I would not have commented if I had not read it and of course I knew it had won the booker. I buy.my wife the booker shortlist every year (cheap at the book people if you are interested) and many of the books are awful. I struggled to the end of Pi but wished I had not bothered.
It had plenty of failings and was too much of a 'book club' book but there were some really nice touches (the protagonist's religion/s, the creepy island) and I certainly would not dismiss it as worthless. Many people will get a great deal of pleasure out of it, and at 20p it is well worth trying. Plus it doesn't have any Coldplay songs in it!
Well, he did capture the main themes plaguing the Indian society: corruption, dowry system (getting rarer now in bigger cities now), caste & class divide but went OTT with it. Corruption is there, but not so bad.