Life Of Pi 少年派的奇幻漂流 英文版 Movie-Tie-In 由同名英文小说改编李安执导影片Life Of Pi已获第85届奥斯卡导演、摄影、视觉效果及原创音乐等奖项
作者： Yann Martel 著
出版社：Mariner, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2012年10月
简介： The son of a zookeeper, Pi Patel has an encyclopedic knowledgeof animal behavior and a fervent love of stories. When Pi issixteen, his family emigrates from India to North America aboard aJapanese cargo ship, along with their zoo animals bound for newhomes. The ship sinks. Pi finds himself alone in a lifeboat, his onlycompanions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and RichardParker, a 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched allbut Pi, whose fear, knowledge, and cunning allow him to coexistwith Richard Parker for 227 days while lost at sea. When theyfinally reach the coast of Mexico, Richard Parker flees to thejungle, never to be seen again. The Japanese authorities whointerrogate Pi refuse to believe his story and press him to tellthem "the truth." After hours of coercion, Pi tells a second story,a story much less fantastical, much more conventional--but is itmore true? Yann Martel's imaginative and unforgettable Life of Pi is amagical reading experience, an endless blue expanse of storytellingabout adventure, survival, and ultimately, faith. The precociousson of a zookeeper, 16-year-old Pi Patel is raised in Pondicherry,India, where he tries on various faiths for size, attracting"religions the way a dog attracts fleas." Planning a move toCanada, his father packs up the family and their menagerie and theyhitch a ride on an enormous freighter. After a harrowing shipwreck,Pi finds himself adrift in the Pacific Ocean, trapped on a 26-footlifeboat with a wounded zebra, a spotted hyena, a seasickorangutan, and a 450-pound Bengal tiger named Richard Parker ("Hishead was the size and color of the lifebuoy, with teeth"). Itsounds like a colorful setup, but these wild beasts don't burstinto song as if co-starring in an anthropomorphized Disney feature.After much gore and infighting, Pi and Richard Parker remain theboat's sole passengers, drifting for 227 days throughshark-infested waters while fighting hunger, the elements, and anoveractive imagination. In rich, hallucinatory passages, Pirecounts the harrowing journey as the days blur together, elegantlycataloging the endless passage of time and his struggles tosurvive: "It is pointless to say that this or that night was theworst of my life. I have so many bad nights to choose from thatI've made none the champion."An award winner in Canada (and winner of the 2002 Man BookerPrize), Life of Pi, Yann Martel's second novel, should prove to bea breakout book in the U.S. At one point in his journey, Pirecounts, "My greatest wish--other than salvation--was to have abook. A long book with a never-ending story. One that I could readagain and again, with new eyes and fresh understanding each time."It's safe to say that the fabulous, fablelike Life of Pi is such abook. --Brad Thomas Parso
