Daniel Wallace has rather speedily become one of my favourite authors. I was completely unaware of Big Fish, until I read the film was based on the book by Daniel Wallace.
I jumped up and down in joy as the film was directed by an equally imaginative Tim Burton adapting a book by a man with a gloriously wonderful mind for story telling. The combination has made me a little jumpy, as I don’t know how a man with Burton’s vision would be able to adapt a book by such a creative author. Having not seen the film yet, and if it is any good, it will bode well for the Gilliam adaptation of Pratchett/Gaiman’s Good Omens.
Big Fish is a strange tale, much like Wallace’s other work. What you get is not always what you see. What you expect is not always what you expect, nor is it ever as straightforward as you expect. But one thing his books are, is simple. You will get it, there are no two ways about it. Everything in the book is understandable, with no complicated metaphors or complex diversions. There is nothing in the book that cannot be understood, it may come across as unbelievable, there’s no question of that, but it is definitely not complex.
The book is layered in some respects I guess, and the tale itself could be considered a metaphor or it can be taken as a straight forward fairy tale, or a serious book with imagination. I think that’s the beauty of Wallace’s writing, in that different readers will gain a different perspective on what the book is saying, what the message is. It’s very creative.
For some the ending would be paramount to a kick in the teeth, to others a great fairy tale ending
Edward Bloom is a dying man. He has come to the end of a life that no longer wants him, and yet he has touched the lives of many. Not only did he grow up under poor circumstances, with a negligent father, but he has traveled the world, inspired lives, changed lives, and yet failed to be something that he could so easily have been: a father himself.
As Bloom lies on his bed, in a dying state, his son, William, attempts to reconcile past differences, the disappearance of his father for long periods of times, away from him, his only son and Edwards own wife, William’s mother. On the other hand, he has been as a good a father as he possibly could under the circumstances. At this moment, as he dies, his son just wants to be treated like a son, not an audience for one of his father’s jokes nor his stories.
The story of Big Fish is told in retrospect by William, as he tries to make sense of all the adventures his father has gone on. All the tales he has told him, the jokes that he has repeated, and the wonders that his father impressed upon him as a child. As he retells the life of his father, we begin to understand the changes that Edward made to people’s lives, but to a bigger extent, his own life.
It reads very much like a fairy tale, and wonderfully. There are mermaids, wild, crazy dogs, a psychotic bunch of school kids, an end of a town with a lot of limbless people who never seem to leave. It’s adult fairy tale stuff, that the Brothers Grimm would perhaps be proud of (incidentally another film Gilliam is making). In many ways I guess you could say the stories told in Big Fish are less dark than those written by the Grimm’s. There are no violent deaths as such, people die, but not chaotically. There is sadness and misery, but it is a human sadness, not one of imposed fear.
As he retells the life of his father, we begin to understand the changes that Edward made to people’s lives
I really wasn’t quite sure what to make of the book initially. I knew what to expect in some respects, but then on the other hand it was quite different. I think I enjoyed the human elements just as much as I did the fantastical pieces. They are both merged and intersect very well, not really leaving you time to realise the transition between reality and fantasy and vice versa. Of course these are tales told by William as told to him by his father, so the fantastical side is perhaps without credit, but equally impressive.
What you realise is that for all the amazing things that Edward Bloom achieves in the book, he is nought but a normal man. What he achieves, he achieves through hard work and determination. There is nothing that he does, which he could not do without fantastical assistance, or luck. It’s a story of one man’s determination to succeed as the world around him sits on its laurels and decides to do nothing. Instead of stopping at the point of success, even in frailty and in sickness, Edward Bloom continues to touch the lives of those people that have little in their hearts or their own lives. And yet he leaves a son and wife wanton of a father and husband.
It is through his stories, his experiences, and the people that he has helped that his wife, and in particular, his son realise that the difference he has made to other people’s lives is insurmountable. Even as he dies, and makes jokes about his death, as those around him care for him and look after him during his dying moment, he continues to look at life not through the misery that others might see, but as a world with hopes and dreams that need to be achieved.
The ending was partly expected, I guess, as the clues are thrown throughout the book, and you soon enough realise what will happen in the end, particularly if you have read Wallace’s other books, you expect a twist or two. For some the ending would be paramount to a kick in the teeth, to others a great fairy tale ending, and again to others perhaps a strange end to a book full of sadness and hope in equal measure.
What sort of book Big Fish is depends on how you perceive it to be. For me, it’s one of the best, most imaginative adult fairy tales I have read in a long time. Equally it is one of the saddest tales of distraught relationship between a father and a son, and also a wonderful tale of one man’s journey to give his all to the world, even when the world rejected him.
Verdict: Like a wonderful, lucid dream – a magnificently epic adventure.