Critical Mick

Reviews Free of Rules.

Reviews by the Clown that All Other Critics Want to Strangle with a Black Turtleneck

Life of Pi
Yann Martel
Canongate Books, 2003

A Dip in the Biggest Swimming Pool of the All

I'll keep this review short: Life of Pi is the survival story of a teenaged boy lost at sea in a small lifeboat. With a fully-grown Bengal tiger.

Max and the Cats meets "A Passion in the Desert" meets Captain William Bligh's accounts of survival in an open boat. And, of course, any boy-and-best-friend-tiger story must contain a big philosophical drop of Calvin and Hobbes.

Fave bit: The way the novel's theme of viewing the world spiritually versus viewing it rationally are brought to a point, and a decision made. Very well done, and without any arty-farty bullshit.

Could have been done better: It takes Pi forever to get into the lifeboat. The novel did not need a lengthy discourse on the merits of sloths and the complete history of Pi's upbringing in his (admittedly interesting) corner of India.

Verdict: Critical Mick's book reviews contain corporate logo'ed comets smashing planets to pieces, cowardly vampires, obnoxious cross-dressing Civil Servants who save the world from tiny aliens, and celebrity novels dropping from the heavens like locust plagues. Of course he loves novels that contain giant meerkat-infested islands of carnivorous floating algae. Life of Pi rocks.

Yann Martel gets a secret message here!

Yo! This review and all content on the DFA Guide site are copyright 2006 Mick Halpin. All links to other sites and documents are copyright to whatever source wrote something cool enough for Mick to give it a referral. Try to claim them as your own work and bad karma will catch up with you, baby. Believe it.

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This Page Was Last Updated On 13 August, 2006.