Amazon Best of the Month, May 2008: Like a latter-day Rip Van Winkle, a troubled young man slumbers away for ten years. While he slowly retraces the experiences that brought him into this dream state, the world around him morphs into a nearly unrecognizable place. The place is not a mountain fairyland in pre-Revolutionary America, but China at the turn of the twenty-first century. And, our story's hero is not a beleaguered farmer seeking solace among the mountains and rivers, but a promising graduate student named Dai Wei who was shot in the head during the pro-democracy protests in 1989 at Tiananmen Square.
Beijing Coma is an unexpectedly visceral and daring work of fiction by critically acclaimed author Ma Jian that explores why a promising young student would risk it all in the spring of 1989. In this ingeniously constructed novel--which sets Dai Wei's internal recollections against the contemporary changes occurring beyond him--Ma Jian reveals the profound personal consequences of that historic struggle for freedom--long after the CNN cameras stopped rolling. --
Lauren Nemroff
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Owner Reviews, Ratings, Comments and Criticism
Ma Jian's Beijing Coma was a really enlightening novel. I learned so much about China- the good and the bad. This novel exposed me for the first time to the horrifying Cultural Revolution and the Tiananmen Square massacre- really important events that no one bothered to teach in high school history. What you find in this book will alternatively inspire and infuriate you, and at no time will Ma Jian leave you feeling apathetic.
The writing in this novel is unique. The narration is delivered with a certain sparsity and emotionless quality, but is occasionally punctuated with incredibly poignant and striking images and revelations that take you aback and force you to pause and reflect. The novel reminds me a bit of the fiction of Sartre and Camus, but with distinguishing elements that are Ma Jian's own.
In any case, the novel is brilliant. Read it. It is an accessible opportunity to experience the richness of another culture's literature.
