Yes, that Man Booker Prize winning novel by Yann Martel. Yes, from 2002, and yes I'm somewhat slow in getting to read it.
No, I'm sorry, it didn't do it for me. The first part about Pi's childhood is amusing enough, as is the last part where he's recovering in a Mexican hospital and talking very nonchalantly with the Japanese insurance investigators while depleting them of cookies (baked ones, that is). The problem is that the novel sagged in the middle part. An account of a boy shipwrecked for 227 days in the Pacific in a lifeboat with only a wild Bengal tiger for a companion is hardly an exciting premise, no matter how much magic realism you sprinkle into the tale, and how many allusions to spiritual themes there are. Pi was observant of ritual in the lifeboat but that only added to the tedium. I'm sorry, I sped read through this part.
Martel seems to be the kind of novelist that likes to dazzle you with a recitation of 25 different flowers and that sort of thing. Ok, so I'm envious of writers who can do that, but it's also that I prefer concision. My favourite writer in that department is Bruce Chatwin who said that he learnt the art of maximising the effect of words from writing descriptions of auction lots while at Sotheby's.
Apparently it's going to be a 3D film directed by Ang Lee. We'll see if the story improves in translation to the screen. There's no truth to the rumour that the film will be entitled Eat Drink Boy Tiger.
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