College Students! discussion

Please use this thread to talk about the book as a whole after you have finished.

Did you like or dislike the book? Did you like the ending? Favorite characters? Favorite quotes? Did you like the author's style? Were you confused by anything in the book? etc.

I REALLY liked this book (I read it a while ago...) I thought it was so original and actually pretty thought-provoking. I thought it was interesting that he chose to end it making you question whether or not Pi hallucinated the animals or if they were really there.. I like to think that the animals were really there... :)

On a side note, I also love that this author is from (or more accurately has been residing in for quite some time, including when he wrote the book) my hometown, Saskatoon, SK, Canada!

I really enjoyed this book. I read it like Lindsay awhile ago but I was pretty excited when I found out it was on the book club to read list.

I thought the story was odd but in a good way, it was not some run of the mill story. It was original and though provoking.

Loved the ending. Love love love.
I don't think it was really a question of if he hallucinated the animals or not. I think he's just the type to look at things in different ways? I mean, I think he knew that there was no Richard Parker, but that is how he thought the story should be. Like the people interviewing him said, they liked the story with the animals better. I think he did too.

On a more personal note, I liked this book a lot less than I did the first time I read it. When I first read it I was very religious, so I could really relate to Pi in that way. Now I'm an atheist, so it was harder to relate to some of the things he said in the book. But I guess that's just how things go.

I also forgot how long the introduction was. I don't think the book really gets good until after the ship sinks.

I really like the author's writing style. It was simple and elegant without being boring, which isn't easy to pull off at all. I think he did very well with it.

Overall: good book, great ending.

At first I wasn't a fan of the ending, I never liked ambiguous endings. But as I was thinking about it, I decided that it was actually clear what had happened- and when I realized the author was being fairly straightforward with us, I liked it a whole lot more. Some slow parts, but on the whole a captivating read!

I really enjoyed the begining of this book, and the ending, but I hated the middle, it was hard for me to even push through to get to the ending. I found the middle just so tedious, I was so bored with all the descriptions of how he got his water and food everyday. I really just thought that was boring.
I almost quit reading it, but my friend who loves this book encouraged me to keep going. I'm glad I did because I did love the ending. But I don't think this will be a book I'll ever reread because theres no way I could put myself through the middle of it again.

Emily wrote: "On a more personal note, I liked this book a lot less than I did the first time I read it. When I first read it I was very religious, so I could really relate to Pi in that way. Now I'm an atheist, so it was harder to relate to some of the things he said in the book. But I guess that's just how things go."

Funny, this was the case with me as well. I was anticipating feeling differently about it this time around because I remembered that Pi was a pantheist and that all that was explored a bit before the shipwreck. I found the religious stuff to be incredibly annoying. A story to make me believe in god? That is a pretty tall order. Not to mention that I found him to be very preachy. How do you convert to Islam and Christianity without reading the Koran and the Bible and then talk down about atheists? I was peeved.

Anyways, the story itself was okay. Not as captivating as I remembered thinking it was before, but still interesting, and it definitely kept me reading.

I want to know what the deal is with the author's note and his little chapters about going to visit Pi. My copy of the book explicitly labels the book "fiction." So... this confused me (as it did the first time I read this).

I still don't know how I feel about the ending (I forgot it ended like that, and now I wish I remembered so I could have kept it in mind when I read it this time).

I didn't really like this book. It was hard for me to get into it.

I did like the ending though-it surprised me. I believe that the second ending was the true one, but I agree that the animals made the story better and it was a way for Pi to cope with his trials at sea. It was too hard for him to think about his mother dying and to imagine that crazy gluttonous guy mutilating that poor man. Imagining the people as animals helped him deal with it all.

I really hated the part where Pi wass talking with the other blind shipwreck survivor. That part was so confusing. I don't know what to think about that. It all seemed too surreal as I was reading it, and it was easier for me to tolerate it by believing that Pi was just hallucinating the whole time.

I was really confused in the part about that island Pi landed on for a while with all the meerkats. Does anyone know if that's some sort of metaphor for something?

Kayla - that was my least favorite part of the whole book too, I had to force my way through it.. Pretty much the only part I didn't enjoy.

Jessie - The island was my favorite part! lol, I think because it was so strange and intriguing. I couldn't come up with a metaphor for it, but I would be interested to see if anyone else did!

Jessi wrote: "How do you convert to Islam and Christianity without reading the Koran and the Bible, and then talk down about atheists? "
Yeah, that annoyed me too. I was a little taken back when it said it was a book to make you believe in God. I guess I hadn't noticed how blatant it was the first time around. But at least he was a pantheist instead of some crazy fundamentalist of some type. That would have gotten annoying really quickly.

I haven't come up with a metaphor for the meerkats either. Maybe it represents laziness, because he had all the food he wanted and wasn't working hard, so he got lazy, and in a boat that could have killed him. But he was training Richard Parker (himself) during that time, so I guess that doesn't work.

I read this book a while ago, but I do remember a bit of it. I loved the ending and do think it's obvious what the truth is. I also think it would make this book worth rereading. I didn't notice anything about making me believe in God, but then again I'm Christian, though not fundamentalist. I thought the fact that he believed in all the different religions made you really think about religion in general, and how similar they can be. It also made me realize how well some practices work together, and that adopting some practices from a different might be beneficial, if you're spiritual that is.

Tahleen wrote: "I thought the fact that he believed in all the different religions made you really think about religion in general, and how similar they can be."

The first time I read it, I kind of thought along these lines. But now I think that it's just ignorant, especially considering that the vast majority of religions make it pretty clear in their sacred texts that they are mutually exclusive.

But aren't there plenty of people who adopt different practices from various religions? I know a lot of people who try to do that. They might not identify as a pantheist, but it's just something I've noticed. I don't know if I would call it ignorant.

Could you give an example or something?

I know that learning about Buddhism has made a difference in my life, and practicing meditation. I don't consider myself a Buddhist but I have used some of its practices in the past. I know that's not the same as practicing more than one religion, but I am just saying that I didn't see it as ignorant.

I see what you're saying. Personally, I don't really consider meditation a religious/spiritual practice at all. I also don't think Buddhism is a religion so much as it is a philosophy, unless you are talking about the Buddhists who think that Buddha was a god (and, thus, totally misinterpreted his ideas).

But religions claim to have divine truth, and when the religious texts specifically say things that rule out other religions, I think it's ignorant to try to pretend that they are not mutually exclusive. Additionally, it is incredibly ridiculous to convert to a religion without having ever read its sacred texts. Christians do it all the time, because I don't think most have read the bible (and the same is probably true of people who follow other religions as well), but how can you claim to believe in something if you haven't even explored it properly?

I really liked this book as well. I had a lot of friend who ended up saying it was too hard to get into and I agree that it was a little slow in the beginning, but some of the things that he talks about (like zoos not being bad for wild animals) were very interesting. Esp since I love animals it was an awesome read.

I felt that it was really hard to get into as well. I didn't realize it as much the first time I read it, but the second time the beginning section just seemed to drag on and on! I was just waiting and waiting for the boat to crash, which almost makes me feel bad for wishing disaster on him like that. I feel like, while a lot of the beginning was important, a lot of it could have been left out too.

I loved the ending! I disliked the part on the island and the part with the other blind man lost at sea. However, the ending made sense of the second blind man, but not the creepy island. I listened to this on audio and found it extremely fascinating throughout. There were a few parts that were a bit grisly but I guess that is to be expected when survival is at stake.