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Type of bind: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813.54
EAN num: 9780142004272
ISBN number: 0142004278
Label: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Manufacturer: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Quantity: 1
Page Count: 208
Printing Date: November 04, 2003
Publishing house: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Release Date: November 04, 2003
Sale Popularity Level: 123315
Studio: Penguin (Non-Classics)
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Editor's Notes and Comments:
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
User popularity level:
Rated by buyers 
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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.
Rated by buyers -
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 readership for the book. This is why picked up a good copy at a used bookstore, and am thankful for the million dollar commercial the film turned out to be....Oddly enough, the book's episodic nature reminded me most of Girl, Interrupted, another very good book made into a mediocre movie. Of course, Big Fish is more expansive and light-hearted. It also is not in chronological order, as the tales wenf through time. In this way it greatly parallels the masterpiece of Kurt Vonnegut, Slaughterhouse-Five. Yet, where Vonnegut's book took a real world `big event' and crammed it inward, to reveal the psychosis of its lead character, Big Fish takes the smallest nubs of a human relationship, and unfolds it writ large. It is also not a regional book, dependent upon place the way William Faulkner's books are, and it is far more lucid, taken as a whole, or some as tales that stand on their own, than the works of Isaac Bashevis Singer or Zora Neale Hurston. Wallace's colloquialism works well, and his sense of character is spot-on, both in those more realistic characters, and even in the fabular ones. I'd like to go more into depth on the book, but its being so short (I read it in little over an hour- but I am a fast reader) makes me loath to spoil some of its charm. Suffice to say, I recommend this book being read by everyone, regardless of age. I just hope Wallace's two later works Ray in Reverse and The Watermelon King are as good when I eventually find them on sale. Also, check out the author's website http://www.danielwallace.org/.
When the literary history of the millennial era is written, years from now, there is likely to be a writer by the name of Wallace who is declaimed one of the greats of his day, and it won't be the flatulent, talentless hack known as David Foster. He'll likely share my very first name.
Rated by buyers -
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?
Rated by buyers 
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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!
Rated by buyers -
This book was a heinouse waste of time and paper. The pages have little more than juvenile sketches, notes of what could have been a decent story. There was so little here that was even close to imaginative. The structure of the book didn't reveal any kind of clever conceit or grain of wisdom as should myth / fable. The form could have worked if there had been any substance but I just don't find anything redeeming in the authors work.
After the very first few pages, I thought, well, maybe the author is going for a very minimalist idea. Maybe William Carlos William and fellow modernists highly influenced the authors choice and eventually we'll see how each word, image is loaded with meaning...nope...
I was surprised when Tim Burton attached himself to a filmed version. And for all the wonder that Burton has created on film...I thought, well, even the best falter now and then. He did not. I thought Burton did what the author should have. He fleshed out so much of what was skeletal in the book. Of course, Albert Finny and Billy Cruddup are always marvelous and bring a great deal to their work as well. Hail Burton for pouring soul into the drek that this book is and rendering something beautiful out of it.
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