Now this book will rattle any feminist. Told from a historical standpoint of about 1873 it is full of antecedents about the treatment and psychological and physical characteristics of women. I have a feeling a lot of it is meant as black satire however it leaves an unsettling feeling in the pit of your stomach remembering how far women have come. Having finished it now, definitely satire, and if taken in a different light quite funny too. I really enjoyed her opening couple of pages to each chap...

What a strange story! Who or what was Sarah Canary? Was she a woman, a phantom, a ghost? Was she real or unreal or supernatural? Was this a myth, a fairy tale, or a dream? Who were these people that Sarah Canary brought into contact in 1873 or thereabouts? Chin, Tom, BJ, and Adelaide and others were all interesting characters, but this was more Chin's story. But all were fascinating characters. There are 19 chapters, each beginning with a poem by Emily Dickenson, and eleven interludes. The inter...

Exhaustive research and exquisite writing, but this one just didn't add up to an enjoyable story for me. It is viscerally uncomfortable, with its depiction of madness, race and gender in the post-Civil War West.

A beautifully written, philosophical work set in late nineteenth century America that explores issues of racism, sexism, mental illness and exploitation of the time.Sarah Canary, so named by one of the central characters of the story, appears out of nowhere to blaze a path through Northwest America and the lives of the people she encounters despite not being able to understand anyone, nor speak intelligibly herself. Her origin remains a mystery throughout and it never becomes clear why she seems...

Got to page 68. But I don't know how. Sure, the writing style is impressive, and the setting, with all the historical details, is intriguing. But the yuck factor is above my comfort level, and trying to read it as Satire only makes me feel more disturbed. And then I learn from other reviews that we never do learn more about the title character? Um, no, totally not for me.(And, no, I don't agree with the Wizard of Oz comparison, even if we improve the accuracy as: Chin is the Questing, Homesick D...

Well, Scotti, thanks for bringing me back to the familiar after that unconventional little interlude in another world. I'm not sure I can sufficiently capture this unusual read, but here goes.An odd woman (ghost? supernatural being? demented escapee from an insane asylum? refugee from an animal pack who raised her from birth?) mysteriously appears from nowhere, and begins attracting followers/protectors/obsessers like a string of planets trapped in her orbit. Who is she? What is she? Where does

DNF'ing at page 100. I gave this a good try, but it just would not click with me. It felt meandering and rather glib about awful stuff, and what was the point?

Throughout this novel, I--like several of the characters--wondered why everyone kept chasing after the mysterious Sarah Canary, when she seemed to bring nothing but trouble and gave nothing in return. Indeed, toward the end I also found myself wondering why I kept reading the book. I did develop an extreme fondness for Chin, the Chinaman who first sets off with Sarah Canary and finds more adventure than he bargained for. Also, I did enjoy the introductory section to each chapter, where Fowler su...

Mystified. I'm completely mystified. Clearly I missed something. Why is this listed as SF? And why was it a Tiptree nominee? What did I miss?A woman wanders into Chin's camp. His uncle decides that Chin should take her to a nearby asylum; both men fear that she might be an enchantress or an immortal. Along the way, the woman later called Sarah Canary (she doesn't speak except in nonsense sounds) repeatedly slips in and out of Chin's life as he desperately tries to care for her without understand...

When I first read this book I hated it, but after thinking about it for awhile I think its one of my favorite books. It's very odd and has an almost 19 hundreds circus feel too it. I would highly suggest reading it.I read this for my AP english class and everyone in my class picked out the obvious topics in the book like race and gender in the 1800s but I skipped past all the and saw the real mystery. There was such a strange feeling that came with reading the book and I think that's why I hated...

2,5/5 This book was not what I expected, it is a story about feminism, post war America, Indians and Chinese working in railroads, mental illness... I still love her writing very much but I must say that I was bored during the second half of the book...

First, I didn't know Karen Joy Fowler had written so many books.Second, this one is as different from the only other one I've read by her, We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves as it's possible to be - leading me to think her repertoire is appealingly eclectic.Third, it's fantastic, especially if you like:1) quirkiness, lots of humour2) picaresque (sort of; it's episodic and adventuresome at least)3) historical fiction, with4) a post-modern twist (many twists)5) summarizing interjections of re...

A vividly imagined and charming retelling of the Wizard of Oz, with a liberal pinch of sci-fi thrown in the mix. Fowler reimagines Dorothy, Tin Man, Cowardly Lion, and Straw Man as Old West characters that romp their way through the Pacific Coast, San Fransico's Chinatown and numerous frontier towns. Along the way they butt up against an appropriate Wicked Witch of the West character,but continue on in pursuit of their individual and mutual dreams (just like the film). One suggestion: don't read...

The Jane Austen Book Club somewhat misrepresents Karen Joy Fowler's prowess as a storyteller. Sarah Canary is her first novel, and it's riveting, mystical, gorgeous...a mysterious mute woman wanders into a 19th century Washington railworkers camp and gets misplaced when the Chinese laborer who finds her attempts to escort her to an insane asylum. I have no idea what else to say about it except that you should read it immediately!

WHY I READ THIS BOOKFowler is best known as the author of "The Jane Austen Book Club." Based on that book, I had dismissed the author as a chick lit writer and never so much as glanced at her other work.Several months ago, there was an ongoing online discussion about why female authors were rarely nominated for a certain sci-fi book award. (Unfortunately, I didn't bookmark any of the articles, and now I can't find them.) As a result of that discussion, some well-known authors posted lists of wha...

I’m not sure what to make of this dreamlike story. This is an exciting, wild, sometimes fractured woman chase, and the chasers are a wild team of men and one woman with varying levels of sanity and cultures laced with superstitions and myths. The wild woman they pursue is called Sarah Canary.I’m a one-book-at-a-time reader who likes to sink into a story and read it straight through. Unfortunately I was constantly interrupted during my reading of this book, and it is a testament to the writing th...

What a story! A very unique telling of American Wild West in 1870s. We have an unusual combination of characters - a Chinese labourer, a Forest Gump, an ideological suffragette, a mysterious mad woman, and a morally ambiguous immortal. I like the two numbering systems in the book - chapters in Arabic numbers tell the main story, while chapters in Roman numbers provide historical facts. Did Karen Joy Fowler study history and Eastern culture before she became a writer? She certainly has done a sup...

I do not know what to make of this book. I suspected I wasn't going to enjoy it, since I haven't enjoyed other stuff by Karen Joy Fowler, but that's not exactly what happened. I did get caught up in the story, intrigued by the mystery of Sarah Canary. At the same time, I felt like it was one of a type of novel I don't get on very well with, something very opaque, where motivations aren't clear and things just happen to the characters as if they are just giving themselves over to whichever way li...

Sarah Canary, wearing a battered but fashionable black dress, appears out of thin air to Chin in the archetypal forest of the American west. Initially, he mistakes her for the "ghost lover," who will abduct him for an enchanted evening of love and return him a century later in human years, leaving him prosperous beyond his wildest dreams. Instead, Sarah Canary is a totally addled, ugly white woman. Is she a crazy woman? A traumatized victim, left to roam the woods? Someone's lost, mentally chall...

Having had my socks blown off by We Are All Completely Beside Ourselves, I picked this off my shelf wondering if it would stand up to a backwards look, or if it would come across as a lesser early work.It was the former. The traits that make WAACBO amazing - the compassion, the comfort with ambiguity, the sense of the liminal, the delightful nuggets of research that never become overbearing but serve the story the way capers serve the pasta - are all present here as well. I find myself quite int...