Customer Reviews

The Coma

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(11)
1 star:		(7)

 

 

I loved all of Garland's previous work, from "The Beach" to "The Tesseract" to his creepy story "R.S.S." in "The Weekenders" anthology and his script for the film "28 Days Later" -- but this was a severe disappointment. The idea at work is hardly original, the execution of it is mostly tepid, and the overall effect is reminiscent of being the only sober person in basement of stoned teenagers discussing consciousness. The line between dream life and reality is a recurring theme in Garland's work -- in "The Beach" there was the dead man popping up to "talk" to the protagonist, in "The Tesseract" there was the researcher recording the dreams of two street urchins, and "28 Days Later" begins with a man waking from a coma and trying to figure out if he was actually awake and in the "real" world. In this latest work, we meet a man who tries to intervene with a group of teenagers harassing a woman on the subway, only to get his head kicked in and end up in a coma (if nothing else, reading the book will put a damper on one's instinct to stick up for the innocent).

The primary force driving the narrative is the man's quest to unravel his own identity and wake himself up from his coma. The reader is taken down paths which, just like dreams, are somewhat askew and surreal. These are occasionally interesting, such as a bookstore in which the classics have been reduced to their single most famous line, or the record store selling albums where the lyrics are slightly wrong. However, midway through, Garland comes right out and says that it's impossible to represent the strange state of dream consciousness using the written word. That's pretty much a given, but one wishes it could have been a little more interesting. The man becomes obsessed with locating his briefcase, which he believes will contain something that will give him a hint of who is, and thereby allow him to wake himself up. At the end of the book, this finally does happen, but the result is something most readers will have guessed at -- especially if they have watched more than a few episodes of The Twilight Zone.

Is Garland a good writer? Certainly. But here he seems to be indulging in an idea mainly of interest to him, and it never really carries much weight. It's reads as if he was striving for a Camusesque novella and falls far short. Speaking of short... this book took me just barely over an hour to read. It's copiously illustrated with evocative simple woodcuts by Garland's father, and the designer has done yeoman's work padding the leading and margins to arrive at the hugely inflated page count. There are much better (and longer) books written from within the coma patient's head, two recent ones that come to mind are Irvine Welsh's "Marabou Stork Nightmares" and the book that influenced it, Iain Banks' "The Bridge."

What a bizarre, haunting little book! If you're familiar with Garland's work that description probably won't surprise you. Garland is a master of literary bizarreness. His precise and evocative language has, in the past, led him to be compared to Graham Greene; this novel, in my opinion, owes more to Kafka in its complex simplicity, sense of dread and sometimes hopelessness, and just all-around creepiness. The concept is simple: what happens, what does the mind experience, when one is in a trauma-induced coma? The answers Garland provides are chilling. In a way, the entire novel is a meditation on Descartes' age-old argument of "cogito ergo sum," but Garland is interested in that space in which *only* thought exists (not, I suspect, what Descartes had in mind). The result is downright disturbing at times, and the sense of confused reality is only heightened by the wood-carved illustrations (provided by Garland's father, a London political cartoonist) that follow each chapter. These illustrations are essential to the book's atmosphere, and I spent just as much time pondering them as I did pondering the questions about Being that the younger Gardner raised. This book will probably not find a wide audience, and will disappoint/bore/go over the heads of most book-club types. But it's a truly brilliant work, and I believe it will secure Garland a place amongst the masters.

It had been a while since Alex Garland had published a novel. After The Beach and The Tesseract, Garland worked on the amazing horror flick 28 Days Later. The Coma, a short novella that is, like everything else Garland has written, not easily classifiable. This ends up being the novel's forte and also its biggest flaw.

While trying to help a woman who is being attacked on a subway, Carl is beaten to a bloody pulp and left for dead. A long while later, he wakes up from the coma the attack left him in and returns home. But he soon realizes that nothing is as it used to be. Things have changed, things are wrong, things are just unexplainable. Time seems to be moving faster, Carl finds himself moving from one place to another without remembering having done so. And how about those invisible bleeding wounds on his body?

Garland weaves his narrative just like a dream. One second we're standing in one place, the next we're in a total different setting. Things are disjointed and they don't always make sense for the reader. Until, that is, something crucial is revealed to us that changes the way we see or understand the events taking place in the narrative.

Told in the first person over very short chapters, with interesting visual images to guide us through the story, The Coma is a story that is both imaginary and frighteningly real. As always, Garland lets his imagination run wild to create a one-of-a-kind trip to the human psyche.

Then again, the book left me craving for more. I wanted more out of Carl, wanted to learn more from the characters and the situations they were in. Over the course of two very short chapters, Garland tells us a bit about Carl's childhood, but not enough to eradicate my curiosity. Some sections could have been fleshed out a bit more. It's rare that you'll want more out of a story. These days, most book should listen to the 'less is more' rule. But The Coma is an exception to the rule.

As it stands, The Coma is a very fast read that you'll probably want to read again. An original read that will leave you craving for more.

I was a big fan of Mr. Garland's debut novel "The Beach," less so of "The Tesseract," and while I was entertained by his latest effort, I can't say it compares favorably to the narrative drive and thrill of his first book. "The Coma" is essentially a short story interspersed with some interesting wood cut illustrations by his father that really serve little purpose beyond bulking up the page count. You keep turning the pages in hopes that some sort of narrative thread will be picked up, only to discover by book's end that you're more-or-less right back where you started with little illumination, and you'll be hard-pressed an hour later to even remember the characters' names.

Still, Garland is a talented writer and I will keep buying his books in hopes that the next one will achieve the same literary heights as his debut.

From my weird title you probably get the feel of what it is to read this book...maybe.
Alex Garland wrote one of my favourite books of all time: The Beach. While The Beach was a pretty big success (if you've seen the movie you haven't really experienced The Beach, they're very different from one another) his second book wasn't as big but was equally entertaining and different. With the release of 28 Days Later Garland delved into some interesting territory already explored by other filmmakers but with Danny Boyle they created something incredibly exciting and new in the genre. This introduction now brings me to my thoughts on Garland's third novel (more of a novella than an actual book) and fourth writing project. I liked the fact that this was a tightly written and eloquently short read but I was slightly dismayed at the predictability of the proceedings (some surprises but in general I felt I had read it before). The language that Garland uses is crisp and creates a totally visual experience. Although his father included several interesting woodcarvings to accompany each chapter they seem a little excessive and unnecessary since the language is so clear. This is foremost a writer's experiment and it is the most different, in terms of `defined story', of his four previous works. While I found the book creepy at first it began to take on a comedic tone and is so short that I was able to finish it in little more than an hour and some (give or take, I don't use a stopwatch). I found this book to be interesting and a worthwhile investment since many of the thoughts, ideas, and descriptions stay with you long after you put the book down. For fans of Garland's work this is a must have for your collection to see where Garland is moving as an artist but for casual readers it may just be a fun little ride (this review is based on a first reading only and the novella needs to be read a second time).

A man named Carl is attacked on the train while trying to defend a woman from some thugs and put into a coma for his efforts. He awakens after an unspecified amount of time and is released to find people around him behaving very strangely. He arrives at places without remembering the journey. He is surprised to find himself in bed with his secretary. All kinds of things just seem a little off.

Was Carl injured more seriously than the doctors realized? Has he become amnesiac? THE COMA is a fascinating exploration into existence, reality, dreams, consciousness and identity. It is a quick read, but a thought-provoking one. Some may find it slight, but after the two bloated, overlong novels I had read just prior to this one, I found it a relief. Garland says more in two hundred liberally-spaced pages than the others did in five hundred, and says it better. Woodcut illustrations by the author's father add to its surreal quality. I can't stop thinking about it. Highly recommended.

I have read the complaints of other reviewers about this book, and while I recognize each person's right to his/her opinion,
I can't help but feel they just didn't get it.

Yes, the book is short. It's essentially a novella rather than a novel. However, it is short by necessity. Garland tells his tale succinctly, weaving through different states of consciousness in such a way that we can't help but wonder if we're dreaming the words on the page.

Yes, the device of the story is not a new one. However, the way that the story is told is what differentiates it from others "like it". Carl is not only aware that he is dreaming much of the book, but explores the dream state and tries to use it to his advantage.

I found this book fascinating. I would highly recommend it to anyone who reads for intellectual stimulation in addition to passing the time reading a good yarn. No, it's not like The Beach. But that's not a bad thing. If you want an author who keeps writing the same book over and over, there are a plethora from which to choose. This book is an exploration on the theme of consciousness through which Garland manoevres, do I dare?...like a dream.

I'm not sure what I was expecting from this novel.

After seeing 28 days later, I really enjoyed Alex Garland's writing style.

This, however, never went anywhere.

The story begins with the protagonist (I say protagonist because you never learn his name, his occupation, in fact, you never learn why he was on the subway to begin with) on a subway. After standing up to some bullies, he is knocked out.

That's as much as you'll probably be interested in, because the story never really "takes off" after there.

And then the ending just comes. Suddenly it appears in front of you, and you're left to accept it.

Skip this and read "The Beach".

This is a wonderful, readable short novel. I won't give plot summation (you can scroll up for that), but suffice to say that this is, even though a quick read, a thoroughly engaging story and a worthy follow-up to the Tesseract. if you are hesitant of spending perhaps 20 bucks on a book you will most likely digest in one day, fret not. The story stays with you and, trust this guy, you'll be picking it up again within the month.

Not until the end of "The Coma" did I realize that, to the casual observer trying to read this over my shoulder on the subway, it's all laid out like a children's book. Black and white illustrations fronting every chapter; huge margins; big print.

The subject material is not a kids' book -- a businessman, trapped in a very dreary life that keeps him at his desk until a quarter to midnight, is assaulted on a train and put into a coma. The coded messages that author Garland leaves over the final third of the book, however, are the kind of thing that Encyclopedia Brown might have figured out, or taught me how to figure out. And, honestly, of the three obvious coded messages in the book, the middle one still doesn't make any sense in the context of the novel, unless we're supposed to believe that the narrator is Japanese.

Garland is good, as he was in "The Beach", at describing a fever dream state. In his earlier novel, though, the fever dreams added moments of intrigue to what was basically a straightforward narrative. In "The Coma", the fever dream is the raison d'etre of the book, and there's really not much of substance either before it begins or after it ends.

In the end, "The Coma" is a puzzle without a solution, or perhaps a question that answers itself. The whole point of the book is the journey itself, and the journey wears thin long before it's over.