Life of Pi

While I was visually sweeping the exhibition hall of the Strand Book stall, I happen to give a cursory glance on the book titled "Life of Pi". For a quick moment, I thought this could be some book that explains the history of the Mathematical symbol-"Pi" and as I was thinking, my hand reached out for the book. It turned out to be a 2002 Booker Prize winning novel by Yann Martel. The mere looks of the novel impressed me and I immediately purchased it. That was two months back.

I had been reading the novel in bits and pieces since then and finally I had completed it last week. My first Booker Prize novel and I should say it was quite an interesting piece of work. The story unveils in Pondicherry (an erstwhile French colony) in India and moves on to the Pacific Ocean and ends up in Canada. The main character of the story is about the little boy -the lone survivor of a wrecked ship who is thrown into a lifeboat by the crew in the last minute. The boy later learns that he has a co-passenger, a 200 pound Bengal Tiger along with him. The rest of the story is how he survives the ordeal at sea only to be shored after more than 200 days.

I liked everything about the novel, the author's style of writing/description, the characters, the storyline except for its ending. I felt that the ending came all of a sudden and kind of cut short. Maybe, the author suddenly became bored or probably was too tired to write further! Of course, it is also possible that I couldn't read between the lines and appreciate the short and crisp ending ;). Whatever it is, a novel worth reading and if you have the will to read, you will (if you have already read the book, this will ring a bell).

BTW, if you are still wondering about "Pi", that is the name of our hero, Piscine Molitar Patel, otherwise known as, Pi.