Welcome to my weekly post where I look back at some of my four and five star reads before I started Nicole’s Nook.
Today’s book: Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan
Publishers: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Publication Date: January 1, 2005
Date Read: Before I joined Goodreads in 2008
My Rating: 4 stars
Favorite Quote
“The only thing certain in times of great uncertainty is that people will behave with great strength or weakness, and with very little else in between.”
― Amy Tan, Saving Fish from Drowning
Goodreads Synopsis
On an ill-fated art expedition into the southern Shan state of Burma, eleven Americans leave their Floating Island Resort for a Christmas-morning tour-and disappear. Through twists of fate, curses, and just plain human error, they find themselves deep in the jungle, where they encounter a tribe awaiting the return of the leader and the mythical book of wisdom that will protect them from the ravages and destruction of the Myanmar military regime.
Saving Fish from Drowning seduces the reader with a fagade of Buddhist illusions, magician’s tricks, and light comedy, even as the absurd and picaresque spiral into a gripping morality tale about the consequences of intentions-both good and bad-and about the shared responsibility that individuals must accept for the actions of others.
A pious man explained to his followers: “It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. ‘Don’t be scared,’ I tell those fishes. ‘I am saving you from drowning.’ Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes.”
My thoughts:
Amy Tan’s one of my favorite authors. While not necesarrily my favorite, this is the one that sticks out in my mind the most. It departs form her usual theme of the relationship between Chinese-born mothers and their Chinese-American daughters. In this case, the narrator is a recently deceased woman whose friends go on an expedition to Myanmar in her honor. I love the mixture of adventure, mystery and magical realism.