Reviews

• look as a new book

• I found the story from cover to cover charming. Mr. Muo is delightfully naive - a true everyman hero.

• In addition to being inconclusive (ceasing rather than having an ending), I thought that Dai Sejie’s 2003 picaresque second novel, winner of the Prix Femina, was fairly funny in a black/absurdist comedy way. It is Mr. Muo rather than a couch that travels, though he sets himself up in psychoanalytical practice in Chengdu (where Dai was born), interpreting dreams in a woman’s market. The virgin Francophile (who is visiting from Paris, where, like Dai he moved) is a virgin in search of a female virgin—not for himself but for the gluttonous, mahjongg-bingeing, abd bloodthirsty Judge Di, who believes that deflowering a virgin will increase his life-force (chi) and who must be bribed to win the release of Muo’s beloved (former classmate), Volcano of the Old Moon (imprisoned for giving photos of police brutality to some reporter from the West), and his helpmeet, the Embalmer, who was married, but to a homosexual who leapt to his death from her sixth-floor window after the wedding. I doubt he understands much of Lacan, but that is perhaps part of the humor. Like Don Quixote, the bumbling and naïve Muo suffers various indignities, including being robbed and beaten and incarcerated in a mental hospital, and gets his hempmeet (who is not at all like Sancho Panza) in trouble, yet remains a sympathetic figure trying to spring Volcano of the Old Moon. The appeal of Dai's second novel is less general than the tighter and bleaker BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS, which was an international hit. It is more like the satires of Yu Hua (whose most recent book translated into English is THE SEVENTH DAY.

• After having read and enjoyed Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress, I was eager to gobble up another title from Sijie. Whereas I was immediately drawn into Balzac, I just couldn't find myself ever getting into the story of Mr. Muo. It just ambled along, with infrequent glimpses of the genius I saw in Balzac. This story never gets off the ground, and the ending was very much a disappointment. Skip this one, read Sijie's first novel instead.

• Dai Sijie's first book is a lovely lyrical entrance into the China of a fine story teller. This, his second novel for all its fine points was a disappointment. Mr Muo's, traveling Couch is a modern retelling of Don Quixote. In case you miss the point, you are twice told that Cervantes is the inspiration for the book. The Dulcinea sought by Mr. Muo is a long time sweetheart (Her name:Volcano of the Old Moon and we think Moon Unit Zappa is strange) unjustly imprisoned by the evil but bribable Judge Di. And yes you are reminded that the name Judge Di was also the name of a famous good Chinese Judge from a much earlier time, made famous by the occidental sinologist, Robert Von Goulik. We first meet Mr. Muo as he is already on his quest. We will learn his story in an out of sequence narration. Initially he seems a helpless victim with a foot fetish and a thing for virgins. He is or may have been a successful scholar of Freudian psychology, having studied in France. Over time he will display inconsistent levels of nobility, competence and some skill at interpreting dreams. We are told he is employing his psychological training in his interpretations, but they all usually like fortune telling than applied psychology. The political satire is somewhat broad as are the various serio-comic misadventures. The humor arises not so much from the comedic value of individual events, but the absurdity of their cumulative happenstances. Mr. Muo is regularly the victim circumstances, robbery, assaults, or thefts or of his own indecision or inconsonant noble impulses. I am not a big fan of Don Quixote. At best I think he is a prototype for modern terrorism - A false noble quest that ignores damages done to innocent by standers. At worst it is a series of elaborate set ups for one or more people to get beaten. Mr. Muo's Traveling Couch is much better in that the quest is nobly inspired and includes some noble moments. There are relatively fewer beatings and eventually the mostly sad events become too ridiculous to be depressing. Dai Sijie is a better story teller than is evident in this novel. He again displays great skill in evoking the mood and even the aromas of place, but I never felt transported into this almost real, almost behind the looking glass world. About the time I became sympathetic towards Mr Muo he would resort to being a hapless victim or worse. Ultimately I liked Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch, but only barely and not as much as his first book.

Purchase links