The Crazed (Magill’s Literary Annual 1991-2005)
At a glance:
- Author: Xuefei Jin
- First Published: 2002
- Type of Work: Novel
- Time of Work: 1989
- Setting: China
- Principal Characters: Professor Yang, Jian Wan, Meimei, Banping Fan, Weiya Su
- Genres: Long fiction
- Subjects: Communism or communists, Politics, Sex or sexuality, Twentieth century, Authors or writers, Exile or expatriates, Protests or demonstrations, Education or educators, 1980’s, Sick persons, Idealism, Government, Disasters, Totalitarianism, Massacres, China or Chinese people, Students or student life, Hospitals, Naivete, Stroke, Activism
- Locales: China
Most teachers of writing encourage students to avoid using clichés, largely on the basis that they have become so familiar that they have lost any power to grab the reader’s attention. At times, however, a cliché can be appropriate; in the case of novelist Ha Jin, the idea that “necessity is the mother of invention” seems most apt to describe his meteoric rise to prominence in American letters and to suggest something about the power that underlies his second novel, The Crazed.
Although the novel is not strictly autobiographical, understanding something of the...
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