[.ca] Saving Fish From Drowning (Cd) (Unabr.) (ISBN 1597377317)

Rich Karmic Ironies Abound:
If you are looking for a "typical" Amy Tan novel about a Chinese mother and daughter, please be aware that this book doesn't follow Ms. Tan's marvelous prior novels into that rich story-telling vein. If you like satirical novels, you will wonder why Ms. Tan takes so long to lay waste to her targets. But if you like novels rich in cultural and psychological irony, you've found a gem. I emphasize that point because irony is something that many readers avoid or don't enjoy very much. I find that there are too few well-written ironic novels, and I treasure all those that I find. Like most stories about ironies, this one takes on such a broad theme that it can be easy to miss the message: Unintended consequences cause your purest impulses to backfire on you and on those you want to help. Ms. Tan's choice of a title gives a broad clue, in referring to an anonymous tale about a pious man who "saves" the lives of fish from drowning by catching them. When the fish die, he's disappointed but realizing that one must never waste anything, he sells the dead fishes to buy more nets . . . so he can save more fish from drowning. Like a good symphony composer, Ms. Tan then endows her major characters with story lines that let them each play out that theme in their own variations. To make sure we get the point, each personal story is imbued with ironies that are both richly developed and humorous. To be sure we understand that there are other forces at work, Ms. Tan sets as her initial narrator a wealthy patron of the arts who has just died . . . but is still lingering around to observe her own funeral . . . and the actions of the tour group she had organized. Although other such "friendly" spirits do not narrate, we can enjoy their visitations to the living throughout the novel. One of the beauties of the book is that Ms. Tan takes us into the cultural realities of those from many different nations and backgrounds. Those contrasts make it more obvious how much of what we do is the result of our histories, family circumstances and education. Enjoy a great read!

Not that good:
After reading Amy Tan's Book "Kitchens God's Wife" I decided that I will read all her other books. Unfortunately this was my second book. I was very disappointed. It will be my last.

Amy Tan's Best Book Yet:
This book is a departure for Tan from the mother/daughter relationships explored in her previous novels. In Saving Fish from Drowning we are swept away into the jungles of Burma with a group of 12 American tourists whose characteristics range from the eccentric to the timid and everything in between. This novel has everything: travel, mystery, adventure and humour. To cap it all off there is a sense of the supernatural that is explored as the narrator of the story is in the mystifying position of having found herself recently killed at the beginning of our story. This book is definitely in my top five reads of the year.