Life of Pi. - Tapa dura

From AudioFile

Adrift on the wide Pacific in a 26-foot lifeboat should prove challenge enough, but to survive with a royal Bengal tiger for sole companion stretches belief. Nonetheless, 16-year-old Pi Patel, son of a zookeeper from Pondicherry, India, manages it for 227 days by taming not only the tiger, but his own wild imagination and whipping both into service. Martel uses two narrators for his mad tale: Pi reading his journal and what appears to be an objective neighbor some years later. The neighbor's narrative, read by Alexander Marshall, is brief and wooden, but necessary to contrast with Pi's wildly implausible adventure. Jeff Woodman reads Pi's journal and the bulk of the story. His range is astounding. He is at once the salty French cook, two oddly paired Japanese investigators, a Catholic priest, a Muslim imam, and of course the irrepressible Pi, each with his own distinctive accent. Woodman reads with an almost childlike delicacy and simplicity that lend credibility to the wisdom implicit in this fanciful tale. Both story and reading delight on every level. P.E.F. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Review

Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is a magical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytelling about adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precocious son of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry, India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting "religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move to Canada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and they hitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck, Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-foot lifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasick orangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("His head was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). It sounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burst into song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature. After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain the boat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days through shark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and an overactive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pi recounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantly cataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles to survive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was the worst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from that I've made none the champion."

An award winner in Canada, Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to be a breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pi recounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have a book. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could read again and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time." It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such a book. --Brad Thomas Parsons