Beijing Coma: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ Ma Jian (Author), (Translator) "Through the gaping hole where the covered balcony used to be, you see the bulldozed locust tree slowly begin to rise again..." (more)
Key Phrases: han dan, organising committee, national opera company, Wang Fei, Mou Sen, Bai Ling (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

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

From Publishers Weekly

The outcome of this bleak, wrenching generational saga from Ma Jian (Stick Out Your Tongue and The Noodle Maker) is known from early on: the politicization of Dai Wei, a diligent molecular biology Ph.D. student at Beijing University, ends in Tiananmen Square with a bullet striking him in the head. As the book opens, Dai Wei is just waking from a coma that has continued over 10 years following the June 4, 1989, massacre—still apparently unconscious, but actually aware of his surroundings. The narrative then alternates between Dai Wei's very conscious observations as a nonresponsive ''vegetable'' over the years of his coma, and his childhood and student life. Ma Jian evokes the horrors of an oppressive regime in minute, gruesome detail, particularly in quotidian scenes of his mother's attempts to care for Dai Wei, which eventually lead her to a member of the banned Falun Gong movement. The book's behind-the-scenes portrayal of the nascent student movement hinges on repetitious ideological bickering and sexual power plays. Lengthy expositions of Dai Wei's condition slow the book further, but Ma Jian achieves startling effects through Dai Wei's dispassionate narration, making one man's felled body a symbol of lost possibility. (June)
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Product Details

• Hardcover: 592 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (May 27, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374110174
• ISBN-13: 978-0374110178
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.2 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #377,290 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I want to read it again!, July 10, 2008

By	K. Noe - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars China from Cultural Revolution onward, August 9, 2008

By	mom of 2 (Rochester, NY) - See all my reviews

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.

2.0 out of 5 stars Great Insight but needs editing, November 3, 2009

By	Michael A. Dawson "Madhatter" (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.