Book review - Life of Pi

[tiggymalvern]

I bought this book years ago, after watching Ang Lee's beautiful film. I wanted to read it to see how the book compared to the film, and then I somehow forgot it? I found it while I was sorting through books for things to go to the charity shop and realised that I'd never actually read it, but somehow it got shelved with the books that I had.

So very belatedly, I read Life of Pi, and the answer to my question is that it compares exactly with the film. Ang Lee changed nothing, he shot the source extremely faithfully. And since I saw the film first, that was detrimental to the book. Because Ang Lee's visuals were absolutely stunning. Had I read the book first, I think it would have impacted me more, but the cinematography of the film added so much to the book while the script took nothing away, that this is one of the rare cases that I think the film is actually superior to the novel.

Comments

[anirrationalseason]

I remember reading the book in high school and enjoying it a lot. I still haven't seen the movie, but your post convinces me that I need to correct that!

[tiggymalvern]

And now that I've built it up for you so much, you'll probably hate it, of course, but I hope you don't!