The Crazed

Ha Jin is subtle. He doesn't beat us over the head with an overview of the Chinese Cultural Revolution. So the non-Chinese reader can be a little lost here without that background. The best preparation I can think of is Nien Cheng's magnificent Life and Death in Shanghai. The Cultural Revolution was......more

Este livro, o primeiro que leio de Ha Jin, foi uma agradável surpresa. É muito mais do que um livro sobre o massacre de Tiananmen, na República Popular da China, em 1989, através do qual o Partido Comunista quis calar o movimento estudantil, os intelectuais e todos os chineses descontentes. É sobre......more

Ok. First of all do NOT read this book's description on Goodreads, it ruins the whole book! Also don't listen to these fools' reviews whining about this book: "its boring" "the end mystifies me" and so on. How anyone could be "mystified" by the end of this book, or could have "no idea what Ha Jin wa......more

This is a slow starting book that builds powerfully. The Crazed is written by Ha Jin, an expatriate from China who has lived in the United States for some time. His book is set at the time of the Tiananmen Square massacre but doesn’t involve the incident at all until very late in the book. Although......more

Staggering. Without a doubt this is Ha Jin's finest, most important novel. I was fairly stunned by the extraordinary War Trash, but this one is more cogent and obviously more personal, filled with gut-wrenching urgency, cynicism, and despair.......more