Pi's parents run a zoo in India but as times get harder sell up and emigrate to Canada. The boat that they're sailing on also has some of their animals on it, destined for zoos in the Americas. But the ship sinks in a storm, and Pi finds himself aboard a liferaft, with only a man-eating tiger for company.

I confess I didn't get the point of this one - other people seem really to rate it, but it must have gone over my head. The story is written in a sort of magic realism style and I couldn't see which bits were meant symbolically and what they were meant to symbolize. Maybe it was because I was reading it on holiday and not really paying much attention to it.

I quite liked the ending, where he's explaining to someone what happened on the boat, and they don't believe him. So he makes up another version of the story to account for what happened, which is less fantastical. And when you're reading, you wonder whether maybe the mundane account was true and the book you've just read is the made up version, or vice versa.

Anyway, didn't really like it.

Completed : 5-Aug-2006