Customer Reviews

Big Fish

5 star:		(31)
4 star:		(26)
3 star:		(11)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(4)

 

 

The world is full of mother and daughter books, such as 'The Joy Luck Club', 'Divine Secrets of the YaYa Sisterhood' to name a few, it was high time we had found a good book about fathers and sons. And here it is. Daniel Wallace's 'Big Fish' does not disappoint when it comes to explore this universe.

It is not a novel, but a episodic book, nevertheless, it must be read in the order, because they chronologically tell the story of Edward Bloom, through the eyes of his son, William Bloom. Edward is dying and in order to reconstitute his life, his son starts telling his (Edward's) stories --somehow, he believes that telling this father's adventures is a form of keep him alive. Like his father advises to him once: 'Remembering a man's stories makes him immortal'. Of course, that to William's eyes his father is a hero, more than that sort of a mythological figure-- hence the subtitle of the book 'A Novel of Mythic Proportions'.

From time to time, a chapter called 'My father's death' pops up, and this is the bitter side of this bittersweet book. While most of Edward's stories are sort of expanded jokes, these chapters are much more serious --even being funny when Edward shows up-- and sad, because that's when William has to come to terms with that his father is dying.

When commenting a hard fishing, William states 'Only a fool or a hero would try to catch a fish that size, and my father, well -- I guess he was a little of both'. The love that William has to his father is touching. More a dreamer, like a Don Quixote, it is hard to tell how Edward really was, because his stories a very fantastic --he fights against giants, meets fantastic creatures etc.

As a book of episodes, it is undeniable that they don't share the same level, some are much better and more developed that the others. It seems that Wallace put a lot of effort in some particular chapters --which ended up being very good, by the way -- and working in others segments in a hurry. It is clear that 'The Day He Left Ashland' and 'In Which he Buys the Town, and More' were much more crafted than the rest of the book. It is not a majot flaw, because the writer's style is light and he keeps it most of the book, but when comparing these two particular chapters to the rest of 'Big Fish', one notes the difference and wonders why it happened.

As a whole, the book is fairly good, whit funny and sad moments, that will certainly touch many hearts. Nevertheless I wonder about its gender appeal. I'm not sure women will enjoy 'Big Fish' as much as man. Of course, the girls can like it, but maybe not for the same reasons boys do.

BIG FISH is fantastic. I read it a few weeks ago, and it has totally stayed with me. I can't get it out of my mind, and keep picking it up and start rereading it at random, just to be back in its magical world. It's funny, witty, sad, and in the end incredibly moving. It's about learning to come to terms with your parents, with a son writing about his father as myth, a superhuman who seemed like he would live forever (and in a way, he does), and it's really remarkable that so short and light a book could be so incredibly powerful. BIG FISH should become a classic. Whatever you do, don't miss it.

As a lover of myth, folklore and fairytale I was absolutely enchanted by this book. I do believe that storytelling is a direct route to our psyches, especially all of our collective unconscious as humans who share trials and triumphs with each other and forever wonder how we rate as individuals. Daniel Wallace has created an endearing world within a son's imagination of the father he desires to know. As a daughter I can embrace this same longing with both my parents. The beauty of our minds and souls is how we can indeed fill in the negative spaces with dreams and tall tales that somehow do reality and truth justice within the reflection. I loved this book for all it had to share. A lovely read and I recommend it to everyone.

Many reviewers, and even the Reader's Guide in Big Fish, speak about its important mythical parallels and insight to father/son relationships. There is no doubt that both of these make Big Fish an incredibly intricate novel.

But Wallace's ability to write in the way we remember is what makes Big Fish a great read. Although we generally follow his tale of William Bloom's father, Edward Bloom, in chronological order, it is not necessarily so. The reader is never quite sure when a specific tale occurred, nor does it matter in your understanding of Edward or of William. The tales occur as they are triggered in William's memory, as he strives to understand his father, to see what he has seen and feel what he has felt.

Wallace's writing reflects the joys of oral traditions, of storytelling, of fabrication, of fantasy, of re-creating ourselves in other's eyes and the consequences that may bring.

Big Fish is a wonderful, multi-layered series of stories combined to create a joy of a novel.

It often happens that after watching a good movie then finding that it was based on a book one becomes discoraged of reading the book behind it because the story was already portrayed in the movie. But 'Big Fish' was such a good movie that reading the novel was necessary.

However from the very start of Wallace's novel I realized I was in for a whole new expedition into another Big Fish. John August did an excellent job writing Burton's 'Big Fish' screenplay because the events from the movie are only loosely based on the book (and he really used his imagination to tell new events in an extremely different way). The novel tells different stories from different perspectives. It is really another Big Fish than the one told by August.

It is a really magical and extremely original novel: profound, beautiful, funny and real. Read Big Fish. It won't take you long and believe me you won't regret it.

Summary: A story popularized by a movie starring Ewan MacGregor, this is the tale of Edward Bloom in his own words as he lies on his deathbed. Bloom is undoubtedly taking a certain liberty with the facts, as he strikes a rich vein of fantasy that is reminiscent of, but not borrowed from, a combination of fairy tales and American folklore. His tales of childhood are interspersed with "the present," in which his son, who wants a father who can be more honest with him, relates the sad details of his death, in different ways.

Writing:

Very well-written, managing to walk the tightrope between classic and entertaining without needing a net. It makes you laugh, it makes you cry. The slimness of the book allows for a reading in one sitting, which lets you really become absorbed. The movie was also terrific, but the book takes the prize, I think.

What I learned:

Maintaining a relationship with your family members is important. Dreaming big and refusing to accept the reality of your surroundings can have both good and bad consequences.

Daniel Wallace's Big Fish is the story of a son coming to grips with the imminent death of his father--a father he loves deeply despite harboring some contempt. Written with the pared-down, straightforward English of Hemingway and the imagination of Dahl, Wallace creates a simple story that pays homage to its setting, the South of a generation or two ago, and does so in the tradition of the Greek myth.

But don't be fooled by the book's simplicity. It achieves something special and rare by so accurately showing the imperfections of mankind, our (in)ability to communicate, and our overwhelming desire for resolution and peace before death. I implore you, the interested who has yet to read this novel, to force yourself to read it sl-ow-ly. You have the ability to read it in one sitting. Don't. Read it over the course of several days and absorb the terrific visuals and honesties that will remind you of people you have encountered and emotions that you have felt.

It's about a boy who sees his father as a hero, showed to its audience by the tall tales that he heard about his father himself. Intermixed are four different renditions, written in the first person, that tell the story of his father's death, the last one representing the balance or peace that is achieved upon that death. Big Fish is a significant success and I recommend it highly.

If you've heard of this book, it may be because it was recently made into a movie, which critics hailed as this generation's Wizard of Oz. Of course, being the skeptic that I am, I had to read the book first, to see if it truly contained the seed of such wonder. The verdict: oh, yes! This novel, which ambitiously purports itself to be "of mythic proportions," follows the traditional arc of the novel form, telling the life story of one man - Edward Bloom - from birth to death (to rebirth?). Yet it also resembles a collection of episodic short stories, each of which give us a different taste of Bloom. Ultimately, the book is "about" a young man's search to know his father, and the father's desire to know, as he lay dying, that he did a good job. But that description is really far too mundane; this story is funny, magical, and indeed, mythical. It's beautiful, really, and if the movie captures one-tenth of that beauty it's worth my $7.50. Big Fish is easily a weekend book, but just because the pages turn so quickly, don't rush it - this is the most delightful book you will read for a long time, so savor it.

William's father is dying, and William knows little about him beyond that simple fact. By looking back at all the tales his dad told him over the years, William hopes to learn who his father really is. As readers, we know nothing about Edward Bloom that his son doesn't know; thus, our perceptions of him, like William's, are based largely on surreal, fantastic tales. More than that, though, we get a hint of who William is and how he really feels about his dad.

This is the type of book I could read over and over again. The stories themselves are beautiful, and they are subtle and poignant in the context of the entire plot. Wallace maintains a perfect mystery around the characters that makes me want to comb over the novel sentence by sentence for a glimpse into their psyches. I don't know whether there actually is a deep life lesson to be taken from each and every story Edward told his son, but it feels like there was. So many parts of this book touched me. I came away feeling, for a few hours, like I had been transformed.

Daniel Wallace has written an adult fairy tale that can appeal to the ages, it's about families and tall tales, about truth versus reality and about what makes a person decide to get up and go each and every morning.

William Bloom is faced with his father's death and forced to deal with his tall telling father's view of how his life unfolded. Edward Bloom spent his life spinning a myth and created a legend in his own mind. As William sorts through all of the fantasy lives his father created it leads one to wonder where the truth begins and the daydream ends. Edward Bloom was loved by everything in his made-up world, he could do the whole thing faster and better and he also met the most amazing people along the way. William searches for his real father amongst the ruins of his tales and ends up conducting his own inherited legend in an unintentional twist of fate. William creates his father's death in four different ways in hopes of finding the perfection worthy of his imaginative father. In doing so he finds more than he bargained for and he skims the line between realities and dreams himself.

Wallace is a beautiful writer and has written a book like no other here. With a sense of humor and a child's idyllic wonder he tells his own tall tale through the depth of his characters. His readers will be taken on a very special journey that crosses the bridge between a warped reality and a boring everyday life. Finding the enjoyment in an exaggerated fib here and there can't be all that bad. If it takes a fantasy to fully experience life then so be it, sometimes tall tales lead us away from nightmares. Wallace brings us a wonderful fantasy laced with the sentimentality of a son yearning for a deeper understanding of his father as he lay dying. Written in almost a fairy tale format with short clips of wonder and longer snips full of moral fiber Wallace's story is unforgettable. Big Fish will make you smile, laugh and even shed a mountain of tears but mostly it will make you appreciate your own family's legends and search for a few new fish in that great big sea of dreams.