Madeleine Is Sleeping

Rating:
Summary: Fabulism: poetic, fragile and fearless
Review:

Sighing, rustling, the sounds of sleep; a torrent of sensations surround the reader from the start in this stunning fiction, a remarkable debut, assaulting with images of Reubanesque shapes, the sweet, slightly rancid taste of butter, "dirty children with fat melting in their fists." It is poetry, barely disguised, metaphor unbridled.

It is impossible to describe such a novel, draped with concupiscent women and gaunt saints, unabashedly erotic, cautionary and fearless, a celebration of inventiveness. All is larger than life, most especially flesh-draped bodies, but also the tragi-comedic range of emotions, of extremes. Myriad images and sensory impressions thread one to another, weaving fragments of thought into whole cloth.

Imagination, morality, Eros and ambiguity lie side by side, contentedly coexisting. The uniquely talented Sarah Shun-Lien Bynam has given an hour or two the transcendence of immortality. Madeline Is Sleeping is a highly personal journey, one that can only be appreciated through the experience. If my words do not make sense, it is because they are mine; like a dream, each person must recognize his own reflection. Luan Gaines/2004.

Rating:
Summary: flawed but pulls you along, sometimes tries too hard, weak 4
Review: Madeleine is Sleeping is one of those strange novels that you can't quite pin down. The language is poetic in many places, yet sometimes strives too hard to be so and therefore is both a plus and minus. The plot doesn't really do much as plots normally do, yet it's just interesting enough in just enough places that it pulls you along in fits and starts and so is in various places a plus and in others a minus. The characters don't ever really grab you as fully fleshed characters, never really evoke much empathy, yet they're just off the wall enough and just poignant enough in spots that you feel you'd kind of miss them if they just disappeared. The meanings within meanings are sometimes thought-provoking or simply fun while at other times they are startlingly and awkwardly obvious. The structure, a lot of little vignettes surrounded by a lot of white space works for the purposes of the novel, but at the same time feels a bit too gimmicky. And the whole thing strikes you at times as wonderfully original and playful, and at other times like a grad student trying too hard and too obviously to be wonderfully original and playful.
In the end, I'd say Madeleine is Sleeping is worth a read (perhaps partially because it's such a slim book with so much white space that one doesn't invest much actual time in reading it) since its pleasures generally do outweigh its negatives. But be prepared to veer between highs and lows every few pages. There's never really a long lag, but then there's never really a long stretch where you don't wince once or twice either. Recommended, but not enthusiastically.

Rating:
Summary: Angela Carter meets Choose Your Own Adventure
Review: This book is irresistable. The prose poem-like chapters thread through a carnival of characters and settings, leading you from one strange and beautiful world to another. The language is stunning; the story is part fairy tale, part historical fiction, part surreal tableau.

As a book seller, I see hundreds of new novels every year, many of which are well-written, innovative, and lovely, but this is one of those rare gems--a story so perfect in its peculiarity, so delightful in its turns--that you feel you have been given a gift of something you didn't even know you wanted until it was there in your hands.

Rating:
Summary: A good dream
Review: This book slips off its clothes at a very seductive, rhythmic pace. I was engaged in its turns of phrase and of plot. Very like a dream, and in an innocent, artful way that actually pulls you in deeper and deeper. I read it too fast, though--- it is a page turner as well. I highly recommend this book.