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A review by machadamia
Beijing Coma by Ma Jian
dark
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
While it was a tedious read sometimes, I also feel like I appreciated all the time it took to describe the places, people and things. Though the key event really only took up a small amount of pages, I thought that the amount of time it took to set up for it really made the impact of the massacre stronger. We felt the students’ hopes and dreams build up and then get crushed and I personally felt it so intensely. I tried to translate some of the dialogue in my head of them asking people to leave urgently and it also made me wonder how it will be like to read the text in Chinese, as it was written. I might tackle it one day if I manage to get a copy.
The one thing that really put me off was Dai Wei’s obsession with the girls. Like I understand that he is a teenage boy at that time and all but I really wanted to learn from the perspective of say Bai Ling who was so resolute in her stance. The revolving around his ex girlfriends really made me a bit irritated especially since it was implied that his ex-girlfriends are the cause of his coma (being distracted by maybe A Mei) and subsequent (in my interpretation) death. I feel like I don’t understand his choice of doing so. Perhaps it the author’s his own personality at the time?
Overall though, I think it was a good book to get into thinking about the Tiananmen massacre and the people affected by it. It’s truly a scary world we live in and it’s quite insane that people can hold this much power to kill.
Definitely takes a while to get into it and sit with some of the themes. Not a book to be binged.
The one thing that really put me off was Dai Wei’s obsession with the girls. Like I understand that he is a teenage boy at that time and all but I really wanted to learn from the perspective of say Bai Ling who was so resolute in her stance. The revolving around his ex girlfriends really made me a bit irritated especially since it was implied that his ex-girlfriends are the cause of his coma (being distracted by maybe A Mei) and subsequent (in my interpretation) death. I feel like I don’t understand his choice of doing so. Perhaps it the author’s his own personality at the time?
Overall though, I think it was a good book to get into thinking about the Tiananmen massacre and the people affected by it. It’s truly a scary world we live in and it’s quite insane that people can hold this much power to kill.
Definitely takes a while to get into it and sit with some of the themes. Not a book to be binged.