Saving Fish from Drowning
by Amy Tan
Finished on 4 July 2007. Filed under Chinese Culture, Supernatural.
Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China—dubbed the true Shangri-La—and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers as they come to discover that the Burma Road is paved with less-than-honorable intentions, questionable food, and tribal curses.
And then, on Christmas morning, eleven of the travelers boat across a misty lake for a sunrise cruise—and disappear.
Check out Saving Fish from Drowning at Amazon.
After-Thoughts
Truth to say, I was somewhat disappointed. Considering that I selected this book because I had enjoyed the last book I read by Amy Tan (The Bonesetter's Daughter), I had an expectation that this book would be just as good, if not better. Unfortunately, it really wasn't.
The story started with the mysterious death of Bibi Chan and the entire story was told from the perspective of Bibi's ghost, who oversees her friends' journeys in China and Burma. As interesting and unique this sounds so far, I do not think Tan was successful in maintaining her readers' interests in this book.
The bulk of the story was based on Bibi's friends' holiday trip in China and Burma and was not tied in too well with the original death mystery. It wasn't until the last couple of pages of the final chapter was the death explained very briefly as if Tan just wanted to finish the story as soon as possible by then. The ending was quite unexpected, though not in a "Whoa! Amazing!" way; instead, it was more like a "Oh. What the heck. Was that it."
I wouldn't advise you to proceed with the reading of this book unless you really do have a lot of free time to spare. I also found a bookmark left in the first one-fifth of the book by the person who borrowed it from the library before me.
