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My initial feeling before
reading this book was that if it was handled incorrectly, it could
be a disaster. Worse than being a disaster, it could be deadly boring.
Boy, was I right. I guess I'm not sure what wins you the Man Booker
Prize, but in this case it must have been a seriously aggressive public
relations campaign, cuz this was not a very good book. It promised
to "make you believe in God." I must say, I was certainly
praying to him to make this thing go somewhere interesting. Endless
pages about this kid avoiding a tiger in a lifeboat got old real quick.
While I imagined the book would take a cerebral turn at some point
and make some great points about faith and spirit (and anything remotely
ethereal), it gets repeatedly bogged down in the mundane details of
collecting rainwater, defecation and sleeping conditions. No matter
how hard I tried, I could not picture what the hell the author was
talking about when describing the boat and how everything on it related
to each other (there were oar locks and tarps, boxes, benches, etc.--and
none of it made much sense in his description.) Martel so much as
admits he's a "hack" in his introduction, and I think he
has somehow elevated himself to "talented charlatan hack"
status with this one. I guess I do believe in God after reading this
book. I believe he works in mysterious ways by making this bore of
a book an award-winning bestseller. Either that or Martel sold his
soul to the other guy for fifteen minutes of fame. Trust me, his follow-up
will get trashed.
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