Life of Pi

I saw the commercials and thought it looked like an intriguing movie and was thrilled to find it was based on a book. Being the nerd I am, I wanted to read the book first. My husband, love of my life, cannot understand why I do it. I haven’t let my 12yo son watch the last half of Harry Potter films b/c he didn’t finish reading the books. I’m such a mean mom.

Life of Pi was not what I was expecting. I think it was not what anyone was expecting. The story of Piscine Molitor Patel, a young Indian boy whose family owns the local zoo. Poor kid. The pronunciation of his name more often was ‘pissing’, rather than the way it was meant to be said. Middle school became his chance to start over and he changed his name, rather forcefully, to Pi. Voila, new guy. Some events happened in India to make his family feel moving to Canada would be a good move. So they sold some animals and were going to move the rest, by cargo ship, all the way to Canada.

Tragedy strikes, the ship sinks, and Pi is left alone, in a life raft, with a Bengal tiger, and a few other assorted animals no one wants to be in a life boat with. Life is challenging to say the very least, and the fact that Pi survives is truly incredible.

I don’t know to recommend or not. It’s such a fantastic story in that it’s so far out there, and so completely impossible. But on the other hand, there are people who really love this kind of story.

I do know that now I need to see the movie.