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CainandAble Secretly Saruman Since: Jan, 2015
Secretly Saruman
09/21/2016 19:39:17 •••

I honest-to-God hate it

I hate Life of Pi. Nearly every aspect of it grinds at least one of my gears. But, before I go in, let's put a disclaimer here: I was forced to read this book by my freshman English teacher, who's more or less Beelzebub. And with that out of the way, we can move on.

First, the characters, or rather character, Piscine Molitor Patel. Mr. Patel is—at least in my perception of things—a borderline Marty Stu. He is given little-to-no personality in the book, which is made worse by the fact that the first seventy or so pages are devoted to understanding him and his backstory. A little personality comes through when he's in the ocean, but not much. Then, there's the bit where Pi is somehow wiser, smarter, and more clever than almost every other human in the goddamn book. Seriously; anyone who argues with this kid is quickly and soundly defeated by his simplistic logic, except the Imam, Father, and Guru, who are just left to sputter.

And there's the other bit! The religion! Other reviews have already gone over the details, but basically, Yann Martel knows very little about any of the religions that Pi claims he's a part of.

iowaforever Since: Feb, 2013
09/21/2016 00:00:00

You are not alone in the sufferings of English; I read it five years ago for Junior English and found it to be the most boring thing put to print, so much that I added Aliens references to make it less boring. It dropped even further in my sights when I started studying Islam in college, and Pi\'s entire religious life felt like a smack in the face of Islam\'s \"Don\'t assign partners to God\" rule, and I don\'t even practice Islam.

And yes, Pi\'s got no personality. He\'s just right, somehow, and everyone else isn\'t. Or at least, I assume everyone isn\'t, because they have about as much character as a soggy piece of cardboard and their arguments are filled with more straw than an old mattress. Maybe if his odd religious choices had a greater impact on his journey, or maybe if someone had a decent counter argument, the story would have some more clout, but I don\'t really see a whole lot of that.


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