Salmon Fishing in the Yemen

From the back of the book: When he is asked to become involved in a project to create a salmon river in the highlands of the Yemen, fisheries scientist Dr Alfred Jones rejects the idea as absurd. But the proposal catches the eye of several senior British politicians. And so Fred finds himself forced to set aside his research and instead figure out how to fly ten thousand salmon to a desert country - and persuade them to swim there...

As he embarks on an extraordinary journey of faith, the diffident Dr Jones will discover a sense of belief and a capacity for love, that surprises himself, and all who know him.

Winner of the 2007 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Comic Fiction is just one sample of praise that Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday has received. I haven't read a comedy in a while. Sure I've read books with funny bits in it, but this was the first piece of comic fiction I've read in ages.

It's a satirical novel, which isn't something new, but this book is distinctly different from anything I've ever read before. Made up of diaries, articles, reports, emails and various other styles, the story is never told in standard, chaptered prose. At first I felt it was just a bit annoying, to be honest. Why can't Paul Torday just write a simple chapter? But as I kept reading, I began to find his style and structure really refreshing. What's also great about it is that you get to see different perspectives on the same event, whereas normally you see it for a limited character and/or viewpoint. So, for example, there are occasions where one character thinks something that is then proved wrong to the reader via another character later on.

I have to say, though, there were the odd bits where I skim read to get ahead. There were definitely parts of the story that I enjoyed more than others and sometimes I just wanted to know what happened next rather than read an article about it. The central idea, though, is so wonderfully original, clever and yet absurd that you can't help but enjoy it!

I would recommend this book, definitely, so don't be put off by my score. My score is lower largely because I wasn't satisfied by the ending. That doesn't detract from its creativity and cleverness, though. I'm looking forward to the film! Might wait a bit, though... need to forget the plot before I see the film!

 6.5