MR. MUO'S TRAVELING COUCH

Pairing narrator BD Wong and author Dai Sijie is wise matchmaking. (This is their second cooperative effort.) Wong channels Sijie’s sense of naïveté, 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. © AudioFile 2005, Portland, Maine [Published: DEC 05/ JAN 06]