Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch

Pairing narrator B.D. Wong and author Dai Sijie is wise matchmaking. (This is their second cooperative effort.) Wong channels Sijie's sense of na•veté, wonderment, and layered storytelling, without introducing a Western sense of irony. The result is a hypnotizing quixotic tale about Mr. Muo, a French-educated student of Freud, who returns to his native China to interpret dreams. In his quest to free his imprisoned lover, he loses his virginity, challenges a crooked judge, and is mistaken for an escaped madman. Wong paces the work, starting slowly and methodically building to a crescendo as our hero is set upon by acrobatic highway bandits and then saved by his knowledge of French. R.W.S. (c) AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine

Starred review from October 3, 2005
Wong's mellifluous, theatrical voice sets the stage for this novel of Muo, a French-trained psychoanalyst who returns to his native China in search of his lost love. Finding her imprisoned by Communist fiat, Muo discovers that the only way to free her is to bring a tyrannical local judge a virgin for his delectation. Sijie's comic-romantic quest becomes a travelogue of the new China, taking in a panoply of voices, a ceaselessly chattering orchestra playing the song of life in the proto-capitalist era. Wong chooses to perform the book as an extended series of monologues, bending and playing with each word like a separate, discretely wrapped treat. Some get whispered silkily, others intoned fitfully, others yet provided with a series of intricately nuanced voices. The book becomes an opportunity for Wong to luxuriate in the sound of Sijie's words and in his own voice. Wong makes his own performance the centerpiece of his reading, and his audacious willingness to place himself at the forefront is a gamble that pays off handsomely, providing a holistic unity that elevates this audiobook over the run of its peers. Simultaneous release with the Knopf hardcover.