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A review by saltycorpse
Salt Fish Girl by Larissa Lai
3.0
I felt attached to this book from the beginning because it is based in and around where I was born and still live, and because it reaches through folklore, history and future imaginings to tell a complex story.
Yet I felt that the novel seemed rushed and scattered, and like certain pieces of the dystopian/apocalyptic future were dangled in front of me without any real, in-depth explanation. In part this allows the imagination to assist in the creation of the world, but it also raises a lot of questions and the gaps left by lack of probing and exploring the environment of the future world were felt quite deeply.
But in a sense the book itself is about not entirely-formed worlds and the role our imaginations play in filling in the blanks and giving mythologies renewed life.
Thematically, the story is a strong narrative about feminism and race, the novel strikes a balance is not too overt or heavy-handed. The messages are very firmly in place and familiar and obvious metaphor and imagery are employed, but the narrative is very clever in that it is a perfect vehicle for familiarity - Larissa Lai makes the well-worn strange and new again.
Salt Fish Girl is very much worth reading, and I found it to be an engrossing and very enjoyable novel. I particularly loved, for all that was left out or unexplained, the imagining of a future British Columbia coastal landscape. If only Lai had allowed more of that world to be open for exploration.
Yet I felt that the novel seemed rushed and scattered, and like certain pieces of the dystopian/apocalyptic future were dangled in front of me without any real, in-depth explanation. In part this allows the imagination to assist in the creation of the world, but it also raises a lot of questions and the gaps left by lack of probing and exploring the environment of the future world were felt quite deeply.
But in a sense the book itself is about not entirely-formed worlds and the role our imaginations play in filling in the blanks and giving mythologies renewed life.
Thematically, the story is a strong narrative about feminism and race, the novel strikes a balance is not too overt or heavy-handed. The messages are very firmly in place and familiar and obvious metaphor and imagery are employed, but the narrative is very clever in that it is a perfect vehicle for familiarity - Larissa Lai makes the well-worn strange and new again.
Salt Fish Girl is very much worth reading, and I found it to be an engrossing and very enjoyable novel. I particularly loved, for all that was left out or unexplained, the imagining of a future British Columbia coastal landscape. If only Lai had allowed more of that world to be open for exploration.