Notes From a Coma

by Mike McCormack

Merging sci-fi with an affectionate portrait of small-town Ireland, this cleverly imagined and constructed novel is both the story of a man cursed with guilt and genius and a look at how our identities are safeguarded and held in trust by those who love us.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Ireland, Irish Literature, Contemporary, Literary Fiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Hugh · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another very impressive earlier novel by the author of Solar Bones.

Once again we are in Mayo, in the North West of Ireland. At the heart of the book is JJ O'Malley, a young man who has volunteered to participate as a control in a European experiment in which prisoners are put in an induced coma on a ship moored in Ireland's only true fjord.

His life story is told alternately by various witnesses including his adoptive father, a bachelor who rescued him from a foreign orphanage (the country is not mentioned but seems likely to be Romania) at the age of two, his long term girlfriend Sarah, a family friend, a teacher, and the politician behind the project. These first hand accounts paint a vivid picture of a highly intelligent but mentally disturbed atheist haunted by the early death of his best friend.

There are many lengthy footnotes which seem to add the perspective of an anonymous scientist involved in the experiment - these appear on the same pages as the main text but often extend for several pages - when reading I chose to read the entire footnote in context.

This is my third book by McCormack, and all three impressed me greatly - I must seek out the rest.

[Jennifer Toliver · Rating 3 out of 5]

I loved the plot of this book but it just didn't come together. The synopsis on the back is totally misleading. THAT'S the book I wanted to read. The book was like an interview of friends and family of the main character but you were never properly introduced to HIM.

I loved the writing style of the author, minus the distracting footnotes that would've been better served as the main focus of the novel. I'd probably read something else by McCormack.


I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review.

[S. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very peculiar book. The story is told in two different parts, that seem independent, but that complement each other. The main story is narrated in the “main” body of the book, by the perspective of the characters, and the secondary story is narrated on footnotes. This is the very first book that I read with this structure, and I must say that it exceeded by far my expectations.
The author was unknown to me, so I didn’t know what to expect from the book, but I must say that I was pleasantly surprised. JJ is a very unique character, a gifted and troubled boy, who is much different than the people that surround them. After some events that make him go through a rough time, he decides to volunteer for a pioneer experimental project: Somnos – the project consists of inducing a coma to convicts of crimes, decreasing the expenses with their imprisonment.
Many important issues are addressed throughout the narrative:
- Children traffic,
- Ethical issues related with using people as guinea pigs,
- The involvement of public opinion on experimental projects led by the government,
- The media exploitation of the volunteers’ lives,
- Etc.
The biggest downside that I can point out, is that it can be daunting to go back and forth through the book to be able to read both parts of the story at the same time. Other than that, I find that this book is a very nice piece of literary fiction, and I’m very glad that I’ve been given the opportunity to review it before its public release.

[Cassandra. · Rating 1 out of 5]

Two stories in one - the life of a young man (dark) and his participation in a governmental experiment. The story of JJ's life is a fast read; the footnotes of the coma (the experiment) impossible to read- philosophical, academic, psychological, political babble. If you do decide to read this book, read the story, then go back and read the footnotes.

[Chloe · Rating 4 out of 5]

i loved the characters. despite the length, they were throughly developed and felt genuine. could give or take the footnotes, but the concept was definitely intriguing.

[Shay · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received a free review copy of this book at ALA Midwinter 2013. All quotes are based on an uncorrected text.

By all accounts, JJ O’Malley is a somewhat unusual young man. Adopted from a Romanian orphanage by an old Irish bachelor, and taken back to County Mayo, Ireland, JJ is raised there, and grows up to show a prodigious intellect. But in some respects, JJ is too smart for his own good, and his mind seems to eat at itself, spinning endlessly through impossible questions and conjectures, occasionally driving him to unusual behaviour. So when Ireland announces its participation in the Somnos Project, a European Union penal experiment in which criminals can serve their sentences in a deep coma, JJ volunteers to serve as the control patient. The unusual experiment draws attention from around the world and overnight JJ and his fellow prisoners become celebrities almost in the manner of reality television.

JJ spends the novel in his artificially induced coma, and his story is told to us by his father, his girlfriend, a former teacher, a family friend, and his member of parliament, who was responsible for Ireland’s participation in the experiment. Their different relationships to JJ build on one another to slowly reveal different aspects of his character and his past. Each voice is distinct and carefully realized, reflecting the age, gender and class of the speaker. Coma-bound, JJ does not speak for himself, but only in their memories. In a way, the reader becomes the fascinated public of the novel, eager for more information about the celebrity, but unable to access him directly.

The voices of JJ’s family and friends are counterpointed by frequent footnotes, which are sometimes only tangentially related to the point in the story at which they are attached. The language of the footnotes diverges sharply, taking a high academic tone in contrast to the more colloquial monologues of JJ’s loved ones. Some provide supplemental information about Irish history and geography, while others philosophize about the cultural and ethical implications of the Somnos Project. At times however, the academese was so exaggerated, that I was put in mind of the Sokal Hoax. Many of these footnotes are long and sprawling, extending across as much as five pages, and making it difficult to return to the flow of the narrative. I experimented with reading each footnote as it arose, and with reading all of the footnotes at the end of a chapter, but was unable arrive at a satisfying method for getting through them.

Despite the intriguing science fiction premise, I would hesitate to classify the book as such. The Somnos Project is, in some ways, almost incidental to JJ’s story, which is quite compelling even before he becomes involved with the penal experiment. It is a story of politics, psychology, metaphysics and family that defies easy classification.

From http://shayshortt.wordpress.com/2013/...

[Robyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Such a compelling and interesting story. However, the addition of footnotes on every other page removed the immersion for myself. I felt like I got to know every character well except for JJ due to the choice of narration. I was quite drawn in by the synopsis but it unfortunately did not live up to expectations.

[Dylan McCormack · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite books. A weird mix of Sci-Fi and Irish pastoral writing.

[Kane Powell · Rating 5 out of 5]

oi bruv what if the nature of consciousness is fundamentally unknowable

[Tracy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Notes From a Coma is a fascinating, complex, and utterly amazing book. Set in an Ireland that is present day (or close to it) but slightly altered, it tells the story of JJ O'Malley- he is a super-intelligent, and densely layered young man. This break comes in the form of him volunteering for an experimental prison concept, which aims to put convicts into deep coma for some portion of their sentence. While it is known he is completely innocent, JJ volunteers as a control and has complex reasons for doing so.

The book features a radical format of two concurrent storylines- one in the main body of the text focusing mainly on JJ's origins. This storyline is written from the perspectives of multiple people who knew him. The other storyline focuses on the present- what JJ has become and the various cultural implications therein. This storyline is presented as footnotes to the other one (the "Notes" referred to in the title). While confusing and disjointed at first, I found myself racing ahead to read through each section as they overlapped. It was kind of fun.

I had no idea what to expect from this book. I received it some time ago as part of the Goodreads Giveaway program, but I was travelling a lot. I kept picking it up and wanted to want to read it, but I couldn't quite get there. When I finally did, I read it nearly straight through. I had never heard of the author, and couldn't quite get a handle on what this book was going to be, based on the blurb, etc. I don't think anything would have quite prepared me for it, save possibly reading some Goodreads reviews.

There were a few questions I kept expecting to have answered over the course of this book, which were left unresolved. Most glaringly, the issue of WHY the volunteers have so overwhelmingly entered the national consciousness. There are repeated mentions of the many ways the public became interested in them, but questions surrounding that were left unaddressed. Additionally, I felt the book just kind of...ended. There wasn't a clear resolution, or even one that left specific questions. It seems like there could potentially be a sequel, but I doubt it. Regardless, I thought the book was pretty amazing, and I plan to look up other books by Mike McCormack as well as recommend this one to friends.

[Nikki in Niagara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Astounding! Just loved it! First off though it was not what I had originally thought it would be. I was under the impression it was some sort of science fiction dystopia about prisoners being put into comas. It's not. The book takes place in a present day Ireland, if not exactly *the* present day Ireland; the author takes liberties to make his reality work. The writing is not linear and this will put some readers off but this format of telling a story from the points of view of a group of alternating narrators is one of my favourite devices and I was hooked by the second chapter. On the surface we have typical Irish literature: the lives of a rural family, (while not dysfunctional) an unhappy family for the most part, especially JJ the main character. JJ's life is told from his adoption up through his participation in this government trial coma program for prisoners. JJ is a unique volunteer though and the book tells how that comes to be. I loved JJ and his father; the other characters held no special charm for me but were very important in the telling. What makes this book different, perhaps avant-garde, maybe pretentious, is the author has chosen to add footnotes which tell a separate story of the prison coma program called Somnos. These footnotes continuously interrupt the flow the of the novel and can take up the bottom portion of several pages in a row causing you to hold your place as you read them. It takes a bit to get used to them but honestly, after a while, I got the flow and while I at first thought it was indeed pretentious on the author's part to use this device instead of using separate chapters to tell this part of the story, I did become used to it and in the end can say I enjoyed it. Not something I'd like to see become a norm but certainly a unique device by McCormack that turns out to succeed and I found the story to be a fantastic look into the psyche of a depressed man, while also enjoying the occasional thoughts of the Catholic characters whether they were practising or not. Very much a literary novel but when all is said and done, a simple story and an easy read. I may read another of the author's books if the summaries entice me as I appreciated his style and outlook.

[Karen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I pretty much read this in one go. Superb writing. I just wanted to know more about the actual experiment. So many unanswered questions about it and what happened next.

[Jaya Viswanathan · Rating 4 out of 5]

It had been a while since I read a book that inspired me as much as Ursula K LeGuin's "Left hand of Darkness"; until, that is, I read "Notes from a Coma". This layered and textured narrative about one lad's journey through love and loss to absolution was by turns funny and heart-wrenching. Like the Irish people he represents, it captures the surface cheer and underlying sorrow of JJ O'Malley; a character never heard from directly, but seen through the eyes of the people in his life. The most wonderful aspect of the book was the philosophical one. Underlying the book is a thought experiment - an alternative to the current prison system. Through this, the author explores all manners of ethical, technological, legal and socio-political ramifications of such an alternative. By no means exhaustive, the author still sparks enough of an internal dialogue in the reader to provide food for thought for several days and inspire research into the topic.

Besides this, the actual narrative of the life of JJ was also thought provoking. I enjoyed reading the multiple person point of view storylines, at different time points and time directionalities; these fractured narratives set up interesting predictions and gaps in knowledge of JJ and his life, engrossing the reader very effectively.
The story is simple and poignant; as JJ internalizes his feelings of guilt and tries to atone - as an innocent man - the reader comes away with the knowledge of how he enriches the lives of people around him. Full of ideas and curiosity to begin with, the guilt almost snuffs out the light in him due to events that transpire out of his control. This is easy to relate to for anyone who feels deeply.

The only thing that was the drawback for me was the sheer volume and verbosity of some of the footnotes. I loved most of them, but sometimes, it just felt like the author was showing off his proficiency of the language, using a string of barely pronounceable words to ineffectively say something inane. Other footnotes were delightful, funny and insightful.

As a neuroscientist, I was also tickled by the neuro aspect of the somnos project. The idea of continuously monitoring brain activity without any specific scientific question makes it improbable, but still highly entertaining. Fundamentally though, the author tries to raise questions about consciousness, and sometimes the appeal in being able to turn off the continuous narrative in our heads.

Overall, a must read!

[Kevin Tole · Rating 3 out of 5]

The quality of this review has much to do with Firefox' ability to present a stable platform. Having written a long review it became lost to the ether when Crash City occurred.

So here's the skinny.

3 star - nearer three than four.

A hell of an undertaking for a slim book.

Stylistically difficult - footnotes presenting another line to the text - a further subtext - which examines other attributes and develops questions and issues raised by the text. These become intrusive - or extrusive! one might say - as they run along the bottom of the page over several pages. Why not just present them in the body of the text inset block quote-like in italics IN the body of the text which is where they formally stand, not as footnotes. Gripe 1.

Gripe 2. Its almost trying to outsmart itself. In a look-at-me-ain't-I-good sort of way. The ideas about Coma - lack of consciousness - are really only followed in the footnotes which have the same kind of 'smart arse' taste to them as some of the taste of the main body of text. And yet....... and yet....... isn't there always an 'and yet'. Some of the writing is great, beautiful even at times, with the occasional canny observation and wry turn of phrase that catches you unawares.

But in the end it skates the issues it raises, avoiding for the main part the issue set out. The observation of life through the eyes of the nearest and dearest observers to the protagonist is always a useful tool. It allows O'Malley AND the other characters to share in the development of the book.

But in the end.................

it all seems..................

a little too like a student with a slick first night stand-up comic routine. You've seen 'em. They all seem the same in the end. Wry observations. A little bit leftie liberally. Cosy even.

So I'm still left with the thought that yer man might be the Emperor's New Clothes rather than the New Monarch of the Glen.

Pity.

PS. Solar Bones is better but then it should be.

[Jack · Rating 1 out of 5]

Among all the stylistic devices available to the writer, footnotes have to rank among my least favourite. Especially when they start using the obscure medieval symbols and the quincunxes or whatever they're called. McCormack uses footnotes to tell this story from a strange, omniscient perspective while the rest of the chapters jump around generic Irish people. The character's voices are only half-realised and I never found the footnote sections interesting or poetic.
I found the book an especially jarring read as I read Solar Bones in university and absolutely loved it—not sure I would now...there are many problems I can voice, but besides my own fussiness with footnotes, I find McCormack's characters extremely unconvincing, and this is bad when they're all supposed to be villagers 90 minutes from my own hometown. Again, I can't really argue why I found them unconvincing—I wanted to enjoy the book, but found myself stumbling. Despite my star rating, I definitely would recommend this book, if the blurb interests you, as I think McCormack deserves more readers and I could see others really liking this. I'm still grappling with why I didn't, and will read more McCormack as I work through that.

[Jordan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mike McCormack became an instant favourite when I read Solar Bones, and Notes From A Coma is equally phenomenal.

This story is almost told in two parts. The first centres on JJ, a young man participating as an innocent “control” in an experiment in which prisoners are placed in a coma on a ship floating off the coast of Ireland. He volunteers to “take his mind off his mind” after a suffering a breakdown. We learn about his circumstances—his adoption, his brilliant mind, a traumatic experience—from those close to him, such as his father, his teacher, and his girlfriend.

The second, and the more sci-fi element, is told through footnotes that often span several pages. We learn about the nature of the experiment through these notes, explained as though from an involved scientist.

Despite hearing about him through second-hand accounts, I felt JJ’s character (as were they all) was compelling and sympathetic. I loved the choice of narration that held him at arm’s length; the reader feels like one of the many ‘fans’ watching this experiment unfold, piecing together the life of this unusual, fascinating young man.

[Andrew · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable. I've rarely read an author more adept at providing a unique voice to each of their characters. I had expected the novel to revolve around the Somnos experiment, but instead it was a character-driven tale focused on the small Irish community where one of the volunteers grew up. Other than the footnotes, the entire story recalls the years before the experiment began. The long, meandering footnotes, written in a style to contrast the folksy narrative, were fun, though the author occasionally gets away from himself, having a bit too much fun rambling at the expense of the story.

I would definitely read another book by McCormack, though I confess I would have no idea what to expect from it.

[Ape · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not at all what I was expecting from the blurb on the book. Although that does happen, it's right at the very end and almost seems incidental. Is this supposed to be some modern Jesus's retelling? I don't know enough of the Bible to say. I did find this book depressing, so much that whilst it's very clever I don't want to spend any more time trying to figure it out.

Really it's the story of JJ O'Malley, a Romanian orphan who is adopted by a lonely Irish farmer, who takes him back to the west coast of Ireland. And there he has a much better life than he might have had. But JJ IS exceptionally bright with an enquiring mind he simply can't turn off and seems to get stuck in some existence crisis in his mind. Bad things in life happen and he doesn't always manage to process them.

[Kelsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really enjoyed the plot of this book. The storyline enticed me, but I wish that the footnotes were instead sections within the book, or just within the text itself. I didn’t really lose my spot all too often, but the readability of the main text in combination with the scientific language of the footnotes definitely frustrated me at times. I also would have been more interested in learning more about the coma research and process earlier on, as leaving it towards the end of the book felt slightly rushed. While this book is readable, enjoyable and philosophical, I felt as though it built up to an ending that touched the surface of an extended story that should perhaps be considered.

[Simon J Alvey · Rating 4 out of 5]

What a fascinating book, telling the parallel stories of an experiment to place prisoners in an induced coma and the life of the innocent man who volunteers to be the control it is both a novel of ideas, about consciousness and faith, and reality TV and a wonderfully warm account of a man's life, told with McCormack's deep humanity. Both are done brilliantly, but the former feels like a historical object of 2005 in its concerns, and the latter is a timeless thing

[Volkan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Dip notlar kitabın yarısına kadar beni çok dağıttı, ikinci yarısında okumayı bıraktım ve hikaye daha iyi gitti. 3 yıldız verirken de ilk yarının dip notsuz daha iyi olacağını düşünerek veriyorum. Hikaye yöntemi olarak ilginçti, farklı kişilerin gözünden farklı zamanlarda bölümler. Hikayede tam olarak sonuçlanmamış şekilde bitti.

[Gayle · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book was a great idea that never really took flight. I liked the concept but not its execution. Even the use of footnotes as part of the text proper, which I normally like, seemed like a device and nothing more. I just felt like I was waiting for something to get started the whole time and then suddenly there were no more pages to read.

[Ciaran Finnegan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Exceptional. It’s a more subtle commentary on Ireland than Donal Ryan’s works, but also completely absorbing, clever, and challenging. The ‘sci-fi’ label is a bit of a misnomer, as ‘sci-fi’ as 1984 but on a much more compact and human scale.

[Frances Wilde · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ending was a bit anticlimactic but I loved the five different narrators! And the believable building of a character whose intelligence and self-awareness was his downfall

[David Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

Somber, intense, thought-provoking .. both a provocative novel of ideas and an intimate character study.

[Emir Tamer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Bilimkurgu diye almıştım, ama...

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

For me the test of the success of a book is time. I’m not sure if this is a 3 or 4 and so, for now, it is a 3.5. It may change in six months.

[Startinmerc · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fine. Fine. Fine. It was fine. I think high expectations after Solar Bones did this some harm, it's just not as good. A couple of corners turned, but... meh. 3.1

[Everett Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

Never came together, and the footnotes were a terrible decision. The description of this novel on the back cover sounded amazing-- i still would like to read that book, instead of the one i got.

[Althea · Rating 3 out of 5]

Could not finish. The writing is lovely, the characters well-drawn, but too metaphysical for me to tolerate.