Saving Fish From Drowning
By: Amy Tan
Copyright: 2005
Ballantine Books, New York
3 Bookmarks out of 5
My first review for the Hipster Book Blog is Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan. "Wait a minute, Laura," I know you're thinking to yourself now, "How is AMY TAN hipster? Didn't she write that one book? Oh shoot, what was it called....The Joy Luck...something or other?" And my answer to you is that Amy Tan did indeed write the Joy Luck Club, but have you read anything else by her besides this critically acclaimed book? That's where Saving Fish From Drowning comes in.
I picked up this book in a used bookstore in Lancaster, PA a couple weeks ago, mostly because it was in the 50% off bin which means I paid a whole $2.50 for a 472 page paperback book. Yes, The Joy Luck Club was also in the same bin, but I wanted to take the road less traveled for my reading pleasure.
The book synopsis is fairly simple: Bibi Chen plans a wonderful trip on the Burma Road for her friends over the Christmas holiday. However, Bibi Chen dies before the they begin the trip. Instead, Bibi Chen's ghostly self follows her friends on the trip. Then, on Christmas morning, her friends disappear into the mysterious jungles of Burma. Myanmar. Whatever name the country is using these days.
The book starts off with an intriguing note to the reader that Bibi Chen was a woman Amy Tan knew and recently found that Bibi made contact with the world of the living via a system known as 'Automatic Writing.' For those of you who don't know what this is, basically a living person is used by a dead person to write down messages. Often, the living person does not remember the writing session once it is done. Amy Tan claims Bibi Chen did this in multiple sessions. Then the book uses a news article about missing tourists in Burma, whom Bibi Chen claims via automatic writing to know what happened to these tourists.
I have to be honest here, I'm a skeptic by nature. But the whole point in fiction is to jump headfirst into the story and believe it - no matter how weird the circumstances. So I accepted these notes to the reader as fact.
The book begins with Bibi Chen, her life background, as well as her funeral. I have to say, I immediately fell in love with the character of Chen. I wish Tan wrote an entire book about Bibi Chen's life. I loved her story, her wit, and dark humor. Especially when she was buried in a coffin intended for someone else. However, from there the story begins to follow her friends while Bibi resurrects herself as the narrator every once in awhile just to remind the reader that she is indeed, still there.
While the friends of Bibi Chen begin their trip in China, where the Burma Road begins, I empathized with the tourists. When they had to choose a new tour guide and Bennie obviously chooses the wrong one, I cringed as if I could somehow reach through the pages and tell him to pick the other one. This wrong choice of tour guide leads to one of the best quotes from the book, one which haunted me even as I read it.
"He say even you pay one million dollar, still not enough keep trouble away...He say he tell all gods give these foreigners bad curse, bad karma, following them forever this life and next, this country, that country, never can stop...This I thought you must know."
Talk about some major creepiness factor here. But I have to admit, after this beginning part, I felt less involved with the characters. Even as they disappeared into the Burmese jungle, I saw it as their own stupid fault and didn't feel bad when their 'Christmas surprise' became weeks of being trapped in the jungle. Throughout their ordeal, their complacency seriously irked me. Then, when I thought the book should have ended, it continued on with afterwards about each of the 12 tourist friends of Bibi Chen.
I don't want to give away too much of the ending, but I will say that even though this book had flaws, mainly towards the end, I was still intrigued with this book. I say that is deserves 3 bookmarks (get it? instead of 3 stars out of five?) because I felt that the ending lacked and I wish that more of the book had focused on the dynamic character of Bibi Chen. A good read if you're looking for something a little ethnic.
I'll leave it up to you to figure out if Bibi Chen was real or not. Along with the story of 11 missing tourists in Burma. Myanmar. Like I said, whatever name it is being called these days.
