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Big Fish (movie tie-in): A Novel of Mythic Proportions
by: Daniel Wallace

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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN: 9780142004272
ISBN: 0142004278
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 208
Publication Date: November 04, 2003
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release Date: November 04, 2003
Sales Rank: 106887
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
When his attempts to get to know his dying father fail, William Bloom makes up stories that recreate his father's life in heroic proportions.

Amazon.com Review:
In Big Fish, Daniel Wallace angles in search of a father and hooks instead a fictional debut as winning as any this year. From his son's standpoint, Edward Bloom leaves much to be desired. He was never around when William was growing up; he eludes serious questions with a string of tall tales and jokes. This is subject matter as old as the hills, but Wallace's take is nothing if not original. Desperate to know his father before he dies, William recreates his father's life as the stuff of legend itself. In chapters titled 'In Which He Speaks to Animals,' 'How He Tamed the Giant,' 'His Immortality,' and the like, Edward Bloom walks miles through a blizzard, charms the socks off a giant, even runs so fast that 'he could arrive in a place before setting out to get there.' In between these heroic episodes, Bloom dies not once but four times, working subtle variations on a single scene in which he counters his son's questions with stories--some of which are actually very witty, indeed. After all, he admits, '...if I shared my doubts with you, about God and love and life and death, that's all you'd have: a bunch of doubts. But now, see, you've got all these great jokes.' The structure is a clever conceit, and the end product is both funny and wise. At the heart of both legends and death scenes live the same age-old questions: Who are you? What matters to you? Was I a good father? Was I a good son? In mapping the territory where myth meets everyday life, Wallace plunges straight through to fatherhood's archaic and mysterious heart. --Mary Park

Customer Reviews

Average Rating: out of 5 stars

Rating:

- Ugh, this was a bore to get through!
I picked up this book as a recommendation from someone working at my local Barnes & Nobles. It started out sort of cute, funny little stories about someone's life. The problem was, that was all that it was - just a series of short little stories, tall tales actually. It did not go anywhere, did not develop, nothing. It would be fine for a bathroom read, but it just did not hold my interest. In fact at one point, I had 30 pages left in the entire book and I literally had to force myself to finish it, just skimmed it, and read to the end.

This book will be going in my pile to resell to Half Price books and I will not be passing it on to anyone. Hope this is helpful information.

Rating:

- Excellent
It's a terrific book, and possibly even great. It's not pretentious, it's not larded with `depth' that reeks. It simply tells, through a couple dozen vignettes, the tale of a legendary man named Edward Bloom (not to be confused with pseudo-critic Harold Bloom nor James Joyce's Leopold Bloom). I reviewed the film a while back, and found it to be wanting. That's the way a Tim Burton film can affect you. How that ceaselessly puerile director got a hold of this terrific little book and nearly ran it into the ground is beyond me. The actual book is, as the apothegm goes, much better than the film. Yes, there are many of the famed scenes from the film, but also alot more. The bond between Edward Bloom and his son William, narrator of film and book, is much more strongly developed, and the end far more poignant than the dumbed-down Disneyfied movie. In fact, the only really good purpose the film served was likely in increasing ... Read More

Rating:

- A Novel of Understanding
This simple tale warms the heart. Just as William must learn to accept his father's tall tales, so too must we as readers. After all, don't we all just want to be "big fish in a big pond" in our own ways?

Rating:

- Joyful & Insightful
Big Fish was an absolutely joyful read. I finished it in about 4 hours over the course of 2 days. The poetic examination of the father/son relationship brought me to tears. Wallace captures the intangible struggle between understanding, & accepting who our parents are, in turn, who we ultimately are. A must read!

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