I initially picked it up because I was working at a bookstore in the fiction/ literature section which included dealing with all the school reading list titles we were aware of. Yann Martel had managed to make it to a high school English class’s required curriculum and that sparked my interest. Someone somewhere thought you shouldn’t leave high school without reading this book and those same people were the ones that introduced me to John Steinbeck and George Orwell.
I read it quickly. It’s a breezy read, full of riveting emotional adventure on a life raft in the open water. I remember thinking, ‘Now this is what a book about someone stuck on a boat should be,’ after all, I was never a fan of Old Man and the Sea, despite feeling like I should.
I also remember hearing about it being made into a movie and thinking, ‘This could be really beautiful or they could really screw it up.’
Finally, I was able to discover the answer to my speculations.
It was so beautiful.
It was exactly what I imagined.
I haven’t experienced a movie so true to my experience of the book since Ian McEwan’s Atonement was tackled by Joe Wright.
Ang Lee nailed it.
Which of course is apparent by the fact that at the 85th Academy Awards it won four awards, after being nominated for eleven. I have a tendency to be a teensy oblivious to things like the Academy Awards, whether I watch them or not. Two years later, I’m cheering for the wins.
Well done. Well done.