From his hospital bed where he lies in a coma, Dai Wei, a young man shot by a soldier during the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, recounts the story of his life. His story is frequently interrupted as the novel skips back to the present day and his vegetative state, where he cannot see or move but can hear what is happening in the space around him. We learn about Wei’s mother’s struggle to keep him alive and the regime’s efforts to suppress the memory of what happened to him and so many others.
This is not a hagiography of the democracy movement (if anything, Wei’s experiences expose the confusions, tensions and conflicting ideals of those involved in it), but the narrative does sometimes stray into the realm of polemic. It is an uneven read: in places, the dialogue sounds a little flat, the metaphors somewhat lack originality and clichés abound (“I could not believe what I was hearing”). At other moments, however, feelings are powerfully evoked. This is especially so when the author describes Wei’s experience of being in hospital.
Although this book may lack literary inventiveness, it nonetheless acts as an important testimony, not only of the failed struggle for freedom in China, but of the tragedies and frustrations of Chinese people’s everyday lives.
