here we are again in Life of Pi. You know, for a book that I originally thought was 401 pages about a boy getting eaten by a tiger, this turned out pretty good. As we check in on Pi we see a few things have happened. First Pi has developed some serious issues with being... bipolar almost. One minute he's super happy and carefree, the next he's clinically depressed. It's like that movie Tangled when Rapunzel goes "Best day ever!" then two seconds later she's all "I'm a terrible person!" Eh, what else are you going to do on a boat with a tiger (besides get eaten)? But I'd like to return to the whole "401 pages about a boy getting eaten by a tiger" thing, because it's here that Martel shines. I couldn't write an essay about this, he writes a freaking novel. And furthermore it's not one of those novels where he says the same thing over and over again, he actually continues to find new stuff to talk about which is pretty freaking cool in my (wonderfully biased) opinion. So Martel gets my stamp of approval so far. But if this book ends badly I'm gonna be unbelieveably pissed off.

Monday, April 18, 2011

Pretty Good Pi.

"The ship sank." That's how this next part of Life of Pi starts. No ominous creaking that turns into a full blown disaster, or explosion that causes people to go running and screaming and no endless anecdotes that seem to go nowhere. Just one line,"The ship sank." In a world that is filled with over 100 ways to say one thing, you gotta appreciate simplicity sometimes. But I think the reason I love this line is because it seems like (because I'm pretty sure this isn't how it works) Martel looked at the first part and said "That's a lot of freaking description for no good reason. Any reader would probably be on edge with me right now. So to better portray the telepathic image of this fossil (Stephen King anyone?) I'll keep it brief. Now what happens basically? Well the ship sank... yeah that'll be it. So the much disliked superdescription is gone and the story gets even better. Pi's attachment to his faith (read:faiths) is more emphasized in his character this go round, and Martel brings that out more by staying brief and concise. I'm digging it so far, but time will tell...

Digging in to some Pi.

Hmm, it's been a while hasn't it? Time to dust off the old mental typewriter (yes I have a typewriter in my head because frankly, I'm old school) and get back to blogging. As for my loooooooooooooooooooooooong absence, I can only blame my chronic procrastination. But, on to Life of Pi. I'm rather skeptic about Martel's writing in his "discovery of the story", I don't dislike it, but I'm not super thrilled with it either. But once we get into the story things get a lot better. When Pi and his parents were confronted with the "three wise men", I cracked up. One thing that confused me however, is the multi-religion thing. Pi finds 3 different religions at the same time and follows all of them. Wait, backup, rewind, I thought the whole "one religion" thing was kinda important. Seems like it'd help you keep your priorities straight at least. But I find no glaring problems with this, it's rather interesting actually the way it's just... simplified. If I had one negative comment though, it'd be this,"Does there have to be so many freaking lists?" This is where the book begins to sound like me on super drugs (that was for you Shaw) and goes random and tangential (please let that be a word). Random animals, anecdotes that seem to go nowhere, it detracts from an otherwise good story. But bottom line I'm enjoying Life of Pi and am looking forward to reading more.