UKC

I found a copy of Life of Pi in the place that we are stopping and thought, “great, never read that award winning classic”. Well currently about 25% done and it has been like trudging across a muddy field in gentle drizzle - anyone want to advise whether it gets any better or should I give up now?

Chris

It gets worse. Turns out it is trite religious nonsense.

Don't waste any more of your life on it, Chris.

oh, I loved it and I’m not at all religious.  Not my usual sort of reading either.

If you’re not enjoying it I don’t think it will get better for you.

Cheers

Toby

It’s crap. Give up and read Viz instead

One of the few books I’ve given up on. Another was Finnegans wake!

There was also the disappointment that it had nothing to do with mathematics.

I struggled all the way to the other side of the muddy field, getting pretty damp in the process, and obviously completely missed some deep underlying religious message as I just thought it was pointless and boring 

I thought it fantastic. Nothing like anything I'd read before and all the better for it. But if you're that far in and it hasn't grabbed you yet, I doubt it will.

And as for religion, I actually was surprised to read later about its supposed religious message, as it seemed to me to be very much about human psychology. But then again, isn't religion itself simply a sub-branch of that?

Not deep, just silly. I seem to remember the message being something like that the world is more interesting of you believe made up stuff.

Very much enjoyed it, don't remember the religious bit.  The trap-door you get dropped through at the end still sticks with me.

I thought it was good to be fair. Maybe a bit slow at some points. The ending sold it for me really

Too much of the first part of the book laborious characterisation. Skip forward until they are on the ship and start from there

Just watch the movie.

Like all dull books you can make it more exciting by reading it faster. 
I’ve read it but can’t really remember if it was any good or not so probably not all that life changing.

If you want a classic, put that pretentious beach read down and pick up something by Flann O'Brien - preferably The Third Policeman or The Poor Mouth.

My half-read copy, far from being a didactic spiritual and metaphorical allegory, is now usefully employed as a vibration absorber for our washing machine spin cycle.

It will be getting worse, stop right now and bin the book.

CB

I loved it, but of course books just like films are subjective things - get to the end at least, there is a twist, it's worth that and make a balanced judgement. For pure unadulterated misery try Rebecca by Du Maurier - some like that for god's sake

Approximately 3.142 times faster?

the sea the sea by Iris Murdoch - what a load of bllcks. 

Rebecca is an absolute classic. It has spawned innumerable TV and film adaptations and they are still churning them out as recently as last year. For me its most obvious comparison is Jane Eyre and I think  that "Last night I dreamed I went to  Manderley again " is as famous a quotation as "Reader, I married him".

It's probably only fair to Pi's author that Chris should read to the end, but I doubt that anyone will be discussing The Life of Pi on an internet forum in seventy or eighty years' time.

Chuck the life of pi in the bin, watch the film if you feel guilty and spend that reading time instead by rolling a dice to pick something randomly from:

1 Steppenwolf - Herman Hesse

2 Moby Dick - Herman Melville

3 The White Spider - Heinrich Harrer

4 Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas - Hunter S Thomson

5 The Push - Tommy Caldwell

6 The Idiot - Fyodor Dostoevsky

There should be some variety in that list for you, no choosing.. roll the dice and take the consequence

I was in a bookshop just after "The Elementary Particles" by Michel Houllebecq had hit the best-seller lists, and there was a big stack of it at the till. I opened one, and it really was about sub-atomic particles. Nice try by the bookshop, and I bet not a few got home only to be disappointed that there wasn't a single orgy in it. 

.

It would be interesting to know how many Booker winners do stand the test of time.

Oh God, no.  I was gripped by Crime and Punishment, found The Brothers Karamazov a trial, only survived by skipping the spiritual bits, and finally foundered midway through The Idiot. Too much drunken shouting on the landing. 

That's really annoying,  a generally tedious long book but with a possibly good ending!

The only book ive finished this year is Bob Mortimer's autobiography. 

Happy with that but used to burn through 2 books a week when I was a nipper, too much tech to distract these days )

Shantaram. Now that's a massive long, overrated, shithouse of a book.

936 pages, I'll wait for the movie .

I found the film a chore.

I saw it in 3D and it was amazing!

Read the book and watched the film.  If there was a deep message there somewhere it was too deep for me.

The prequel was much more catchy.

But you got who the animals were, presumably?

On this note I tried Midnight's Children recently - nearly gave up. Battled to the end and I'm not sure why. Not particularly enjoyable and won the Bookers' Booker IIRC.

I don't think you could have suggested two duller climbing books if you had tried. 

I  don't think so? It was so long ago, I can't remember.

OK.  Hard to explain without major spoiler but the story being told is obviously a fantasy because the truth wouldn't be acceptable either.  It is explained near the end when the boy is being questioned.

I have absolutely no recollection of the ending. I think I must have completely lost interest by then.

Yet both are hands-down better than the life of pi

Going to have to disagree, I found Life of Pi very engaging personally whereas I nearly gave up on the white spider and struggled through Caldwell’s. In defence of the later I knew almost all the main points of the content. 
 

But then this is what’s great about books. One persons nightmare is really enjoyable to someone else - variety being the spice of life and all that!

Not read the book. Just didn't appeal. But I got roped in to the 'Family Christmas Theatre, 2021' and saw the stage-play version (London, Wyndham's Theatre). I don't like the theatre at all, and previous communal Christmas events have seen me regularly doze off. However, this was a play that I caught most of. I found it 'OK' - which is high praise from a barbarian such as me.

There speaks a man who hasn't Higher Than The Eagle Soars by Steven Venables.

Count yourself lucky it wasn't "Cloud Atlas" - that's my worse B&B book yet.  I had to finish it because I have a psychological flaw that won't let me not finish a book.

I liked Cloud Atlas.

For those wishing to know the end of Life of Pi...

Bruce Willis is a ghost

Might I cheer you up by mentioning 'The Joy of Pi' by David Blatner. I was disappointed to find that there were no tigers in it.

I struggled to the end and regretted it. A great premise, that played out well for a while, then the author lost his way, threw in a crappy bit of magic realism with the stupid childish meerkat Island. Then didn't know how to finish it so put in alternative endings. 

Little Dorrit

I did finish that and 'quite' liked it though it was deffo a long haul,

Chris

Speaking of which; The Alchemist - vapid, trite, quasi-metaphysical drivel.