Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. Paul Torday.

"You are never too old" to start your first novel. Ask Torday, he was 59 when he wrote this novel and he has produced a new novel each year. A film was made recently with Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas. Read the book first: Lassie Hallfrom the director has made some significant changes from Beaufoy's screenplay.The book works for me.

It wasn't the most dynamic, thrilling or exciting of novels I have had the pleasure to read and review recently but I did enjoy it. I enjoyed the brief glimpses of romance, a vision of the impossible and the bungling bureaucracy satirised politically. I was told there was a "feelgood comedy" element which I failed to discover. Perhaps someone can enlighten me? I certainly liked the ending, failure of a different kind, the least expected and sadness. Torday isn't in to happy endings I am delighted to say.

Dr Alfred (Fred) Jones is educated, straight forward, humble and a lovely person who has had some recognition for his work as a scientist. He has drifted into middle age without reflecting on his achievements either professionally or personally. His marriage is stale, his wife frigid and dare I say it, despicable? I took an instant dislike to her. She was self-centred, frosty and thought about her career and never her marriage so it isn't surprising when Fred discovers love for the first time in his life at 40!

Sheikh Muhammed is a wonderful depiction of qualities rarely seen in the Arab world: sensitivity, humility, charm and more significantly, a vision of achieving the impossible:
"Credo quia impossible est." Faith. God's will.

Anyone with any sense knows that introducing salmon into a desert is lunacy but Fred and Harriet, a consultant representing the Sheikh become enchanted with the Sheik's vision and faith so the project becomes everyman's dream, achieving the impossible. Sink or swim.

The British Government wants a piece of the limelight and so the P.M. becomes involved whilst the going is good. Once things become rather awkward, the P.M. is worried about his image and disassociates himself from the project. Another u-turn towards the end of the novel. Predictable, yes. Satirical absolutely. Paradoxically, the project becomes a success and an embarrassing failure simultaneously, in fact a tragic one.

I enjoyed the variety in style. One minute we have diary entries, then emails, then interviews and prose but it works and it works well. Hope you enjoy it too.

http://orionbooks/ ( Phoenix Publishers) ISBN: 978-07538-2906-6

Amazon.com

Orionbooks
Copyright 2012. Permission to use this review must be obtained from the author.









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