Dead or Alive? - "The Coma" (The Coma - Alex Garland)

Member Name: velissaria

Product:	The Coma - Alex Garland
Date:	04/07/09 (22 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: An eerie, dark novella

Disadvantages: There is no plot twist; too pricey for its size

Alex Garland (2004) "The Coma" (Paperback). Faber and Faber, 160 pages, £9.99 on Amazon. ISBN-10: 0571223079, ISBN-13: 978-0571223077

I read on the back cover that Alex Garland is the author of "The Beach" and the "Tesseract" and that he also wrote the screenplay for "28 Days Later". With such credentials, when I picked up this book I expected a dark novella with a twist but I was kind of disappointed.

But first things first:

In terms of presentation, the book is of very good quality for a paperback. The stylish plain cream cover, with only what looks like a psychedelic human skull on it, has a second glossy paper cover ("jacket") over it of the same colour and the same theme, and with all the usual marketing and publication info. This is something I have seen so far only in hardbacks. The paper is kind of coarse and cream but the font is very clear and easily readable.

The story has a brief introduction, three parts of 12-13 very short chapters each, and a conclusion. there is lots of blank space, and what I found really strange is that the book pages are not numbered. The book is also illustrated with forty woodcuts in black and white created by the author's father, the political cartoonist of the Daily Telegraph Nicholas Garland. The paintings relate to the story and as I looked at them while reading, I found them quite mysterious, 'dark' and eerie.

The story:

Carl works at his office until late one night and when he is on a tube train home he is brutally attacked by a gang of yobs whilst trying to stand up for a girl they are harassing. He stays in a coma in hospital, but seems to wake up and be fine. After giving a statement to the police, he leaves the hospital and goes home. Then he starts to experience strange phenomena, time lapses and confusion. He does not remember who he really is, what his job is or how old he is. What is happening? Is he truly awake, or is he still dreaming from his comatose state?

The big problem for me is that Garland does not keep us guessing until the end, but he reveals what is really happening during the first third of the book. That's the reason I am giving this book 3 stars. Apart from that, the writing flows well and the writer manages to describe effortlessly how it feels when we dream, how we differentiate between our dreams and our reality and how much we remember when we wake up. The short chapters help to re-create the strange feeling of time and space lapses we experience when we sleep.

Summary: An intelligent book about dreaming and the human unconscious