This is a novel about the problems and predicaments in China, specifically PRC. It's written by a 1st generation immigrant, so this book presented a believable China (in contrast to the "China" presented by non-natives.) It's written in English and with no Chinese translation version available to the Chinese audience, probably due to political concerns. But after finishing the book, I think a reader familiar with China and its problems will get so much more out of it than someone who didn't have that background. It's unfortunate that circumstances prevent an easy access.

This is not a book with interesting characters or engaging plot. It's just one mundane event after another that serves to reveal the different ailments of PRC. The story presents a middle-age literature professor who had a stroke in the spring of 1989 and became mentally unstable. In his delirium he revisited his younger days as his country went through the Korean War, Cultural Revolution, reeducation camps, ....etc. In his delirium he also relived his recent clashes and struggles with departmental politics, how his life as an academic in China was merely that of a "clerk." The professor's prize student, after hearing his mentor's rantings, decided not to pursue a career in academia anymore. The student tried to find his way. He visited rural China and witnessed plight of the extreme poor and how this nation's political and economical hardship took a toil on its people's morality. He set off for Beijing for a change of scenery, away from the departmental politics and distress. He arrived in Beijing on the night of June 3, 1989. Everything wrong with China so far depicted in the book culminated in what happened a couple of hours after that, with what is known to western countries today as the Tiananmen massacre. The student didn't actually get into the Tiananmen Square that night. The author wrote about what he experienced on his way there, on the streets. It's so, so sad.

This is a good book, but it's not a book I would want to read again soon. It's so bleak. But I guess it's good to be sad sometimes, because it helps us remember. Something happened on June 4, 1989, and it was not right. ( )

A new to me author, who's book has been sitting on my TBR way too long.
But today I finally finished it. Finally not because I dislike it, but because it's taken me so long to start.

Loved the book. The ramblings of professor Yang, the impact they have on the people that hear them, the actions that are a result of them... All very interesting to read.

And amidst all the party and revolutionary talk (it's the time of the uprising of the students, Tiananmen) I found it surpising to learn about the growing of one individual, one person who took his truth out of his professor's words and deducted the reasons for other people's actions and made a decision.

Wholeheartedly recommended! ( )

This story turned out to be really interesting although I had no idea to where it was headed even halfway through the book. It started out when a soon-to-be PhD student began caring for his professor Yang who fell ill with a stroke. The student, Jian Wan, was engaged to Professor Yang's daughter Meimei who at the time was studying in Beijing for medical school entrance exams. While caring for Professor Yang and listening to his crazy talk as a stroke victim, Jian Wan made some decisions which would turn out to alter his relationship with Meimei and ultimately have him in Beijing at the time of the student uprising in Tiananmen Square.

"It's personal interests that motivate the individual and therefore generate the dynamics of history."

In this story we see how Jian Wan's actions lead him to become accused of being a counterrevolutionary, although it is personal gain by others that is really the issue.

The story of Jian Wan gives a lot of food for thought. I'm up for more books by this author based on the way this particular story is told. ( )

i was more than 90% of the way through this book when it started to get interesting. if not for the ending, it would have gotten even fewer stars.

themes of identity in a culture that doesn't allow individualism, as well as what happens if/when someone finally starts to tell their truth.we think it's mr yang who is the crazed one of the title, based on his ravings, but we find that it's the main character, who wants to be someone who can make his own decisions. this was, for me, the nicest part of this book, discovering that.

to me, there was a disconnect with the characters and the situation. i couldn't have cared less about them or what was happening and didn't understand why someone in jian's position would feel or behave the way he did. additionally, the leaps he made with mr yang's (wholly unrealistic and so unbelievable) rantings were silly to me. there were hundreds of explanations for any of the things mr yang said and was talking about; to make the connections that jian did was just *way* too much poetic license on ha jin's part. there was nothing to draw me in at all, until quite close to the end, when we finally get some motivation for some of the action. i'm glad it was there, but it was too little too late, for me. ( )

brilliant; mixes the political with the personal; narrator (Jian) is crazed, dying Mr. Yang is crazed, China is, society is; each detail of life is so personal, but each life so clearly overlaps with Tiananmen Square-era China