How long is it?
352 pages in the Harcourt 2003 paperback edition.
Reading facts
✓ Checked- Reading effort
- 51 / 100Moderate
- Length
- 352 pagesHarcourt · 2003
- Reading time
- 7 hat 50 pages an hour ·
- Pace
- Variable
- Emotional intensity
- 4 / 5
About 7 h · at 30 minutes a day, about 15 days
Estimated from the page count of this edition. Dense books can take longer than the estimate.
About the book
Pi Patel grows up at his father’s zoo in Pondicherry, India, learning animal behavior and practicing Hinduism, Christianity, and Islam. In 1977, his family’s voyage to Canada ends in shipwreck, leaving him in a Pacific lifeboat with a wounded zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker. Survival requires finding food and water while keeping himself from becoming prey.
Reader notes
Pi’s narration is curious and conversational, and the adult literary adventure begins leisurely, with extended discussions of religion and zoo life before the voyage. At sea, practical survival details alternate with philosophical reflection. The animal violence is graphic, and hunger, fear, and isolation occupy much of the story.
How it reads
- Writing style
- Descriptive · Essayistic · Lyrical
- Tone
- Atmospheric · Philosophical · Reflective · Tense
- Structure
- Framed · Nonlinear
- Driven by
- Character · Ideas · Plot
- Point of view
- First person
- Setting
- Pacific Ocean · Pondicherry, India
Reading complexity
- Writing
- 3 / 5
- Ideas
- 4 / 5
- Structure
- 3 / 5
- Background knowledge
- 2 / 5
About this profile
Collected’s assessment, not reader ratings. Complexity runs from 1 (least demanding) to 5 (most demanding).
- Writing
- How much attention the sentences and language require.
- Ideas
- How much interpretation or abstract reasoning the book asks of you.
- Structure
- How much you need to keep track of speakers, timelines and connections.
- Background knowledge
- Prior knowledge needed to follow the book, beyond what it explains.
- Emotional intensity
- Emotional pressure, from gentle (1) to intense (5). Separate from difficulty.
Themes
- Identity
- Isolation
- Knowledge and truth
- Nature and environment
- Religion and faith
- Survival
Content notes
- Violence
- Strong
- Sexual content
- Mild
- Swearing
- Mild
- Substance use
- Mild
- Abuse
- Mild
- Self-harm or suicide
- Mild
Standing and awards
Highly regarded
- Booker Prize, 2002
Questions readers ask
Which edition is shown here?
Harcourt · 2003 · Paperback. ISBN 9780156027328.
How long does it take to read Life of Pi?
About 7 hours at 50 pages an hour, based on the 352-page Harcourt edition. Dense books can take longer.
About the author
Yann Martel
Yann Martel is a Canadian writer whose published work spans novels, short stories, and letters. French is his first language, though he writes in English. In Life of Pi, he sets questions of spirituality, survival, and interdependence within a long ordeal at sea; in Beatrice and Virgil, he uses animal figures, allegory, and a nested narrative to confront the representation of the Holocaust. From 2007 to 2011, he also sent more than one hundred books to Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, an exchange later collected in 101 Letters to a Prime Minister.
If you liked this
Edition and details
- Publisher
- Harcourt
- Publication year
- 2003
- Format
- Paperback
- Pages
- 352
- ISBN
- 9780156027328
- Edition language
- English
- Original language
- English
- First published
- 2001
- Genres and form
- Fiction · Novel · Literary Fiction · Fantasy · Adventure · Religion & Spirituality · Literary fiction · Survival adventure
- Editions
- 108
- Languages
- 12 (Danish, German, English, Spanish, French, Hebrew, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Russian, Unspecified, Chinese)