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From the Bookshelf of Diversity in All Forms!…

Saving Fish from Drowning

Amy Tan

Start date: January 1, 2019

Finish date: January 27, 2019

Discussion: Author's Pick

Why we're reading this: Saving Fish from Drowning
by Amy Tan
[close] Saving Fish from Drowning
by Amy Tan

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Author's Pick

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What Members Thought

Jan 30, 2019 daemyra, the realm's delight rated it really liked it

Shelves: literature-asians

"We should be aware of the consequences. You can’t have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?

Everyone on GoodReads who has written a review of Saving Fish From Drowning seems to hate it.

I, on the other hand, who have read (tried) The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen Goddess, find this is the first Amy Tan novel I like. I think it depends on what you like. I found her other writings devoid "We should be aware of the consequences. You can’t have intentions without consequences. The question is, who pays for the consequences? Saving fish from drowning. Same thing. Who’s saved? Who’s not?

Everyone on GoodReads who has written a review of Saving Fish From Drowning seems to hate it.

I, on the other hand, who have read (tried) The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen Goddess, find this is the first Amy Tan novel I like. I think it depends on what you like. I found her other writings devoid of a light touch, but Saving Fish is, on the whole, humourous even as it deals with dark themes, and the effect on the reader is quite impactful. I like that a lot. Saving Fish From Drowning has one of the most powerful epigraph pairings I can recall reading in a while that sets up the theme of the novel about the unpredictability of good intentions. Good intentions can lead to disastrous results, perhaps even more so than bad intentions to start with. Good intentions can also be a public mask hiding something much more nefarious.

Bibi Chen, a pretentious and colourful patron of the arts in San Francisco, dies right before she and a group of friends set forth on a trip to Burma over the winter holiday season. The group decides to travel onwards and Bibi, now in ghost form and gifted with omniscient point-of-view, tags along, so we know what everybody is really thinking.

The group is full of liberal stereotypes where everyone is funny because they don't know how funny they are. The reader is mostly laughing at their expense. Their foibles can be charming. Bennie, the new Bibi Chen of the group, is a nervous wreck, hoping he doesn't ruin the trip for his friends. At one point, his expression of desperate salvation is likened to that of an obsequious dog. Harry, a famous British dog trainer, is lusting after the single mom in the group, a buffoon plotting his seduction, misinterpreting many a look such as when Harry at one point thinks Marlena is rebuffing him when Marlena is actually succumbing to a stomach virus. Wendy is an activist who quickly becomes clingy with lust to Wyatt, a slacker bum. The Stone Bell Temple scene is one of the shining moments of Saving Fish From Drowning that shows whether we are keeping up with the Jones or are proud average Joes, travel is the great equalizer. We are all bumbling tourists whether our fanny pack is Louis Vuitton or no name, all with the intelligence of a goldfish when it comes to what we're doing in another country - just completely unimpressive, disoriented messes lacking any clue what's going on :)

And Tan reveals each of their characters' less evolved thoughts. Harry is a complete womanizer and schmoozer and it may seem on the surface-level, harmless but it really isn't. From deciding Heidi gets two demerits for what he thinks are plastic implants and setting his sights on Marlena at the start of the trip, to reflecting women who liked to exercise are frigid to giving himself cold feet at the thought - god forbid - of a woman asking him to change to better himself, Harry is an accurate portrayal of that forever bachelor type. He also goes on local TV, a puppet to boost the tourism industry for the military government, in the hope of finding his friends after "leads" point him from one tourist destination where they were last seen to another, to making flash judgements and dismissals of the badly dressed tourists in his hotel for being "lower class." Bibi herself is also an interesting character, a fountain of knowledge about China, Buddhism, but who can also go on the most random tirades. For two pages, she muses about the cleanliness habits of each race: "The Burmese are among the cleanest people of the world...Contrast this to the Tibetans... and just so you don't think I am being prejudiced, let me be the first to say the Chinese are also less than fastidious...And while I'm on the topic, I can't say that cleanliness is renown among the British I have known..." and on it goes to remark on that of the French, German and American people!

Everyone is a clownish caricature and it is brilliant characterization. What I thought was equally impressive is how Tan told the story of Burma and Myanmar, being a bit on the nose: "Poor Miss Burma... Naturally we all have great sympathy, but who wants to read stories like that?… Don’t tut-tut me. I know it’s an utterly ugly sentiment, and I would never have admitted it in public while I was alive." Tan effectively weaves in political history and real-life atrocities in Saving Fish. The fate of the Karen people in particular, as well as that of Walter, are tragic endings. I don't think Saving Fish argues for a Shangri-La state of mind, that of "sublime indifference" for the masses but it does pose interesting questions about intention, action and consequence, risk and benefit.

Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan is a great read. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Mar 05, 2016 Bianca Rose marked it as to-read

Feb 20, 2019 Jan marked it as to-read

Shelves: fiction, asian, historical-fiction, china, authors-of-color

Sep 05, 2019 Jessica Calaway marked it as to-read

Apr 16, 2020 Austin Booth marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Jul 03, 2023 Jeani Derrough added it

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