A few days back i was reading magic seeds by naipaul and i was touched by the strange subject matter of the book, still at times i had to struggle to complete it for the book took me on a journey through the mere mundane into a rather profound realisation, too profound for my tastes it seemed. The next book i had from bcl was salmon fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday, it was a random pick-up from the library that i had just thought of trying for a change from Kureishi, Kundera and such big names. Surprisingly enough, i loved the book and found it to be considerably gripping...i actually had trouble to put it down even to go to bed ( rather a surprising act for a person like me if not a rare one).
The theme of the book is rather simple...it is belief, hope or in the words of the author faith!
It starts off with a Yemeni resident, a big-shot-crammed-with-money sheikh coming to Scotland and trying to start a project involving the breeding of the salmon fish in the deserts of Yemen to start off the popular sport of fishing there. He employs an attractive manager named Harriet and a fisheries scientist Dr. Alfred Jones for the same. It is through this interesting and seemingly impossible attempt that Jones, the protagonist, learns to believe . He sees a way out of his loveless marriage, falls for the immensely attractive engaged-to-be-married Harriet and starts to see himself of having some value, some worth in life that earlier he used to measure with the yardstick of his publications on some larvae fish thing.
There are like a thousand things that i loved about this book, one is this entire idea of faith, hope and love ; also the political angle to this entire fishing affair that the scottish politicians saw was amazingly brought out, For one, the mental picture that the Scots had of the prime minister holding a freshly caught salmon in the deserts of Yemen, engineered by the brains of their own instead of a war torn, blown up into bits image of middle eastern countries with the help of their troops exuded confidance in them and helped to strengthen their goodwill.
I was struck by the simplicity of it all.One picture, worth so many words.
So the entire project due to it's potential political mileage was trapped into a whirlpool of whimsical profit-seeking bouts of government intervention.
So one man's belief in divine intervention, faith in Him motivated an atheist logical minded scientist to believe, not necessarily in God or some religious bullcrap, but rather in oneself...the entire story at some point ceased to be just a mere fiction borne out of one's imagination and became the story of Fred's journey to find himself...to understand the true value of love and companionship he so took for granted till then.
In the Sheikh's words the silver fishes glistening in the water were capable of making a change, even in human beings!
The theme of the book is rather simple...it is belief, hope or in the words of the author faith!
It starts off with a Yemeni resident, a big-shot-crammed-with-money sheikh coming to Scotland and trying to start a project involving the breeding of the salmon fish in the deserts of Yemen to start off the popular sport of fishing there. He employs an attractive manager named Harriet and a fisheries scientist Dr. Alfred Jones for the same. It is through this interesting and seemingly impossible attempt that Jones, the protagonist, learns to believe . He sees a way out of his loveless marriage, falls for the immensely attractive engaged-to-be-married Harriet and starts to see himself of having some value, some worth in life that earlier he used to measure with the yardstick of his publications on some larvae fish thing.
There are like a thousand things that i loved about this book, one is this entire idea of faith, hope and love ; also the political angle to this entire fishing affair that the scottish politicians saw was amazingly brought out, For one, the mental picture that the Scots had of the prime minister holding a freshly caught salmon in the deserts of Yemen, engineered by the brains of their own instead of a war torn, blown up into bits image of middle eastern countries with the help of their troops exuded confidance in them and helped to strengthen their goodwill.
I was struck by the simplicity of it all.One picture, worth so many words.
So the entire project due to it's potential political mileage was trapped into a whirlpool of whimsical profit-seeking bouts of government intervention.
So one man's belief in divine intervention, faith in Him motivated an atheist logical minded scientist to believe, not necessarily in God or some religious bullcrap, but rather in oneself...the entire story at some point ceased to be just a mere fiction borne out of one's imagination and became the story of Fred's journey to find himself...to understand the true value of love and companionship he so took for granted till then.
In the Sheikh's words the silver fishes glistening in the water were capable of making a change, even in human beings!
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