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A review by downby1
The Crazed by Ha Jin
3.0
The Crazed was the first of Ha Jin’s books I read after stumbling across it as a new release when working at a public library. I did not remember much about the book other than a considerable feeling of disappointment and a few of the main characters. After re-reading War Trash (which has become my favorite of his novels), I decided to revisit The Crazed as well.
The Crazed shares many common themes with the better known Waiting. Both novels mix a detailed look at domestic China (complete with the mixed views on post-Mao communism) with a bitter love story--or a series of bitter love stories in the case of The Crazed. However, the rich vividness and vitality of Waiting is oddly missing in Ha Jin’s later novel. The Crazed is a more heavy-handed affair with readers being repeatedly reminded of the distressing excess of communism in even the most mundane ways from prohibiting students the use of electric stoves to the banal stupidities of local political corruption. Ha Jin never relies overtly on scenery and place, but this seemed to be a Conrad-esque character of a landscape. It cheapened an already less evolved narrative and a highly limited cast of character. Ultimately, there are pieces of The Crazed that are still stunning, but they are wed to an overall novel that is just not as powerful or subtle as Ha Jin’s other works.
There was an element that remained just as striking in my second reading as it was in my first, although I do not know if it is entirely intentional. Ha Jin demonstrates the overwhelming geographical scale of China quite effectively, a feature often lost in literature that turns frequently to the equally large scale of China’s population. He does this by keeping the student protests and the Tiananmen Square massacre at the fringes of the novel throughout the book. They are both forces at work in the society of The Crazed, but their presence can be described as minor echoes until Jian, the protagonist, makes an ill-fated decision to join some of his fellow students in a trip to Beijing to join the protestors. Even accounting for official efforts to suppress the scale of the protest movement, the world of The Crazed is equally removed from the popular stirrings by them simply being too distant for much practical impact other than driving action among already dissatisfied local radicals.
Overall, I am sort of amazed I picked Ha Jin back up with this book being my first exposure to him several years ago. He has far better books to his name, and I recommend either Waiting or War Trash to those wanting to make a first encounter.
The Crazed shares many common themes with the better known Waiting. Both novels mix a detailed look at domestic China (complete with the mixed views on post-Mao communism) with a bitter love story--or a series of bitter love stories in the case of The Crazed. However, the rich vividness and vitality of Waiting is oddly missing in Ha Jin’s later novel. The Crazed is a more heavy-handed affair with readers being repeatedly reminded of the distressing excess of communism in even the most mundane ways from prohibiting students the use of electric stoves to the banal stupidities of local political corruption. Ha Jin never relies overtly on scenery and place, but this seemed to be a Conrad-esque character of a landscape. It cheapened an already less evolved narrative and a highly limited cast of character. Ultimately, there are pieces of The Crazed that are still stunning, but they are wed to an overall novel that is just not as powerful or subtle as Ha Jin’s other works.
There was an element that remained just as striking in my second reading as it was in my first, although I do not know if it is entirely intentional. Ha Jin demonstrates the overwhelming geographical scale of China quite effectively, a feature often lost in literature that turns frequently to the equally large scale of China’s population. He does this by keeping the student protests and the Tiananmen Square massacre at the fringes of the novel throughout the book. They are both forces at work in the society of The Crazed, but their presence can be described as minor echoes until Jian, the protagonist, makes an ill-fated decision to join some of his fellow students in a trip to Beijing to join the protestors. Even accounting for official efforts to suppress the scale of the protest movement, the world of The Crazed is equally removed from the popular stirrings by them simply being too distant for much practical impact other than driving action among already dissatisfied local radicals.
Overall, I am sort of amazed I picked Ha Jin back up with this book being my first exposure to him several years ago. He has far better books to his name, and I recommend either Waiting or War Trash to those wanting to make a first encounter.