Friday, October 24, 2003

If you’re jonesing for a good piece of fiction, gentle reader, you might want to give Life of Pi a try. After a fantastic introduction, the first third of the book veered into surprising soapboxes on zoos and pluralism. Polemics are interesting and welcome, don’t get me wrong, but not when they’re nestled in a piece of anticipated fiction. It’s like sinking into a big, juicy sandwich, expecting a rough and fiery center, only to bite into something hard and smooth. You hunger for Aesop, but eat an editorial instead.

The rest of the novel, however, delivered all that was expected, and how! I want whatever Yann Martel was smoking when he wrote the narrative proper. It’s a simple story about being at sea, but it’s a powerful, charmingly crisp story about being at sea. One of the joys of reading is realizing that you’re in repose, stuck in the here and now, and that you’re also a part of the page, playing white to the author’s black.

And the cover illustration? That was nice as well.