Rating: 
Summary: Marvelous, original, great first novel
Review: Karen Joy Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary, is a marvel, an amazing, original novel about aliens, of all sorts, in the 1870's American West. It is extraordinarily assured, the best first novel I've read in a long time - indeed, in my opinion, at least arguably the best SF first novel of the nineties.It concerns a mysterious woman (?), who cannot speak any recognizable language, who appears in the Pacific Northwest late in the 19th Century. A young Chinese man, Chin Ah-Kin, must try to escort her home, wherever that is. In their travels, they encounter a variety of alienated people: an Indian, a suffragette, etc. The story is thoroughly involving, very moving, beautifully written.
Rating:
Summary: Marvelous, original, great first novel
Review: Karen Joy Fowler's first novel, Sarah Canary, is a marvel, an amazing, original novel about aliens, of all sorts, in the 1870's American West. It is extraordinarily assured, the best first novel I've read in a long time - indeed, in my opinion, at least arguably the best SF first novel of the nineties. It concerns a mysterious woman (?), who cannot speak any recognizable language, who appears in the Pacific Northwest late in the 19th Century. A young Chinese man, Chin Ah-Kin, must try to escort her home, wherever that is. In their travels, they encounter a variety of alienated people: an Indian, a suffragette, etc. The story is thoroughly involving, very moving, beautifully written.
Rating: 
Summary: Pooh-Yuck!
Review: NO,No,No, you don't want to read this. I kept waiting for something, anything to make sense. Alot of rambling on and on about oddball historical events in the past that had nothing to do with the actual story except the fact that the story was oddball enough. And who was this Sarah Canary? We never find out! We never really find out why she is mad, where she came from, where she was going. We only catch her in the middle of her journey where she runs across several other oddball characters that are not endearing or interesting. All in all Pooh-Yuck, a waste of money and time!
Rating:
Summary: If You Don't Know Fowler...RUN to This Book!
Review: Out of nowhere, a white woman wanders into a Chinese railway workers' camp. The time is Winter, 1873. The place is the Washington Territory. The woman says nothing. (Nothing discernable, anyway.) No one can explain who the woman is, where she is from, or how she got there. This is the situation Karen Joy Fowler presents to the reader in this astounding, wonderful book. `Sarah Canary' meets many different people on her strange journey and she affects the lives of everyone she meets. Four people in particular fall under her strange spell: Chin - a Chinese railway worker who seeks to take her back where she belongs; B.J. - an escaped mental patient; Harold - a huckster who wants to put Sarah in his traveling freak show; and Adelaide Dixon, a woman suffragist. `Sarah Canary' is all about perceptions. Each of these four characters see Sarah as something slightly different. Their perceptions also cause their lives to each change in different and fascinating ways. When I finished `Sarah Canary,' I realized that Fowler had taught me a lot about the times I live in now. Perceptions are the focus of the book, but Fowler also touches on the cultural differences of different types of people, prejudices, superstitions, and much more. After reading the book, I realized that I had come away with a better (but maybe not a more positive) picture of human nature. From what I know about the history of the book, Fowler had a difficult time finding a publisher, not due to the book's quality, but rather the book's genre. It has none. It has been labeled historical fiction, Western, science fiction, comedy, mystery. It is all of these and none of these. `Sarah Canary' is impossible to pigeonhole. Maybe that's why I lot of people I talk to haven't read it. They're missing a gold mine. I hope you don't miss out. Read it and see why Fowler is one of the most gifted talents writing today. 381 pages
Rating:
Summary: If You Don't Know Fowler...RUN to This Book!
Review: Out of nowhere, a white woman wanders into a Chinese railway workers' camp. The time is Winter, 1873. The place is the Washington Territory. The woman says nothing. (Nothing discernable, anyway.) No one can explain who the woman is, where she is from, or how she got there. This is the situation Karen Joy Fowler presents to the reader in this astounding, wonderful book. 'Sarah Canary' meets many different people on her strange journey and she affects the lives of everyone she meets. Four people in particular fall under her strange spell: Chin - a Chinese railway worker who seeks to take her back where she belongs; B.J. - an escaped mental patient; Harold - a huckster who wants to put Sarah in his traveling freak show; and Adelaide Dixon, a woman suffragist. 'Sarah Canary' is all about perceptions. Each of these four characters see Sarah as something slightly different. Their perceptions also cause their lives to each change in different and fascinating ways. When I finished 'Sarah Canary,' I realized that Fowler had taught me a lot about the times I live in now. Perceptions are the focus of the book, but Fowler also touches on the cultural differences of different types of people, prejudices, superstitions, and much more. After reading the book, I realized that I had come away with a better (but maybe not a more positive) picture of human nature. From what I know about the history of the book, Fowler had a difficult time finding a publisher, not due to the book's quality, but rather the book's genre. It has none. It has been labeled historical fiction, Western, science fiction, comedy, mystery. It is all of these and none of these. 'Sarah Canary' is impossible to pigeonhole. Maybe that's why I lot of people I talk to haven't read it. They're missing a gold mine. I hope you don't miss out. Read it and see why Fowler is one of the most gifted talents writing today. 381 pages
Rating:
Summary: Dreary
Review: Reading this book was an odd experience. The historical setting was convincing, the characters strange and alive, the commentary disturbing. Sarah Canary herself is an enigma; we never discover who she is or why she's here, but those who meet her are held captive by her spell. The novel bogs down in the middle, but the end is heartbreaking and inevitable.
Rating: 
Summary: Smart, Unclassifiable Ride
Review: Reading this book was an odd experience. The historical setting was convincing, the characters strange and alive, the commentary disturbing. Sarah Canary herself is an enigma; we never discover who she is or why she's here, but those who meet her are held captive by her spell. The novel bogs down in the middle, but the end is heartbreaking and inevitable.
Rating:
Summary: I came to her first book last --
Review: Sarah Canary gave me a great sense of the personal emancipation offered by changes in culture and thought in 1873, an interesting time to live, to mangle an ancient Chinese curse. It's a great philosopher-as-hero story, too. Dealt with prejudice but without being preachy. I liked how the realism descended gracvefully into surrealism with B.J.'s separation from the asylum. To me, the asylum represented the pros and cons of conventional 1873 society. I thought Sarah was a red herring of a character, and hoped for a declaration of the who what where why and how of her existence. I feel that this declaration would have made for a braver work. I get that she's a metaphor, more of a question than a statement, the question "What is a woman?" embodied as a character. I get that if you wanna show how different people view the same thing, the thing needs to remain the same, so Sarah has to remain more abject than subject. Otherwise, very imaginative and intimate, philosophical in a recreational way. I liked how it entertains the reader by showing the characters' explorations of the meaning and reliability of what they experience and think. The little news breaks between the chapters asserted that 1873 was one of those times when everything is or seems as surreal as the fiction contained in the chapters. Makes the surreality easier to swallow. Nice device. Easily abused. Fowler didn't. This is one of those great novels that took me to a new, entertaining and enriching place because it's a real category-killer. Fantasy? historical fiction, magic reality, retro 19th century Wild West novella parody, it's all, some and none of these. I love telling people to read a book that I have difficulty describing. Sarah Canary is definitely one of those.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful category-killer of a novel.
Review: Sarah Canary gave me a great sense of the personal emancipation offered by changes in culture and thought in 1873, an interesting time to live, to mangle an ancient Chinese curse. It's a great philosopher-as-hero story, too. Dealt with prejudice but without being preachy. I liked how the realism descended gracvefully into surrealism with B.J.'s separation from the asylum. To me, the asylum represented the pros and cons of conventional 1873 society. I thought Sarah was a red herring of a character, and hoped for a declaration of the who what where why and how of her existence. I feel that this declaration would have made for a braver work. I get that she's a metaphor, more of a question than a statement, the question "What is a woman?" embodied as a character. I get that if you wanna show how different people view the same thing, the thing needs to remain the same, so Sarah has to remain more abject than subject. Otherwise, very imaginative and intimate, philosophical in a recreational way. I liked how it entertains the reader by showing the characters' explorations of the meaning and reliability of what they experience and think. The little news breaks between the chapters asserted that 1873 was one of those times when everything is or seems as surreal as the fiction contained in the chapters. Makes the surreality easier to swallow. Nice device. Easily abused. Fowler didn't. This is one of those great novels that took me to a new, entertaining and enriching place because it's a real category-killer. Fantasy? historical fiction, magic reality, retro 19th century Wild West novella parody, it's all, some and none of these. I love telling people to read a book that I have difficulty describing. Sarah Canary is definitely one of those.
Rating:
Summary: Work of genius!
Review: Sarah Canary is the most dazzling first contact book I have ever read (and one of the few science fiction books that the non-sf readers I've given it to have not only read but loved!) Witty, compassionate, enthralling - a book that makes you think and enjoy doing it! Set in the USA in the late 1800s a mysterious woman appear out of nowhere. Is she a ghost, a madwoman, an alien? Read it and find out (maybe). Fowler is one of the best American writers of the late twentieth century even her shopping lists are a work of art.
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