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Fish Change Direction In Cold Weather (2013)

by Pierre Szalowski(Favorite Author)

3.5 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

085786162X (ISBN13: 9780857861627)

languge

English

genre

Humor

publisher

Canongate UK

review 1: This book was slow to start but by the middle I was really enjoying it. The premise is that people in a Montreal street are living their various lives, all burdened with some problem or another and a freak ice storm brings them all together. The bit where the failed policeman gets his neighbours to evacuate an old people's home and the bit where a psychoanalyst helps a layabout neighbour to see where his life has gone wrong are truly touching. However, it all gets way too saccharine sweet towards the end when everything turns out better than anyone could even have imagined and even the fish get in on the act by behaving differently in the cold. Don't get me wrong, I like a happy ending, but you can go too far...
review 2: A beautiful cover, a beguiling title (i... moren English: Fish Change Direction in Cold Weather). I was prepared to like this. At the start I wasn't sure of the style, but I soon settled to the pace and voice and warmed (almost a joke there!) to the multiple characters and their lives.Taking place one winter in Canada, a boy's parents tell him they are separating. Upset, he asks the sky to help him. That night, the worst ice storm that the city has seen begins to cause havoc and force people into helping each other, talking to each other, even facing up to their issues. There's the unnamed narrator and his parents, couch potato former policeman dad and frustrated mum. There's their neighbours. homophobic Alexis and his neglected son Alex. Closeted gay couple Michel and Simon. Stripper Julie and her unfulfilling one night stands. And Russian maths genius Boris and his eponymous, PhD-bound fish, for whom the ice storm and power cuts may mean a slow and cooling death.It's a lively cast of likeable people, with some wonderful scenes as they struggle to cope with ice and power cuts, and each other. The comparisons to fairy tales are justified, it has that whimsical and 'wish fulfilment' aspect. It's also very visual and would make a charming film. I enjoyed it immensely and stormed through it in a couple of sittings. It's light and short, and a lovely little escape. less

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