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Decoded (2014)

by Mai Jia(Favorite Author)

3.29 of 5 Votes: 5

ISBN

0374135800 (ISBN13: 9780374135805)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

review 1: The best aspect of this novel is the translation. I can't comment on its accuracy, but the translator took a somewhat soulless work of fiction and presented it in elegant, flowing English.On the surface the book sounds irresistible: the story of a genius who becomes involved in advanced theoretical mathematics and then becomes the leading cryptologist for the Chinese government, with promises of a look inside a secretive Chinese government department. No wonder it was a bestseller in China.What you get is a story told as though watching someone from across the street through his window while people around you offer general he-did-this-he-did-that summaries of his actions, the way one might file an official, with hardly any color or personality. The character, to begin with... more, is a taciturn, emotionally-stunted loner. To never really get to know him, almost never get inside his mind or heart, combined with the telephoto narration, makes for a frustrating read. Add to that, there is plenty of discussion of the job descriptions for mathematicians and cryptologists, but none of the hoped-for inside view, ruminations or discussions about theoretical maths or cryptology.The last section, ostensibly the protagonist's own journal, should be the fulfillment of all the missing promise of the book. When the narrator introduces it by saying, "You can skip this section, since not even I have any idea what he's writing about", I thought it was a joke, until I began reading the journal section and found the warning to be true. So I followed his advice and skipped the rest. Why did the author even bother?Two stars for a book that has an excellent premise which it never lives up to, and an additional star for a superbly-executed translation.
review 2: I am in the minority on this one. Two of my friends really liked it. I read the whole thing, but can't say I enjoyed it. It was very dry for me. I couldn't get emotionally involved with the characters and I'm just not that interested in cryptology. Lots of pondering the nature of genius and its connections to creativity/madness, most of which is highly speculative. The political aspects were of more interest to me, but didn't give me any great insights. I was left feeling that the whole novel was a cipher of some kind, with a buried message that I just wasn't getting. I'm a tough marker though. My two stars might be someone else's three. less

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