Saving Fish from Drowning
“A rollicking, adventure-filled story . . . packed [with] the human capacity for love.”–USA Today“A superbly executed, good-hearted farce that is part romance and part mystery . . . With Tan’s many talents on display, it’s her idiosyncratic wit and sly observations . . . that make this book pure...
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“A rollicking, adventure-filled story . . . packed [with] the human capacity for love.”–USA Today“A superbly executed, good-hearted farce that is part romance and part mystery . . . With Tan’s many talents on display, it’s her idiosyncratic wit and sly observations . . . that make this book pure pleasure.”–San Francisco ChronicleSan Francisco art patron Bibi Chen has planned a journey of the senses along the famed Burma Road for eleven lucky friends. But after her mysterious death, Bibi watches aghast from her ghostly perch as the travelers veer off her itinerary and embark on a trail paved with cultural gaffes and tribal curses, Buddhist illusions and romantic desires. On Christmas morning, the tourists cruise across a misty lake and disappear.With picaresque characters and mesmerizing imagery, Saving Fish from Drowning gives us a voice as idiosyncratic, sharp, and affectionate as the mothers of The Joy Luck Club. Bibi is the observant eye of human nature–the witness of good intentions and bad outcomes, of desperate souls and those who wish to save them. In the end, Tan takes her readers to that place in their own heart where hope is found.“Amy Tan is among our great storytellers.”–The New York Times Book Review“Amy Tan has created an almost magical adventure that, page by page, becomes a metaphor for human relationships.”–Isabel Allende“With humor, ruthlessness, and wild imagination, Tan has reaped [a] fantastic tale of human longings and (of course) their consequences.”–Elle“A book that’s easy to read and hard to forget.”–Newsweek
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Format: paperback
ISBN:
9780345464019 (034546401X)
ASIN: 034546401X
Publish date: September 26th 2006
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Pages no: 472
Edition language: English
Category:
Novels,
Literature,
Cultural,
Book Club,
Adult Fiction,
Historical Fiction,
Literary Fiction,
Contemporary,
Asian Literature,
Asia,
China
While I do understand the feeling that many readers may share that a particular writer should stick with "her" characters, "her" plot lines and should never stray, I can certainly understand why a writer would want to stretch beyond her boundaries. Or his boundaries, as the case may be.Writing is as...
As fun as this was to read, being part travelogue, part ghost story and part study of Americans in a strange land, I wasn't as hooked or charmed with this story as I have been with many of her others.
A bit outside Tan's usual scope. Not bad, but not great, either.