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Product Description
Product Description
"Salt Fish Girl" is the mesmerizing tale of an ageless female character who shifts shape and form through time and place. Told in the beguiling voice of a narrator who is fish, snake, girl, and woman - all of whom must struggle against adversity for survival - the novel is set alternately in nineteenth-century China and in a futuristic Pacific Northwest. At turns whimsical and wry, "Salt Fish Girl" intertwines the story of Nu Wa, the shape-shifter, and that of Miranda, a troubled young girl living in the walled city of Serendipity circa 2044. Miranda is haunted by traces of her mother's glamourous cabaret career, the strange smell of durian fruit that lingers about her, and odd tokens reminiscient of Nu Wa. Could Miranda be infected by the Dreaming Disease that makes the past leak into the present? Framed by a playful sense of magical realism, "Salt Fish Girl" reveals a futuristic Pacific Northwest where corporations govern cities, factory workers are cybernetically engineered, middle-class labour is a video game, and those who haven't sold out to commerce and other ills must fight the evil powers intent on controlling everything. Rich with ancient Chinese mythology and cultural lore, this remarkable novel is about gender, love, honour, intrigue, and fighting against oppression.
About the Author
Larissa Lai is the author of two novels, When the Fox is a Thousand and Salt Fish Girl. She was an active cultural organizer through the 1990s and holds an MA in Creative Writing from the University of East Anglia and a Ph.D. in
English from the University of Calgary. She is currently an Assistant Professor in Canadian Literature at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.7 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
life is but a watery dream, Sep 15 2003
By glasshouse - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Salt Fish Girl: A Novel (Paperback)
this is undecidedly one of the best books i have ever read. it's a sci-fi, fantasy, critical social commentary, poetry, and product of the postmodern. calling this an 'asian book' or a 'woman's book' limits its scope and depth, a book that delves into memory, both personal and historical. it is also a creative challenge to conventional discussions on immigration and geographic/cultural displacement by exposing the power dynamics in the process. at the same time, however, the circular setup of the novel, the watery motifs, and gendered violence situates the book within women's experiences. salt fish girl is also laden with loss, denial, forgetting and abandonment that is a common thread in an asian diasporic experience. larissa lai's poetic and lucid writing style fits so well with the fantastical yet tactile tone of the book. it is dream-like and yet feels intensely real. a delightful find.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
magic realism or science fiction?, Jun 23 2003
By arthur hanks - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Salt Fish Girl: A Novel (Paperback)
This tale is an inventive mix of chinese myth, science fiction, lyrical dream and biotech nightmare. Laden with themes of love, birth, reproduction and transformation, Salt Fish Girl can be read on many levels -- its a rich text and there is a lot going on in this short novel. Now in some places, I felt Lai becomes seduced by her own talents of imagery, and the narrative flags while she describes say, the colour of pearls, or the mood of the ocean, but that's a minor problem. And as a former Vancouverite, I also appreciated the book's run-down Pacific edge of the future setting.Worth reading and worth reading again, I think.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A true masterpiece, Mar 30 2003
By "gythien" - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Salt Fish Girl: A Novel (Paperback)
Lai proves herself as one of the greatest Canadian writers. Salt Fish Girl is a wonderful, fascinating story about two Asian women -one a shapeshifter and the other obsessed with scent and her dead mother- who lived in very different times, but are somehow related. The story will truly capture you and you will not be able to drop the book until you finish it.
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