I really don't have any expertise on this book --
Life of Pi. I haven't read it, but have seen the movie trailer recently. It looked a little strange to me. One of my students is reading it for her book project this six weeks. I really don't know enough about it to discuss it at all, I'm embarrassed to say!!!
I'm always sorta hyper-sensitive to what I assign in class, however, and I worry endlessly about requiring my students to read depressing things! (Deaths of grandparents in
Cold Sassy Tree, for example.) "Sensitive" issues also send me into worry-cycles too...
Cold Sassy Tree also recounts an episode of incestuous rape and has a joke about a woman nursing a pig to keep her breast milk flowing. So now y'all are probably wondering, well, why on earth do they keep reading it, then???
I've discussed my concerns w/two female administrators and neither felt the book should be "banned" from my 9th graders. One of my administrators said sometimes the difficult subjects in literature are the only way some kids have of getting "permission" to talk to someone about the difficult issues in their own lives.
And when we get to the part about the rape, I always discuss the fact that 100 years ago, these things were NOT spoken of... but TODAY, they KNOW they are supposed to tell somebody if ANYONE is hurting them or threatening them, etc... and tell somebody else if the first person doesn't believe them, and somebody else... etc.
(I just ignore the part about the pig, unless they bring it up, and usually they're not reading close enough to catch it!)
I like to have them read it b/c (1) the relationship between the boy & his grandfather is so sweet... and (2) the story takes place in a small Southern town much like our own, at the turn of the century, and I think it's good for my students to get this little slice of life.
But I didn't mean to "hijack" this thread...
Violence... I don't know... kids probably handle it better than we think, but that may be a sad commentary on our world today. I know ALL my students who have read
The Hunger Games are just absolutely in love with it, and I thought the subject matter there was certainly depressing and violent -- but I loved it myself, too. I don't assign it b/c so many of them have already read it on their own.
When Miss Havisham catches on fire in the movie,
Great Expectations, my students burst out laughing.
(Of course, they are watching the B/W 1946 version. It truly IS a little comical.)
So... Harriet wanted me to see this thread, I think, but I can't really contribute much to it, re: specifically
Life of Pi, that is.