At the Ventnor Library Reading Group meeting this week we discussed Paul Torday’s Salmon Fishing in the Yemen.
Below are some of the comments that came out of the meeting. Tess
I was rather put off by the “contrived” nature of the form, however once I got past that I appreciated the thinking behind his writing it in that way. Was he was paying homage to other works written in epistolary form?
Amusing and interesting as a political satire””fun spotting the “real” political figures!
As a discussion of western secularism as opposed to eastern spiritualism it works, perhaps not to our advantage.
If you take the basic storyline as this rich guy wanting to impose his will on the environment and riding roughshod over the culture of his own people it’s disturbing. The paternalism of The Shiekh’s “knowing what is best for my people” and his wanting to bring “tolerance” as epitomised by “the contemplative nature of the fisherman”, seems a bit out of place today but “¦”¦
As a discussion of the possibility of faith it works,the passage where Fred finally understands the need “to believe in belief itself”, explains the whole book “¦.
“Great to find a novel that says thank you to the Environment Agency” ……
At first I thought the ending rather weak but perhaps the writer wanted to reflect true life in that Fred finds what is important to him but nothing is really resolved in his rather dismal relationship with his wife and the other characters just disappear “¦.
As a debut novel it is accomplished””I wonder whether he has another novel in him?
