Redmill

One of the most astonishing books I’ve ever red. Did I say this before? I’ve been reading a lot and it’s been more then a year that I red Life of Pi.
I bought the paperback at the airport and red the book while stretched out in the Turkish sun in the summer of 2006. The reading was a multi senses experience as the temperature reached fifty degrees Celsius at the moment that the main character in the book is shipwrecked in the middle of the Ocean and threatens to get killed by dehydration in the full tropical sun.

Pi Patel is a sixteen year old Indian boy with a more then common sense and curiosity for religion. He visits the Hindu temple, meets with a priest and goes to the mosque as he figures he can combine religions like the flavors of ice cream. Unfortunately adult are to narrow minded to accept his open minded vision. But his religious discoveries move to the background when Pi, his family and the animals from his fathers zoo are shipped aboard a Japaneses freighter to head to a new life in North America. The poor indian economy has closed down his fathers zoo and with the money they will get from selling the animals to an American zoo, they will start a new life in the United States.

But things go differently. The ship wrecks and Pi ends up in a life boat together with a hyena, an orangutan, a zebra with a broken leg and a Bengal Tiger. The Tiger rules and eats all the other animals but does not go for Pi. A thrilling adventure starts and Pi uses every knowledge he has to survive. This books is not what it seems. Yes it is a great adventure. Yes it is a showcase of wisdom but oh my what an excellent twist does Yann Martel give to this book at the end.

Advise: DO NOT READ AHEAD. Safe the last chapters for last and I promise you will get goosebumps by the idea.