Life of Pi

Life of Pi promised a lot: the possibility of finding true God, a look at human and animal relationships, finding a purpose in life. But the book failed to deliver.

Piscine Molitaire Patel lives in India with his parents and brother Ravi. They operate the Pondicherry Zoo. Due to the unrest in India in the 1970s, Pi’s father makes the decision to move the family to Canada. They sell the zoo and the animals are packed on the freighter with them, to be sold in North America.

Pi (Piscine’s self-given nickname so the kids will stop calling him ‘Pissing’) is a Hindu/Christian/Muslim teen. Let’s get one thing straight- those three religions do not compute. You cannot believe all of them unless you too stupid to know the difference or if you don’t believe the foundations of all of them. Hinduism has 33 million gods. So throwing a few more in there isn’t a big deal, which is why Pi can justify believing in multiple religions. I don’t know much about Islam, but its pretty hard core about its practices and beliefs. And true Christianity denies all other religions as a pathway to God. These religions are so diametrically opposed. But does Yann Martel illustrate that? Of course not. He sets up an imaginary meeting between three leaders of the religions. And their arguments are unrealistic, faulty and plain stupid. Any priest or imam that can’t articulate the fundamentals of his religion isn’t really a priest or imam.

The first half of the book is riddled with questions (and wrong answers) about God, and the second half largely leaves God out. Was this intentional? I’m sure it was, but the two sections seem divorced from each other. And that to me is bad writing, not bad reading on my part.

Through a series of unfortunate events, Pi is shipwrecked, and he the only survivor. Well, he, a zebra, a hyena, an orang-utan named Orange Juice, and a tiger named Richard Parker. Soon, only Pi and the tiger remain. What ensues is an epic (although impossible) story of survival for 227 days in the lifeboat. In the end, they wash up on the shore in Mexico. And Richard Parker walks into the jungle, without ever turning back. Pi is upset that he never got the chance to say goodbye to his greatest enemy, friend and saviour.

In the end, Pi forces us to question the entirety of his story. Two men from the insurance agency looking into the sinking of the ship. Pi tells them his story. The two men don’t believe him. So Pi asks if they want another story. One that is more believable. One that doesn’t have animals or a carnivorous island. They say yes. So Pi tells another story, this one with humans surviving the shipwreck. A cook, he (Pi), his mother and a sailor. He tells a story of the cook being a savage man, one who killed and ate the sailor, and eventually Pi’s mother. Pi says he killed the cook himself. And this leaves us asking: which story is true? Is the first just a metaphor for the second? One that shows the animal-like savagery in our nature? One that sets up and understanding for the second? Did he just make the second story up to satisfy the insurance men? We don’t know.

This is a clever twist. One that makes you think. I appreciate what Martel was trying to do. He was trying to add more depth to his story. He was trying to make his book greater literature, literature that perhaps does more than entertains, but one that asks questions. To be honest, I thought it was lazy. Interesting, but lazy. Instead of incorporating the deep questions into the body of the story, instead of showing human nature, instead of asking who God is, instead of illustrating his point, he discredits it and expects us to do the rest. It’s a very post-modern story in the end. Who can say what Truth is? Who can say which story is true and which isn’t? Who says that an answer exists?

Now, after I read the book, I watched the movie. And while the storyline is similar, and in some ways identical, I got a very different feel from the movie. The visuals in the movie are stunning and the acting is great. That aside, God is woven throughout the story. At one point there is a huge storm. Pi yells at the storm, “What more do you want from me, God? What more can you take?” It’s a powerful scene. Pi believes he sees God in the storm. He rips the tarpaulin off the boat, he exposes Richard Parker to the fury of the waves and the wind. He almost kills him. The cat is thrown about, realistically resulting in broken bones, but that isn’t explicitly revealed in the movie.

The movie also omits some of the incoherent, random and plain non-sensical parts of the book. In the book, Pi talks to Richard Parker and he talks back. This is seen as the madness of a boy dying of thirst. Okay, I can buy that.  They are both blind with malnutrition. (Possible? Not sure.) Another life boat floats up. Somebody is in that boat. He too is out of supplies. He and Pi talk and then he climbs into Pi’s boat. Pi tries to warn him about the tiger. He’s too late. Richard Parker attacks and kills the man. Pi crawls into the other life boat and finds that the man lied. He had some supplies, which helps Pi survive until he comes upon a strange floating island covered in algae and inhabited solely by Meer cats. The island supplies Pi and Richard Parker with food. But the island turns carnivorous at night to all who are on the ground or in the water. Pi and the Meer cats sleep in trees. Richard Parker sleeps in the boat. Pi realizes the island is a lonely place where he will eventually die, so he gathers as much provisions as he can and then sets sail again. The movie includes the floating island, but not the strange, possible imaginary conversations between the boy and tiger and unnamed man.

This was a weird section of the book, one that isn’t really talked about much afterwards. I’m glad the movie omitted it. I’m not sure what Martel’s point was in telling us this. Apparently movie makers thought it was weird and unimportant as well. When Pi tells his second story to the insurance agents in the movie, he tells it much more convincingly than in the book. The book left me thinking that Pi just wanted to confuse and satisfy the agents. The movie made it a much more plausible possibility. He cries while telling it. He says he’ll never forget the cries of his mother.

Aside from that discrepancy, I liked the movie better than the book. The book was drawn out, focused on religion entirely too much without giving answers, and was too post-modern for my liking. The movie has its problems as well, and I almost wish they left the alternate story out of the movie. It would be very different from the book, but it would be superficial enough to make me happy. The relationship between Richard Parker and Pi is much deeper in the movie. At one point, Pi takes the tiger’s head in his lap and strokes his head. This made me cry. I have deep relationships with animals and that scene really hit home with me. Ultimately, the movie showed that savage beasts can put aside their savagery. They’re human, in a way. The book never alleged this. I listened to a podcast on Plugged in Online about the movie. (Podcast 177, available here: http://www.pluggedin.ca/familyroom/podcast.aspx) What Bob Smithouser said was exactly what I felt after the movie. “It was like looking into the eyes of a beautiful animal with no soul.”

Wild(ly engaging but unfortunately false)

I don’t think I’ve ever read an autobiography, so I didn’t know what to expect when my boss handed me Wild and said I should read it because she had enjoyed it so much. I finished the two books I had been reading, and started the book. Wild chronicles the author’s experience in hiking the Pacific Crest Trail following the death of her mother and the dissolution of her marriage Cheryl Strayed was at the end of her rope. When her mother died at 46, Cheryl’s life slowly collapsed. She lost contact with her step father and her siblings. She cheated numerous times on her husband Paul, for no reason other than she felt like it. She still loved Paul. He still loved her. But that wasn’t enough to save their marriage. They divorced. They remained best friends but Cheryl knew she needed a change. A big one. She got tangled up in heroin use. She read a book on the PCT and decided she would hike it. Everyone thought she was crazy. She did too. But she scraped up enough money to buy all she needed and then she set out. She was hopelessly under experienced and underestimated how hard the voyage would be. But she kept at it. And along the way, she healed. She forgave her mother for dying. She ultimately forgave herself.

Like I said, I’ve never really read an autobiography so I didn’t know what to expect. The writing was candid and engaging, and the pace of the story was consistent. The amount of detail in the story is crazy, considering Strayed wrote this memoir more than a dozen years after she completed it. She said she kept a journal, which is why she has such detailed information. She also must have an amazing memory, because no amount of journal notes would allow me to write down three months of conversations, verbatim. Hiking such a long way is an interesting feat and it got me thinking about hiking. I doubt I could ever do a long distance hike such as this one. I’m a student, and taking endless months off of work or school is out of the question. But I think a weekend hiking or even a week would be beyond cool. I love walking and running and the outdoors. I ride outside for hours every week and I run 2 miles everyday. What the book lacked, though, was substance, morality, a clear message. The subtext for the book title is “From lost to found on the Pacific Crest Trail”. I agree that Cheryl was lost. But was she found? I don’t think so. The taxing physical journey led to an inward journey for Cheryl, where I expected she would realize her blame, her wrong-doings. Where she would realize that everyone is lost without God. No, she chose to forgive herself, when she never really took responsibility in the first place. It was a muddy transformation that had no roots in any kind of spirituality or moral ground. It was an incomplete transformation. She learned to rely on herself, to be alone. She continues to be lost because she thinks she has found the answer. Trust yourself, rely on yourself, have faith in no one and nothing but yourself. But that is utter folly. We will always fail ourselves. The only way to be truly found is to surrender yourself to God. Trusting yourself is a sure way to be eternally lost, because we are fallen. And when the blind lead the blind, they both fall in a ditch. True joy does not come from serving ourselves, but by becoming a servant to others. Our sinful hearts cannot be trusted. And Cheryl Strayed has strayed from the path of what could have been redemption, but now has found “peace” in the lies of a hopeless world. Much of what she says is applicable, and even truth, but the book as a whole is riddled with muddy ideas and ultimately, philosophy that will not save souls, but lose them.

Unearthly

Clara is an average girl. She lives in California with her mom and brother Jeffery. She attends high school and is popular, pretty and friendly. Not as popular as Jeffery, but popular enough for comfort. Oh yeah, her mother is half angel, Dimidius and that makes her ¼ angel, Quartarius. She has wings, she can speak any language fluently and she’s faster and stronger than humans. Average? Not quite. Every angel-blood has a purpose, Mom says. She keeps seeing a vision of a forest fire and aboy she’s supposed to save. So they uproot their comfortable life and move to Wyoming where they’ve established Clara’s vision takes place. Clara’s no longer popular and normal. She’s here for a purpose. One she’s not sure she can complete. Angels always accomplish their purposes right? It’s destiny. Or can they fail? And if they do, what happens? Clara just hopes she doesn’t find out.

 This book stems from a peculiar verse in Genesis. Genesis 6:4 says, “The Nephilim were on the earth in those days-and also afterward- when angels went in to the daughters of men and had children by them. They were the heroes of old, men of renown.”  So I guess angels living among us is not a totally outlandish claim. The book is written by Cynthia Hand, her first book. (What’s with me and reading authors’ first books?) On the surface the book seems like another teenaged girl love story. It is much more than that though. I was surprised at the depth of Hand’s writing, as well as her attention to detail. Despite this, however, it does have a very narrow target age group: teenage girls. As such, it can be somewhat superficial. Boys, fulfilling destiny, first love, fallen angels, school, God, kissing. Quite the mix up. It’s good. Better than I expected. But not earth-shattering. Perhaps I’m expecting too much. This is the first book in the series of the same name. The second book, Hallowed, made its American debut in January of 2012 and there are plans for a third. I hope there are only three books. I don’t really want to get invested in another long series (Oops, The Lying Game). Suspense and climax is built up well and the author gave just enough of a cliff hanger to keep audiences satisfied but eager and curious to read ensuing novels. I’m one of them.

The Prodigal Good Novel

Not her best.

That went through my mind when I finished Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer. I came to expect more of Kingsolver. The book centers on three main characters whose lives are unknowingly connected, albeit not quite intertwined.  Deanna Wolf is a divorced woman who has lived in the mountains for years, maintaining and watching the land for the forest authority. Garnett Walker is an aged widower who lives alone while trying to grow a chestnut tree resistant to the blight that wiped out the population some hundred years ago. Lusa Widener is a new and reeling widow, outcast and ostracized by her late husband’s tight-knit clan. Sex and loneliness seem to be the biggest players in the book. Deanna’s part of the story centers on sexual encounters of animals, plants and herself. Kingsolver has a way of making you see the details she does. Now all I think about when I see plants and pollen is plant procreation. The prose  isn’t trashy, just oddly innocent and somehow profound. The three storylines don’t link as fully as I think they should have. A chapter or two more could have solidified the novel, purely from a story-telling point of view.

The character development, as always, was marvellously detailed and well executed. Distinct traits of the characters came through subtly and richly, giving the story a much more real tone than others. However, as is usually the case unfortunately, incredible character development left the plot line lacking. The story was slow moving, meticulous and (gasp) a tad boring. The themes and message of the book were simpler than Kingsolver’s other books, and she hits you over the head with her point, especially in Deanna’s story. It felt a bit preachy at times, the point of view too simple to be realistic. So, because of the obscene amount of sexuality and a plot line so slow it almost went backwards, it is with regret that I do not recommend this book. Kingsolver has much better fiction out there. I got the book for free from a friend, so no harm done (aka money lost). Sadly this book is one for the shelf, never to be read by myself again. Lucky for the book, I never ever throw out books. It’s blasphemous.

Bad books and impatience

I slack. I swear my brain goes into another state of lower consciousness once summer starts and school stops. I am currently suffering through a book a friend of mine told me to read and it is quite frankly, awful. It’s a Randy Alcorn novel, so I suppose it’s my own fault. I doubt I’ll ever finish it or review it. It’s just that bad. The first person narrative is forcibly candid, and the author thinks he’s being clever, but is just untalented. The dialogue is painfully unrealistic and his characters are stereotypical with a few one-dimensional quirks that don’t add to the storyline. His message comes out so overtly through character dialogue that it’s ridiculous and comes off as preachy. I just don’t like it at all. His style or lack thereof drives me nuts. I can’t handle it anymore. I’m waiting for a book to come in at my library however, so I don’t have much choice. I am always reading a book. To not have a book on the go is contrary to my nature. So I have a dilemma. Keep reading the book, or find another. Another that I won’t finish before my new library book comes in. Seriously, every time I read a portion of the book I hear Gru’s voice from Despicable Me saying “You like this garbage?” Insert overly stressed Russian accent. “ You call this literature?” It’s the only thing funny about the sad excuse for a book. Sorry Alcorn. Three strikes and your out. This is strike two. (I tried to unsuccessfully read one other of his books) And you’re out anyways. I’m just that sick of it. I am excited for Blood Red Road to come in at the library. I’ve been in line for close to three months. Hurry up people! Patience is not one of my talents. However, cynicism is. And I’m getting fed up with bad books. Anybody have any good ones for me to read?

The Night Circus (I reallllyyy wish this circus existed)

“I write. Fantastical, fairy tale-esque things with magic and mystery and tea.” Erin Morgenstern

Rich in sensory detail, intricate in plot and utterly fluid in style, The Night Circus had me under it’s spell. (Pardon all the plays on word relating to magic. It’s just too fun) Erin Morgenstern’s debut novel is a work of art. The fantastical descriptions of the circus are rich with imagery, smell, taste and sounds. I could taste the popcorn on my tongue, picture the monochromatic tents and feel the sent of cider and cinder fill my nose. Morgenstern’s melodically rhythmic narrative complimented the magical feel of the story.

Morgenstern has bottled the allure and the mystery of a circus, a stage whereupon two masters of magic play a dangerous game. Le Cirque des Rêves appears without warning and opens only after sundown. It closes at sunrise. No one knows where it came from or where it’s going. It travels the world- Australia, Bolivia, Mexico, England. The circus is unlike anything else. Only the best of the best work for the circus and the aura of mysticism and mystery is apparent around every corner. Celia, a girl with magical abilities passing it off as illusion, and Marco, the assistant to the director of the circus, are locked in an intricate game they don’t know the rules to. Their teachers, Mr A. H- and Prospero the Enchanter, watch from the sidelines to see which prodigy will ultimately win, and which will be dead. Celia generates the circus from the inside, keeping everything in order and possible. Marco works from the outside, creating exhibits of stunning skill, keeping his proverbial foot in the door by generating the bonfire burning at the center of the circus.

The unimaginable (at least to Mr. A.H- and Prospero. I saw it coming a mile away) happens- Marco and Celia fall in love. The circus is spinning out of control, too large for Celia to control and too complex for another to generate the power it needs to continue. Hundreds of lives hang in the balance. Celia has to choose love or life. And Marco won’t- or can’t- let her die. It’s the classic to-love-is-to-die and to-not-love-is-worse-than-death conflict, but the spin Morgenstern puts on it allows it to be quite fresh, if not new.

The use of magic in the novel is quite fascinating. I have never read anything that uses and explains magic like this book. This quote from the book sums it up.

“This is not magic. This is the way the world is, only very few people take the time to stop and note it. Look around you,” he says, waving a hand at the surrounding tables. “Not a one of them even has an inkling of the things that are possible in this world, and what’s worse is that none of them would listen if you attempted to enlighten them. They want to believe that magic is nothing but clever deception, because to think it real would keep them up at night, afraid of their own existence.”

I thought it a fascinating, although wholly unrealistic, explanation of the methods employed by Celia and Marco. But magic itself is unrealistic, so hey, the explanation is allowed to be as well, I suppose.

There are a few too many characters to keep track of if you ask me though. There must be at least 25 people who we follow, and it gets tedious trying to keep them all straight in one’s head.

All in all the book was fantastic. Although I borrowed it from the library, I hope to buy it in the near future. It’s one of those books where you can read it many, many times and still walk away feeling further enlightened and understanding more of the book than the last time you read it.

PS- I looked up Erin Morgenstern and browsed her website. It’s pretty cool. I have decided that if I met her, I would like her. A lot. She seems genuine, funny and humble. Check it out: http://erinmorgenstern.com/

More Book Reviews

Sorry to those of you who are looking for my book reviews. I’m absolutely swamped with homework. I’m in the process of reading 2 books: Deception by Randy Alcorn and The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern. I forgot Deception at my church, so I am focusing on The Night Circus. And so far, it is really, really good. Stay posted! I’ll finish it and review it soon enough.

Pigs in Heaven

Pigs in Heaven was not what I had expected it to be. To be honest I’m not sure what I expected, but this book wasn’t it. And that’s okay. I enjoy being surprised.  While I found the message and implications of this book less than The Bean Trees, it was still a good read. The themes center on cultural identity and compromise, but they weren’t as well-developed or profound as some of her other books (cough, cough, The Poisonwood Bible)

             The title (as always) is incredibly clever and has a double meaning. In the first chapter, there are pigs in Alice’s garden, eating her produce. Alice lives in a town called Heaven. But the story also revolves around the Cherokee myth of the six pigs that were banished to live as stars in the heavens. Nicely played, Kingsolver.

I found the dialogue in this book marvelously fresh and addictively funny. I wish all authors had a knack for dialogue as Barbara Kingsolver does. The conversations between Jax, Taylor and Turtle are hysterical but endearing. I kind of want to marry Jax after Kingsolver developed his personality so incredibly well. I’m not entirely sure if someone as awesome as Jax exists, but I’m willing to give the benefit of the doubt. One criticism I had about the dialogue was what Turtle says. She is only six years old, but she sound much older in the book. No six-year-old puts together sentences like Turtle does. Turtle didn’t talk until well beyond three years of age, so there is no way her sentence structures would be so advanced at six.

I enjoyed the new characters that were introduced, but I also missed some of the old ones, like Lou Ann and Maddy, but I guess that’s just how it goes. The story, I felt, was a bit too drawn out and some characters, such as Barbie, didn’t enhance the story line and only made it unnecessarily longer. The ending of the book is satisfactory, although too abrupt for my taste. Some of the loose ends weren’t wrapped up, which I do enjoy sometimes, but it just felt like a cop-out to me.

The next Barbara Kingsolver book for me? Prodigal Summer. Library also doesn’t have it. Lucky for me, my boss owns this one too. Good thing she enjoys sharing.

The Hunger Games Trilogy

The Hunger Games has been reviewed to death. But I read all 3 of the books and my aim is to review all the books that I read in 2012, so here it goes. I’m not going to review each book individually, but the trilogy as a whole.

In the somewhat distant yet surprisingly near future, the country of Panem sits on what used to be North America. The Capitol lies at the center, surrounded by twelve districts. Actually thirteen, but district thirteen was nuclear bombed 75 years ago. In order to exercise its iron grip on the people, the Capitol holds the annual Hunger Games- a televised gladiator-like event. One male and one female are selected at random from each district at the Reaping. Katniss Everdeen’s sister Primrose has been selected. But Katniss can’t let Prim go. She would dead in the first 10 minutes. So Katniss volunteers and she is whisked away to the Capitol to undergo training for the Games. Enter Peeta, a boy she never spoke to but who saved her and her family’s life years earlier. In order to survive she must kill the other 23 tributes. Including Peeta.

Dilemma of the century.

In the following second and third books, Katniss (What?! She survived? Who saw that coming? Spoiler alert!) becomes the symbol of rebellion against the Capitol. She’s not sure she wants to but she seems to have little choice. The ball is in motion.   The fire is catching. Katniss must lead the rebellion, or be burned in the encroaching fire of the uprising.

I was a terrible person and watched the Hunger Games before I read the book. Bad Ashley.  So, to be honest, I liked the movie better than the book. The writing in the book was surprisingly simple. I had expected better. It was easy to read and honestly, it took me about 3 hours of reading per book. The first book was great, the second book was good and I hated the third book. Unfortunately, that’s what happens all too often. The third book was long and drawn out, and there was no real climax. I don’t know why they intend to split the third book into two movies. If anything, you’d need to do that to the second book as it has more content.

Anyways, the books were good. Read them. But don’t expect a good ending. Of course, there is a team Gale and a team Peeta. That’s what we do when there’s a love triangle- we pick sides. So one of those camps will be severely disappointed. I was. Her choice didn’t make sense to me, and Peeta and Gale’s choices made even less sense. Plus way too many people die in the third book. It’s majorly depressing. I was hoping that the rebellion would bring about lasting peace and happiness. But Katniss is not happy. The country is hardly better off. Which makes me sad. I was hoping for something a little more uplifting, but that’s probably my fault. The books started out wonderfully, but for me they fell kind of flat, and I lost interest during the third book.  That doesn’t mean that I’m sorry I read them; I’m not. I guess I just expected more from an author whose first book started out so well.

Water for Elephants

I had desperately hoped that the library would send me one of the original copies of Water for Elephants. You know, one without a picture of Robert Pattinson and Reese Witherspoon on the front. Alas, it was not to be and the copy I received has the two of them nestled in each other’s arms. Not off to a great start, as I really don’t have much appreciation for either actors. Anyways, cover art aside, Water for Elephants was a very interesting read. Although the characters were a little clichéd, I found that the atmosphere of a 1930s carnival came alive in the novel.

Jacob Janowski is an honour student, attending Cornell to become a veterinarian. He is days away from writing his final exams when his parents are tragically killed. He has no money, no home and nothing to live for. He jumps on a moving train on a whim and ends up on the Benzini Brothers’ Most Spectacular Show on Earth’s train. And soon Jacob becomes the resident veterinarian for the crumbling circus. Jacob wants no trouble, but he finds himself falling in love with Marlena, a star performer who is married to the cruel animal handler August. Jacob must give everything he has to try and escape the imploding show alive before it’s too late.

The entire story about Jacob working for the circus is one big flashback told by Jacob as he, now in his 90s, lives in an old age home. The parts that tell Jacob’s life in the present are touching and they really give us an understanding of what the elderly must feel, sitting alone day after day. Jacob’s character is strong, albeit somewhat predictable. I would have liked to see more character development in Marlena however. I got the feeling that I didn’t know Marlena at all, nor why Jacob is so desperately in love with her.  Many of the minor characters are what you would expect: cranky, fake Uncle Al leading the show, the working men who are rough around the edges and underpaid, the performers who want nothing to do with the working men, and so on. They are quite stereotypical but stereotypes come from truth, so perhaps it’s an accurate portrait of the workers. I enjoyed the fact that the book is not centered on romance. There is romance, obviously, but the main plot of the book has little to do with love until the very end. I was pleasantly surprised.

  The plot moved at a steady pace, with interesting (although not unexpected) twists and turns. Sara Gruen does a marvelous job of building the suspense as the story reaches its climax. One thing that I found disappointing was the bad language. The book is riddled with vulgar words and swearing. This is probably realistic, given the setting, but at some points it made me uncomfortable how easily such depraved words and phrases were thrown around. The end of the book was quite happy, and it left me smiling. I had fallen in love with 90-year-old Jacob Janowski, and I couldn’t have been more pleased with how his life progressed.

Water for Elephants was an interesting book, and I’ll bet the movie is too, although I doubt it will be very true to the story. Hollywood loves romantic stories, and I think the essence of Jacob’s life will be lost. They will, undoubtedly, focus entirely on Jacob and Marlena’s relationship. The movie will be filed in my mind as one of those ‘hey, I should watch that sometime’ movies and then I’ll never end up renting it. Which is probably just as well because I don’t need the poor choice of language repeated, this time, out loud.