A fascinating novel - surprising and unfamiliar in its style and subject matter. Mai Jia is known as the father of Chinese espionage fiction, and he has evidently forged a completely new approach that to the genre, free of classic western (ie usually British) tropes and clichés. This probably explains why some were disappointed. It simply doesn't conform.

The central character, Rong Jinzhen, is elusive, an idiot-savant whom we never really understand; yet he is always compelling and poignant. We learn of his mathematical and cryptological genius but the book never gets bogged down in the science (as could so easily have happened). The Chinese state looms large over everything, and in some ways, this is a book about individuals having their lives and even identities subsumed into the state's greater good. Autonomy is never really an option. Yet in the midst of this overpowering atmosphere, there are moments of humanity and self-sacrifice. This is a world of total secrecy and incorrect surmises and guesswork.

But the key relationship is between Jinzhen and Prof Liseiwicz - the two great minds involved in the coding and decoding business of the book. The quest is the breaking of PURPLE and BLACK codes - and the professor initially tries to warn his protegé off cryptography because of its threat to mental stability. But as the layers are gradually peeled back in the course of the book (written in the style of a journalist writing an official history, and so interspersed with transcripts of interviews with the key individuals), the picture gradually sharpens into a melancholy and poignant whole.

Brilliantly written in sparse, and deceptively simple, style, this opens up fleeting glimpses into a world that is alien to most.

It took me a long time to finish this book and it took me another week to write this.
The book is not interesting and is bordering on boring. It's full of details that are irrelevant to the plot movement or its understanding, the hero is not inspiring and the settings are depressing.
However, the book reminded me how it felt to live under communist dictatorship.

Kurzmeinung / Leseerlebnis
Das Buch ist sehr atmosphärisch und einnehmend geschrieben. Vom Lesefluss her würde ich 5 von 5 Sternen vergeben. Auch die Charaktere sind toll gezeichnet.
Die Handlung allerdings plätschert so vor sich hin. Gelegentlich gab es spannende Momente, allerdings eher selten.
3,5 Sterne von mir, hauptsächlich wegen der interessanten Thematik und dem tollen Schreibstil.

It looks like I'm in the minority here, but, thank God this one is done! It was a struggle to get through and (for me) it just didn't go anywhere. Didn't care for it at all.

No me ha apasionado nada este libro la verdad. Se lee bien, en ciertos puntos en interesante, pero me parece que en ciertos puntos se prolonga demasiado (sobretodo hacia el final) y encima en temas totalmente innecesarios. Por ejemplo, en el pasaje El Final hay un montón de ideas que se podrían haber expresado de una forma más sencilla y abreviada, y que creo que habrían quedado mucho mejor de esa manera.
Uno de las cosas que más me gustaron fue el principio, como habla de la familia Rong y las historias de las diferentes personas. Este en general un aspecto que me gusta y me atrae de todos los libros chinos o inspirados en china: la forma de tratar la familia y la historia familiar.

An interesting read, but i feel clueless as to what it was trying to say about anything, cryptography, China, relationships, genius, and more.

All these topics were on the table, but not in any way that I could decode (see what I did there?)

Not sure that I have ever felt I fully got all I could of a book translated from the Chinese, so maybe that's part of it.

Good enough to keep me reading.

An interesting book with a story that could very well believed as true for how real the characters are in their strangeness, but flawed by some rather slow moments at times given by the author's preference for a not-so-fluid kind of writing.