Mr. Muo's Travelling Couch by Dai Sijie (Knopf)

Chinese-French writer, Dai Sijie, author of the highly acclaimed book Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress is back with another morsel of literary delight - Mr. Muo’s Travelling Couch. It is his second novel which was originally published in French in 2003 with the title Le complexe de Di. 

It is the story of Mr. Muo, a psychoanalyst who had studied Freud in Paris for a number of years. He has returned to China to ply his trade as an interpreter of dreams. However, Mr. Muo has an ulterior motive for going back to his homeland. He wants to save his unrequited love whom he calls Volcano of the Old Moon, from his university days who is currently being held as a political prisoner. 

It was a few months prior that Mr. Muo pleaded his case for his university crush to a man known as Judge Di. His argument “rested mainly on ten thousand dollars in cash”. The judge, whose full name is Di Jiangui, was known to be a former member of an elite firing squad during Chairman Mao’s China during the Cultural Revolution. Judge Di had “been the first to establish a fee of one-thousand dollars for his pardon of a criminal offence”. 

Unfortunately for Mr. Muo, keeping in step with the rising cost of living, Judge Di had increased his fee tenfold by the time his university crush was arrested. As luck would have it, the lawyer appointed to Volcano of the Moon’s case informed Mr. Muo of an alternative. He tells Mr. Muo,  Judge Di has a weakness for young virgins. If he can find a suitable candidate, he might be able to free his love. 

Mr. Muo convinces his neighbor, a forty-year old embalmer, to help him in his quest to save the love of his life. The embalmer is a widow whose husband jumped out of the window to his death on the same day as their wedding before consummating the marriage. It turns out he was a closet homosexual. The embalmer agrees and a date is set but things go awry.

Judge Di has one other passion besides virgins. He is fond of playing the game mahjong and will often go without eating or sleeping for twenty-four hours. At a recent mahjong game, he had been playing for three days straight, again without eating or sleeping, which caused him to keel over. The Embalmer was given the task of conducting his autopsy. 

The autopsy is a disaster as Judge Di was prematurely declared dead. He woke up believing that the woman in front of him is his virgin to deflower. The Embalmer screams and is later arrested. Mr. Muo believes the authorities will come for him and charge him with being an accomplice to commit murder. And yet, now that Mr. Muo realizes Judge Di is still alive, he feels he might once again be able to help Volcano of the Old Moon. 

And thus begins Mr. Muo’s real journey. His search for a virgin will lead him to a wildlife preserve which is home to one wandering panda. He will visit an insane asylum in the countryside. He will manage to set up shop in the Domestic Workers Market, a place Mr. Muo “never imagined such a dreamscape existed - a realm of only girls”.  In his quest, he will also face a hostile tribe of men called the Lolo. 

Dai Sijie’s Mr. Muo can be aggravating at times. He is a brilliant intellectual but is lacking in social skills, especially when it comes to women. We learn that he is also a forty-year old virgin who can discuss sex but has never had sex himself.

Will Mr. Muo be successful in his search? Will he be able to free his university sweetheart? Will communist China welcome the Western study of psychoanalysis? The only way to find out is to follow Mr. Muo in his extraordinary adventure. ~Ernie Hoyt