I have decided that Beijing Coma is worthy of as many awards that it can get. When I first went into this book, I believed it would be just another ordianry tale of a person not living in my country, who was under a tyrranical government, and would somehow help in overthrowing the government. Although I was sort of right with that prediction, I was mostly wrong near the end. I find it very incredible how the story was told, with the story of Dai Wei's life told all the way from his early childhood and all his experiences, up to the fatefull day he was shot and entered his coma.
I believe the most emotionally stirring section of the book comes at the end where Wei is describing the situation he is in. He is in the middle of a protest, and every street he tries to turn down, he is greeted by a "green wall of soldiers". In a very strange moment, he sees his old flame A-Mei standing in the middle of the street. He ran to greet her, but she was shot in front of him. He says, "Did the bullet hit her? As the question came to my mind, my head exploded. My skeleton was shaken by a bolt of pain. I'd been struck too. I was going to die. Hot, sticky blood poured down my face. My hand reached out to touch my head, but I couldn't find it..." (584). I find it very interesting how the author decided to portray his travel into a coma as him knowing everything that was happening, yet he was still incapacitated.
Overall, I highly recommend this book to anyone who is in need of a nice long interesting book filled with many facts about a little known culture.
1 comment:
Ooh. Sounds cool-- and startling that he landed in a coma. It's amazing how you can still like the book with a supremely depressing ending. The imagery you presented was also stunning-- green walls of soldiers, wherever you turn. I can totally visualize that-- nice quote. And the whole bit about his head exploding; this book sounds amazing. Nice comments and good examples!
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