Overall, I really liked the book, but since I can always find something to complain about, I will.
The book started with a note from the author. Right away I was confused. I knew Life of Pi was fiction, but the author's note was written like it was a true story. This wouldn't be a problem if it was stated to be written by someone else other than Yann Martel, the author, but since I was led to believe the note was written by Mr. Martel, I was confused.
From early on, it's apparent that Pi survives his ordeals. It's stated that the story has a "happy ending" and since the premise is that Pi himself has related his story to the author, he obviously doesn't get killed during the telling of his tale. There were plenty of times of great suspense during the novel where wild animals are pitted in close proximity to Pi and the young man has to use the very few resources around him in order to survive. I found myself feeling tense and nervous during these chapters (and loving it), but not as much as I could have since I knew all would be well in the end.
A few times throughout the novel I caught myself thinking that Martel was presenting a lot of interesting information, but it almost felt like he was just informing the reader of said information rather than moving the story forward. It reminded me of Herman Melville's long chapters about everything cetacean in Moby Dick. I will admit that Martel's informative musings were more interesting to me than Melville's, but that could simply be because of the difference 150 years has on what an audience finds more interesting: the body types of whales or all things to do with surviving months at sea. When I later read that Martel extensively researched a number of different topics for Life of Pi, I wondered if he just couldn't resist regurgitating every interesting thing he had learned rather than tying it all tightly into the narrative.
A few criticisms aside, I really enjoyed the book. It was a great story that moved deftly from moments of action and suspense to moving imagery of life, death, religion, and survival.
The book takes an interesting twist near the end that really shakes things up and almost makes a person want to start reading the book over from the beginning right away to see how it comes across with this new knowledge. This was the first time I really thought about the claim made by a fictional person in the author's note that Pi's tale is, "A story that will make you believe in God." I had initially scoffed at such a claim as just being something to say to try to pull the reader in. After reading the last part of the novel, I realized it didn't mean it was going to actually change a person's belief in God, but rather it was making a statement about the very nature of a faithful belief.
The first part of the book is heavy with Pi's love of three major religions. He angers some people in his life because he doesn't choose one religion, but finds things he loves about all of them and so embraces them all. And just like Pi chose certain parts that made sense to him, moved him, helped him to explain life, so too must the reader choose which of the two stories we're to believe. Do you believe the good story or the ugly story? But there's more to it - the good story has parts that are too fanciful to be realistic. So, to believe the good story, you also must be able to explain those fantastic aspects by attributing them to an intervention of a higher power.
And I think that was the author's point on religion: We want to believe the "good story", so we find a way to believe, even if that means relying on something not based on hard evidenced facts, but on faith.
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