by Paul Torday, 2007
Entertaining and educational novel about a Sheikh from the Yemen who loves fly fishing for salmon and decides to try and introduce salmon fishing in the Yemen. Money is no object. He hires a British fisheries scientist, Dr. Alfred Jones, who is at first completely against the idea. (Of course!) Harriet, a property-management agent who works for the Sheikh, meets with Dr. Jones and he begins to believe that this crazy idea might possibly work, and if it doesn’t, at least they’d learn a lot along the way. He agrees to try and we get to come along for the ride. Along the way, we travel to Scotland and fly fish for salmon at the Sheikh’s estate in Scotland. Then, we travel to the Sheikh’s estate in the highlands of the Yemen. Beautiful places, delicious food, and a fascinating project–will it work? The Sheikh is kind, calm, peaceful, devout. There are side stories: Dr. Jones’s marriage to unkind, unloving, and cold Mary; Harriet’s fiance, a British Marine serving in Iraq; Al Qaeda attempting to assassinate the Sheikh; and the politics of Britain through the British Prime Minister (Jay Vent) and his press secretary (Peter Maxwell).
Loved the characters of Dr. Jones, Harriet, and the Sheikh. There is a movie made of this book. I would like to see the beautiful settings described in this book.
The book ends with the British Prime Minister and his press secretary, Peter Maxwell, and a bunch of journalists flying to the Yemen for the salmon release and a photo op. The salmon are released and it starts to rain and the Sheikh and the Prime Minister are in the Wadi fishing for the salmon. Everything is working beautifully – the salmon are turning upstream – a miracle. But then, disaster strikes: a wall of water full of debris rushes down the mountains and sweeps away the Sheikh, the Prime Minister, and Colin McPherson, the Sheikh’s “gillie”(a Scottish fly fishing guide). Right before the water hits them, Colin is trying to save the Sheikh and a shot rings out which we’re not really sure about; probably an assassin. But it matters not because the Sheikh, the Prime Minister, and the gillie are lost and their bodies are never recovered.
Dr. Jones goes into seclusion in the north country of Scotland working with salmon eggs for the remainder of his days. Harriet moves to the south of France to try and heal her broken heart (her fiance is killed in a covert operation).
Here are some of the good lines from this book:
One other thing he said, as we drank small cups of cardamom-flavoured coffee in the library after dinner: “If this project succeeds, then it will be God who has succeeded and God who should be thanked. If it fails, then you, Dr Alfred, can say that a poor, foolish, deluded man insisted that you try to achieve the impossible. And no doubt some good will come from the work you do, whatever happens. Some new thing will be known that was not known before, and you will be rightly praised for it and all else will be forgotten. And if it fails, the fault will be mine, because my heart was not pure enough, my vision not clear enough, my strength not great enough. But all things can be done if God wills it so.”
He put his cup of coffee down and smiled at us, preparing to bid us goodnight. Something made me say, “But nothing bad will happen, Your Excellency, if this project does not work.”
“I have spoken to many scholars and imams about my dream of salmon fishing. I have told them how I believe this magical creature brings us all nearer to God–by the mystery of its life, by the long journey that it makes through the oceans until it finds the waters of its home streams, which is so like our own journey towards God. And they have told me that a Muslim may fish as well as a Jew or a Christian, without any offence to God. But that is not what the jihadis will say. They will say I am bringing the ways of the crusader to the land of Islam. If I fail, then at best they will ridicule me. If they think I might succeed, then they will certainly try to kill me.”
from pages 57 and 58
…What lies ahead, I do not know. What had the sheikh said? I could feel sleep coming upon me fast, and the words that came into my mind, my last waking thought, were his but also seemed to come from somewhere else: “Faith comes before hope, and before love.”
from pages 145 and 146
“I want to present God with the opportunity to perform a miracle, a miracle that he will perform if he so wills it. Not you, not Dr Alfred, not all the clever engineers and scientists we have employed. You and they have prepared the way, but whatever happens will be God’s will. You will have been present at the delivery of the miracle and you will have been of great assistance to me, but the miracle is God’s alone. When anyone sees a salmon swimming up the waters of the Wadi Aleyn, will they any longer be able to doubt the existence of God? That will be my testament, the shining fish running in the storm waters of a desert land.”
from page 196
In this country faith is absolute and universal. The choice, if there is a choice, is made at birth. Everyone believes. For these people, God is a near neighbor.
from page 213
Then he talks about how he and Mary never go to church, they don’t know anyone who goes to church.
…I cannot easily remember the words of the Lord’s Prayer.
We have moved on from religion.
Instead of going to church, which would never occur to us, Mary and I go to Tesco together on Sundays. At least, that is what we did when she still lived in London. We never have time to shop during the week and Saturdays are too busy.
…Now, I am in a different country, with a different woman by my side But I feel as if I am in more than just a different country; I am in another world, a world where faith and prayer are instinctive and universal, where not to pray, not to be able to pray, is an affliction worse than blindness, where disconnection from God is worse than losing a limb.
from page 214
Wayne liked this passage which explains why the Islamic people despise us so:
“This house was first built in the year 942 according to your calendar, and in the year 320 according to ours, and my family have lived here ever since, here and in Sana’a. It always interests me when European people come here, that they have no idea how old our civilisation is. Do you not think we have learned how to live and conduct our lives according to God, in that time? That is why some of our people hate the West so much. They wonder what the West has to offer that is so compelling that it must be imposed upon us, replacing our religion of God with the religion of money, replacing our piety and our poverty with consumer goods that we do not need, forcing money upon us that we cannot spend or if we do, cannot repay, loosening the ties that hold together families and tribes, corroding our faith, corroding our morality.”
from pages 228 and 229
The Sheikh telling how he came to love salmon fishing:
So the next day, when we were not shooting, I went with a man to a river not far away, and he showed me where the salmon lay in the water, and he taught me a little bit how to cast, and then I fished. I did not catch anything that day, but by the end of the day, when I was tired and wet and cold, I knew that there was no other sport for me anymore. This was what I wanted to do, with every spare minute that God granted me.”
from page 279