Not all books live up to their titles, but that's not the case for our current Sunday Arts Section (SAS) Book Club choice, Saving Fish from Drowning by Chinese-American writer Amy Tan. The notion of saving fish from drowning, Tan tells us, comes from a belief among fishermen in Myanmar, who claim the noble act of rescuing sea life every time they fish. Sadly, Tan tells us, the fishermen are never in time to save the fish.
The absurdity of that underlying notion that fish can be saved from drowning is the basis of Tan's strange novel. When you think about it, everything is absurd in Saving Fish from Drowning: Bibi Chan's death, her narration of her own story and that of the tour group that she organised–all of which takes place after her death–the group's adventures and misadventures in China and Myanmar, their behaviour as tourists... Every step of the journey is absurd.
After Bibi's death, the group elects a hopeless leader who suffers from epilepsy–not that there is any other possible leader. Unsurprisingly, they get lost.The group of tribesmen, with whom the lost tourists end up, mistake the 15-year-old boy in the group, Rupert, as their long-lost White Brother or Lord of the Nats, a throwback to the days when they had contact with missionaries.The Karen tribesmen's beliefs are rooted in the fact that Rupert carries a Stephen King novel and does card tricks. This is indeed a novel with one absurdity stacked on top of another.There are, however, many deep messages embedded in it. Tan seems to be making a definite point about tourism.
Consider these questionsfor your book club:
1. What is Tan trying to show readers about tourists and tourism?
2. Do tourists behave differently when they're on vacation than they do when they are in their own country? If so, why?
3. Why does it matter if tourists behave stupidly when visiting another country?
4. Why is it important to know as much about a country as you can before travelling?
Newspaper stories surface every day of tourists who are lost, robbed or killed in another country. Remember the three American tourists lost in Iraq who supposedly wandered into Iran while they were hiking? More recently, there was the American woman raped in Brazil because she did not know how to judge the transportation system in Rio. She took a maxi with darkened windows that people who live in Rio would know not to take.Tan's exaggerated account of Bibi Chen's tourists drives an important point home: countries are often judged by the tourists who wander through and the events that happen to those tourists when they enter a foreign land. People make gigantic leaps in judgment about a country from as little as one incident.
Join us in the SAS Book Club group on Facebook to share your thoughts on Saving Fish from Drowning and its many messages.
Next week: What Saving Fish from Drowning teaches us about relationship and the "perfect" vacation. Also, for those of you who are travelling and want to pick up your books, look out for our next four choices for the SAS Book Club.
