Customer Reviews

Beijing Coma

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

Ma Jian's Beijing Coma is very well written, albeit with a bit of the stilted sound you get when Chinese is translated to English. (Readers of this book might also want to read Life and Death in Shanghai by Nien Cheng, a fascinating, brutal, nonfiction work describing the author's incarceration during the Cultural Revolution. I learned a lot about the Cultural Revolution from that book.)

Beijing Coma is narrated by the character of Dai Wei, a molecular biology doctoral student in Beijing. Caught up in the pro-democracy student-led protests leading up to the massacre at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Dai Wei is shot in the head and lapses into a coma. Despite his appearance as a "vegetable," he is sentient, his sense of hearing and smell intensified greatly in compensation for his loss of sight and speech.

I was a child during the Cultural Revolution and never knew anything about it; it was amazing to me, upon reading Cheng's book mentioned above, that this could have happened in my lifetime. I was an adult during the protests in Tiananmen Square and followed the news coverage of that time. Despite this, I was astounded, in reading Beijing Coma, at descriptions of life under the Chinese government, at the bravery of the students and others who participated in the protests, and, especially, at the long-term ramifications that participation in the protests had on the students and citizens. For example, no doctor will treat or even examine Dai Wei once they learn he received his wound at Tiananmen Square. Everyone is terrified of the government.

The book alternates between Dai Wei's memories of his life before being shot and his (internal) observations of his life in the coma, where he lives at home and is cared for by his increasingly unstable and resentful mother.

In my opinion the book could have been improved by a little editing; there are long sections of Dai Wei's internal molecular damage that seemed a little excessive. But that's a minor quibble: I found the book a worthwhile read, very informative about China as it has evolved from the Cultural Revolution to a modern society, wrestling with its desire to enter the modern capitalist world and still control its citizens. It's heartbreaking.

I was fascinated by the premise of 'Beijing Coma' and was eager to gain insight on the Chinese Student Movement of the late 80's. However, contrary to most reviews, I found the pace to be rather slow and the details of the story to be rather repetitive. Too much of the novel are students arguing with each other about policy and the plot suffers as a result. At 650 pages, it's not a short book and I think it would have benefited from a better editing job. Also, I found the quotes that broke up the chapters to be incredibly pretentious and unnecessary. Perhaps they worked well in the original Chinese but in English they do not. Would only recommend to those seriously interested in an evolving China.

Before hating me for giving this two stars, let me say that I am a huge fan of Ma Jian's short stories. I feel that they are expressive, to the point, and haunting.

This novel touched on the student movement of the late 80s leading up to the Tienanmen Square massacre. I have always held a fascination for the history of China and enjoy authors such as Yiyun Li, Ha Jin, and Yu Hua (among others). Though the novel does take one on a historical journey through this tumultuous time, it has some problems.

First, the novel is far too long. Ma Jian spends a lot of page on minor or unimportant characters and repetitive arguments. I understand that the student movement suffered from poor leadership and constant power struggles, but the entire middle 1/3 of the novel is an endless repetition of arguing, distributing food, arguing, smoking, fighting off power struggles, striking, arguing.

The translation was good, but filled with far too many British idioms and slang (would be like an American translation that kept saying 'hoodie' instead of sweatshirt... you get the idea? Often cigarettes were called 'fags', shoes called 'trainers', and so on). This was never an issue with Flora's translation of Ma Jian's short stories.

The beginning few chapters and last few chapters were great. The final events of the massacre were pretty graphically written... so be forewarned.

I usually get through books pretty quickly, but this took quite a bit of my patience to push through the middle section. So much that I almost stopped reading.

This was a very strange book, but then all of Ma Jian's books, even his memoir Red Dust are out there on the edge. The premise was an interesting one- tell the story of 1989 from inside the head of one of its victims, now in a coma. I have read a lot of books on 20th century Chinese history, and even though this book was fiction, much of the picture of Tiananmen Square rang true. I found it fascinating how petty the student leaders became at times in this story. If this was in fact a somewhat accurate depiction, it adds to the real story of what happened. Ma Jian is a good storyteller, and even though this was a long book with a lot of characters and sub-plots, I enjoyed it immensely. Highly recommended.

After being hit by a soldiers bullet in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, PhD student Dai Wei falls into a coma only to awaken ten years later in what is a very different China. While new freedoms have been won, the Communist Party will still not tolerate criticism and is ready to crack down on both real and perceived threats to its rule - "same as the old boss."

The book drags at times (after all, dude's in a coma) but is a very worthwhile read, especially for a gweilo like me whose only real exposure to the Tiananmen uprisings was through newspapers and news reports. Beijing Coma: A Novel is a perfect companion read to Zhao Ziyang's Prisoner of the State: The Secret Journal of Premier Zhao Ziyang. It is a beautifully written book and I will definitely read more by Ma Jian.

This is a deeply moving and intelligent, as well as well written novel of the tragic fate of the young Tiananmen square protesters of 1989. It does bog down with a bit too much detail of the day to day events among the different factions of youth jockeying for control of the protest, but quickly recovers as it alternates between the events of 1989 and the subsequent sad fate of the protaganist's ordeal by coma and that of his overwhelmed mother who is as tragic a figure as her son.

If you have any interest in contemporary China, do not miss this epic account by a great, if exiled, Chinese writer.

Although the historical element is fascinating, and chilling, the book moves at an extremely slow pace. Not a good read if you are unable to spare the concentration that the author demands of the reader.

The perspective of a gravely wounded protestor is highly effective in telling a story set around the student anti-corruption and democracy movement and protests in China in the late 1980's. Ma Jian weaves a story that depicts the internal struggles of an individual amidst the external chaos swirling around the main character in his memories and present-day sensations. This is a beautifull crafted story that should be on everyone's bookshelf.

Anyone who has enjoyed and appreciated "Beijing Coma" should read "Rabbit in the Moon" by Deborah and Joel Shlian. Both are incredible insights into Chinese culture and so relevant to how China is positioning itself in the world today.