THE CRAZED

The title refers to Dr. Yang, professor and mentor, a man of great brilliance. It's also a metaphor for the system he served in China in the 1980s. Since his stroke, Yang seems to have become a raving madman. Jian, his student and possible future son-in-law, attends the old man daily at the hospital and listens to his ranting. What he hears are ideas--seditious, heretical, revolutionary--and a disillusioned man's deconstruction of hope. Norm Lee's performance informs the experience of a pre-Tianamen Square China. His voice is fine as a reed, bending at the slightest nuance, lifting at the merest suggestion. The pace is slow, and the descriptions are overlong; but in this idea-driven novel Ha Jin pours words onto the page, and they transform into living beings. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 03]