Life of Pi Yan, 'Life of Pi' is told from two alternating points of view, the main character Pi in a flashback and Yann Martel himself, who is the "visiting writer" (Martel 101) interviewing Pi many years after the tiger in the boat story. This technique of the intrusive narrator adds the documentary realism to the book, setting up, like a musical counter-point, the myth-making, unreliable narrator, Pi. The reader is left to ponder at the end whether Pi's story is an allegory of another set of parallel events. The novel is a work of fiction set in the summer of 1977 that
2012 Man Booker Prize he liked a novel to "zip along". Critics alleged that literary quality was ignored, and Robert McCrum of "The Observer" declared the nominations "one of the worst-ever shortlists". Rimington responded to the criticism by claiming that "[p]eople weirder than me have chaired the Booker." Alex Clark, also of "The Observer", called the controversy a "straw man debate", contending that the shortlisted writers were "no more – and no less — "readable" than many other writers." Even McCrum had to admit that the winner, Julian Barnes for his "The Sense of an Ending", was worthy of the prize. The 2012 jury