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.









Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Stranger From Lagos by Cyprian Ekwensi

Image
  image courtesy of Google images   Ekwensi was born in Nigeria in 1921. He wrote about the country and people of Nigeria-city life and life in the rural areas. Loko Towns and Other Stories was published in 1966. A Stranger From Lagos was one of the nine stories in that collection.   The writer explores the place of women in society. Lilian is trapped by social conventions. Her fiance treats her like a possession as if he owns her. It is written in third person to allow the writer's thoughts to merge with Lilian's. The protagonist is unable to speak to the stranger in public although it is obvious that there is a strong physical attraction between the two. If Lilian asserts herself she will go against social conventions (for females) and her reputation will be damaged through rife and unhealthy gossip. She will therefore be stigmatised as a loose woman. The story explores her inner conflicts in accepting these "conventions" or flaunting them as well ...
Read more

A Stranger From Lagos by Cyprian Ekwensi Final Part

Image
                                                                    courtesy of Google images Lilian uses her sexuality to liberate as well as attract the opposite sex. Ekwensi uses "wiggled." Lilian had just had her hair done and was wearing very large, loop earrings. This had been done for her lover's benefit. She was conscious of all the eyes watching the two of them. The writer uses the simile: she felt like something projected on a 3D screen for all Onitsha to view. We are told very little about the stranger other than that he was tall and good-looking. We are told he didn't feel embarrassed by all of the attention. He would ruin her reputation...
Read more

A Bit of Singing and Dancing by Susan Hill

Image
Here you'll find 11 varied but intense stories about emotional struggles of ordinary people trying to get to grips with life. For some unfortunates, the adjustment is too great and tragedy is inevitable, something very characteristic of Hill's writing as many of you will already know. A Bit of Singing and Dancing is less dramatic and not quite so tragic. I can stay out here just as long as I like, I can do anything I choose, anything at all, for now I am answerable only to myself. Esme is still coming to terms with her mother's death and her new-found freedom. She is over 50 years of age and has reluctantly been forced into caring for her forthright and domineering bedridden mother for 11 years prior to her death. She had been half-alive satisfying her mother's needs and repressing her own needs and desires. Her mother's death had given her a new lease of life, an unexpected freedom which also attracted fear and bewilderment to someone who had been so sheltered...
Read more