Saving Fish From Drowning by Amy Tan

Title: Saving Fish From Drowning

Author: Amy Tan

Type: Audiobook (abridged) 
Narrator: Amy Tan
Genre: Fiction

Series: No

Copyright: 2005
Publisher: Brilliance Audio

Rating: 3.5 out of 5


Summary: from Good Reads
A pious man explained to his followers: "It is evil to take lives and noble to save them. Each day I pledge to save a hundred lives. I drop my net in the lake and scoop out a hundred fishes. I place the fishes on the bank, where they flop and twirl. 'Don't be scared,' I tell those fishes. 'I am saving you from drowning.' Soon enough, the fishes grow calm and lie still. Yet, sad to say, I am always too late. The fishes expire. And because it is evil to waste anything, I take those dead fishes to market and I sell them for a good price. With the money I receive, I buy more nets so I can save more fishes." - Anonymous 

Twelve American tourists join an art expedition that begins in the Himalayan foothills of China - dubbed the true Shangri-La - and heads south into the jungles of Burma. But after the mysterious death of their tour leader, the carefully laid plans fall apart, and disharmony breaks out among the pleasure-seekers as they come to discover that the Burma Road is paved with less-than-honorable intentions, questionable food, and tribal curses. 

 And then, on Christmas morning, eleven of the travelers boat across a misty lake for a sunrise cruise - and disappear. 

Drawing from the current political reality in Burma and woven with pure confabulation, Amy Tan's picaresque novel poses the question: How can we discern what is real and what is fiction, in everything we see? How do we know what to believe? 

Feelings:
This is a culinarily distressing book. Part of this may have been that where the story starts in China, is someplace that I have been and I knew all the mistakes they were making without the author going into detail which she did. That's right all the food that makes them sick you hear about. All the stupid tourist culturally insensitive things they do them.

Once the story gets to Burma it gets a little less culinarily distressing and more about the characters. The political history included in the story is interesting and unfortunately even though this is a work of fiction some of what happens is what really has happened in Burma.

Something that is interesting and different about this story is that it is told from the point of view of a ghost and although she knows she is dead she is unsure how she died. Because of the fact that she is dead she knows all but cannot influence and must sit and watch.

I liked the story but could have done without much of the culinary distress that came from listening.