Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Martel, Yann - Gordon Houser (review date 8 February 2003)

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Gordon Houser (review date 8 February 2003)

SOURCE: Houser, Gordon. Review of The Life of Pi, by Yann Martel. Christian Century 120, no. 3 (8 February 2003): 34-5.

[In the following review, Houser considers the central theme of religious faith in The Life of Pi.]

Canadian writer Yann Martel, winner of the 2002 Booker Prize, sets up his delightful story [The Life of Pi] with a clever “author's note” in which an elderly man in Pondicherry, India, tells the author, “I have a story that will make you believe in God.” With little fanfare, he hooks the reader into a postmodern novel, with stories within the story, questions about the veracity of the story or storyteller, and an ending that teaches a lesson about belief.

Narrator and protagonist Piscine Patel, who shortens his name to Pi after being teased about the pronunciation of his first name (rhymes with hissing), grows up near the Pondicherry Zoo, which his...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Cary Fagan (review date April 1993)
   2. Merna Summers (review date June 1993)
   3. A. C. (review date 27 May 1994)
   4. Greg Hollingshead (review date April 1996)
   5. Christine Hamelin (review date November 1996)
   6. Julian Ferraro (review date 22 November 1996)
   7. Nathan Whitlock (review date August 2001)
   8. Francis King (review date 18 May 2002)
   9. Francie Lin (review date 16 June 2002)
   10. Roz Kaveney (review date 19 July 2002)
   11. William Skidelsky (review date 29 July 2002)
   12. Charlotte Innes (review date 19 August 2002)
   13. Yann Martel and Sabine Sielke (interview date 2002)
   14. Gordon Houser (review date 8 February 2003)
   15. Pankaj Mishra (review date 27 March 2003)
   16. Elizabeth Palmberg (review date March-April 2003)
   17. Gerald T. Cobb (review date 14 April 2003)
   18. Randy Boyagoda (review date May 2003)
   19. Jean Smith (review date spring 2003)
   20. Linda M. Morra (review date summer 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Yann Martel