Big Fish

When I heard the name of this book, I thought it talked about the animal, a big fish. However, the teacher told us the novel is about a person who exaggerates his story to tell everyone. At the beginning, I couldn’t understand why he exaggerates the story, and I thought he was a person who tells a lie. After I read this novel, I understand this father and I think he is a great man. He makes me know life can consist of the many fairy tales and wonderful life needs to be created by myself.

Edward knows a lot of people in his life: a beautiful wife, a common job. These things can’t make him be a legend. However, he can make those normal experiences to be the fantastic and wonderful stories. For example, when his son was born, he caught a big fish. When he was a child, he met the witch and saw the way of his death in the future. When he was young, he met a giant of three meter height and they left his hometown together. At the circus, he worked for three years in order to get anything about his beloved girl. And then he pursued the girl, and so on. There are a lot of stories and each of them is very interesting.

Nevertheless, Edward makes his son confused because of the fantastic stories. The son can’t believe the stories, and wants to know who his father is. At last, the son can understand the father and he seems to know how his father dies when he takes care of his father who is a very sick man in the hospital. The son tells the story to his father, and he told the son to take him to the river. When they came to the river, they saw every person that the father has met in his life. The son put his father into the river and his father became a big fish and swam far away them.

Every person has a different realization for their life. Some people like to live in the real world, but some people like to live with fantasy. I think the factor of the differences between the romanticism and the realism is not the main reason to make people have different ideals. The attitude to life is the main reason, leading people to live in the different style. I admire the novelist, movie director, drawer, and poet and so on. In my opinion, their life is full of different kinds of fantastic stories and their life is rich and colorful. We are likely to have a long distance to relate with them. We usually think that our life is boring and admire the artist’s wonderful life. In fact, the artist’s life is the same as ours, such as eating, sleeping and talking. The only difference is that they are able to make their life to be the fantasy by themselves. They, like Edward, love life and take a positive attitude to face everything. “Big Fish” encourages me to live happily. When I really love life, I will have a wonderful life despite whether it exists or not.

Dan Dong