‘Coma’ by Alex Garland, tells the story of a man after he is brutally beaten up in the subway while trying to protect a woman from some hooligans. As a result, he slips into a coma for months. Upon awakening, he tries to piece his life together, but realises that there are lapses in his consciousness, and he wonders whether he had really awoken from his coma, or whether he was just dreaming that he had. Eventually, we do find out that he is actually still in his coma, and we follow his train of thought as he attempts to find some trigger that would awaken him for real. We follow his struggles in remembering his childhood, his parents, his favourites songs and places, and at times, even the reader will be amazed at how much of our past we’ve forgotten. It’s a book that causes the reader to standstill in time, in order to reflect at what we’ve experienced and achieved. It’s a gentle reminder to us, not to abandon the past, even as we march towards the future.
The novel is illustrated by woodcuts made by his father, a political cartoonist. But I can’t figure out how they are relevant to the story. This novel is quite short, but some of his contemporaries applaud his skilled ability in tackling such a complex issue; others, have commented that Garland was suffering from a writer’s block then.
Hmmm, after all, I don’t think I appreciate his style of writing much.
