Micah's review
Sleeping in Flame by Jonathan Carroll
Sleeping in Flame begins as a stereotypical love story: man meets woman in Vienna; they fall instantly in love; passion and lovemaking and romantic conversations over cappuccino. But then strange things begin to happen. Our Romeo begins to have dreams involving a tiny man with an enormously jealous temper. An unlikely friendship with a shaman develops. Giant sea-serpents begin to reveal themselves. People suddenly die. Eventually, Carroll immerses his reader in a demented postmodern version of Rumpelstiltskin. I appreciate the risks that Carroll takes in this novel, but he has a couple of serious shortcomings that made me have to struggle through this book. The first - and most annoying - is his inability to compose convincing dialogue. The dialogue is especially weak when Walker Easterling and Maris York (the story's lovers) speak to each other. Every time that Carroll had them interact, I found myself thinking, "This is not how people speak to each other. This is painfully contr...more
