The book was a comparison for me. The movie versus the story. Ang Lee had certainly entertained me. And I knew the story. And I knew the characters. My imagination was bounded. But the book turned out to be a surprise. Not a complete surprise but in parts. The story digressed and expanded from the story in the movie. In parts the movie was better and in parts the book outshone the movie. Yann Martel had depicted the protagonist's helplessness and changing psychology in the Pacific with much more detail and credibility. Ang Lee had shown the beauty of the ocean and the ferocity of the tiger like an art. There was no comparison at all.
The story is about the son of a zookeeper, Piscine Molitor Patel, who finds himself stranded on a lifeboat after a shipwreck in which he loses his family. He discovers a few animals on this lifeboat, one of them a royal Bengal tiger, Richard Parker. The story is a depiction of his survival through the two hundred plus days on the boat, alone save for a tiger. His struggle against the elements of nature as well as the wild animal. His metamorphosis from a strict vegetarian to a human animal. His fears, his hopes, his faith.
Yann Martel did a beautiful job with the book. There are places though where the story seems a little incredulous, and the fix is reflected in the screenplay of the movie with which Martel helped a lot. Martel can engross a reader in his story. There were no dull moments and the story was never a drag, even when it went into biological or zoological details. But I think I will give this author a rest till another recommendation comes my way.
