Fish Lamb
... deeply poetic and human. As a novel, Cloudstreet is tightly structured, opening and ending with a shared celebratory family picnic - a joyous occasion which, ironically, is also the scene of Fish's long sought-after death by drowning. Through this act, Fish finally returns to 'himself' - to the child who hovered on the brink of drowning and who returned to life, though 'not all of Fish Lamb had come back' (p32). Fish's time on earth has seen the conjoining of the two families, culminating in the marriage of his brother Quick Lamb and Rose Pickles, and the birth of their son, Wax Harry. The guilt Quick has always felt for witnessing his brother's near-drowning is expunged in his final act of sacrifice: he must watch as Fish throws himself into the water, knowing that it has been his one desire for twenty years. The 400-page saga of the two families that makes up the novel is, in effect, a flashback that occurs in the instant before Fish's death. ...