They're meant to show the human sides of the characters -- and, of course, Fred and Harriet begin to eye each other -- but there's not enough to make it very convincing. A writer who makes his characters give overdrawn answers in an investigation deems it necessary that an old, cold and cautious scientist should get divorced and he can’t have a relationship with someone who is 20 years younger than him. Torday may have thought that if the fishery scientist and Harriet were to have a relation, Harriet’s love for her soldier would lose its credibility but I still think he could have thought something richer in detail. Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt are the main cast. You should give it a go. Do I recommend Salmon Fishing in the Yemen?

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday | Waterstones

Graham Wright is a freelance writer and author. His first novel, Single Point Perspective, is set in and around the city of Manchester, where he lived and worked for more than fifteen years. His second, Moojara, is set in and around the world, but mostly centres on Perth, Western Australia. Both are works of dramatic literary fiction - imaginative, serious and thoughtful, but with a sense of humour. Al Qaeda isn't thrown in very convincingly, either, and it's hard to believe that a figure as ridiculous as Maxwell could last so long as a PM-aide. My Dad read a lot. But he read things you could learn stuff from (gardening, wildlife, natural history, woodworking, diy, history, military, politics, etc books) or biographies/autobiographies of sportsmen or military persons. So much so that when he passed away and my Mum came with us to his flat, she remarked that copy of The Bourne Identity was the first novel she had ever seen in his possession. And she had been married to the man for 15 years at one time. For director Lasse Hallström, Ewan McGregor and Emily Blunt were his "first choices" to play the leading roles. "They brought the lightness and the humour to the material," Hallström later observed. [12] He also felt fortunate to get Kristin Scott Thomas to play the role of the bossy press secretary, Patricia Maxwell, recalling, "I knew she could be funny, as most actors can, but she brought that seriousness combined with a bit of heart." [12] For Hallström, it was that combination of humour and seriousness that allowed the actress to capture the balance between the film's sentiment and political satire. [12] Egyptian actor Amr Waked was cast in the role of the sheikh. Waked has enjoyed major success and fame in his own country and throughout the Arabic-speaking world. English-speaking audiences may recognise him as the fundamentalist Muslim cleric in the 2005 film Syriana and the HBO series House Of Saddam. [13] Filming locations [ edit ]Billionaire Sheiks who dream up impossible projects is not at all an account of fiction. You just have to visit Dubai once to know that much of what has been achieved has been because of visionaries. And things such as his TV-show idea are just another of too many vaguely amusing but completely unnecessary asides.)

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Wikipedia Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Wikipedia

So putting a fish from the rain-area to the desert-area is not something conventional, and the idea of doing it hangs around at the edge of insanity. Dr. Alfred Jones lives a quiet, predictable life. He works as a civil servant for the National Centre for Fisheries Excellence in London; his wife, Mary, is a determined, no-nonsense financier; he has simple routines and unassuming ambitions. Then he meets Muhammad bin Zaidi bani Tihama, a Yemeni sheikh with money to spend and a fantastic—and ludicrous—dream of bringing the sport of salmon fishing to his home country.

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The project is variously embraced and disowned by the British government, with the PM's flunkey, director of communications Peter Maxwell, the main man involved. Seriously, this book is boooooooring. I can see what Torday was going for, and there was clearly a great deal of research that went into the writing of 'Salmon Fishing in the Yemen'. But unfortunately a well-researched subject matter and good literary intentions do not, a good novel, make. A) novel that captivates the grumpiest reader within moments. What begins as hare-brained becomes increasingly plausible, in all its details. Written by someone who has spent most of his life working in industry, it describes the maddening world of petty officialdom sent into riffs of lunacy by political will; if you imagine The Office crossed with Yes, Minister, you may get some inkling of how very funny it is. (...) (T)he intelligence, inventiveness and humanity of this novel in comparison to the usual run of literary fiction is as wild salmon to the farmed." - Amanda Craig, The Telegraph You have very low expectations. But, you are pleasantly surprised how the initial chapters are. You like the flow, the characters and narration. You are very interested now. You go on and then realize the book is better than your expectations. Even if not great, you enjoyed the time spent with it.

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday | Goodreads

His second novel, The Irresistible Inheritance of Wilberforce (titled Bordeaux in the United States), is about a man who drinks himself to death. [4]The other positive thing about this novel is its subtle interplay of the Middle East and England. We have British soldiers in war-torn Iraq on one side; we have Alfred and Harriet being watered and fed by an unknown Bedouin girl in Yemen, on the other. On the one hand, a land which flows seamlessly through time, its past and present merging: on the other, a country which has lost its spirit and replaced the abode of God with the supermarket. As the narrative progresses, we see a synthesis emerging (perhaps) before being rudely interrupted by an act of God. He is a caricature, though too many of even the absurdest exchanges don't sound that different from what has gone on at 10 Downing Street in recent years ..... When Torday gets too specific about the political situation of the day -- for example, when he posits an energy crisis leading to gas supplies in the UK "turned off for most of December and January" -- the book loses almost any link to reality -- but he also doesn't go all out, once down that road, and take it to all extremes. He has faith (in all senses of the word) and his calm and belief have a positive effect on Jones; despite the disruption the project causes to both his professional and domestic life, Jones clearly grows during this period. The Sheikh himself is an appealing philosophical sort of figure, with enough money to make the best of his crazy concept.