Thank you Amazon Crossing for allowing me to read and review Hospital on NetGalley.

Published: 03/01/23

Stars: 2.5

Odd.

Go ahead judge me -- 414 pages and I don't know if this was a dream, a nightmare, or a fever-induced story. I don't know if this was intended to be a political statement through satire. I feel like Jerry Seinfeld pitching a sitcom about nothing as I write this. The nothing in Hospital sadly is true, albeit mostly hidden.

A man becomes ill away from home and the traditional elements transpire: Should he go to the ER? Is there a facility that will take his insurance? What about his employer? The hotel where he is staying is quite helpful and the story begins.

This is not for everyone, not for mainstream readers. It's unique and kitsch. I'm not disappointed that I picked it and I don't resent the time I spent reading. I do wish I understood it.

I don't recall any swearing.

I have a bad habit of picking a book for its cover. While this book has a gorgeous cover and fits all my favorite genres, I just couldn't get into it. I have read my fairly share of weird, disgusting or quirky books to say that wasnt what made me dislike the book. It did feel a bit incoherent and even pretentious at times.

'Hospital' is a scathing, complex, and barely-veiled critique, though of what, I'm not exactly sure. Discussion of the medical industrial complex, Westernization, and totalitarianism are all present throughout the work, sometimes combining and coalescing, showing how one cannot necessarily be disentangled from the other. The prose is deceptively simple at some points, but then veers quickly into complex, almost rambling sections that feel overwhelming. The translation work done here was wonderful. This novel certainly has it's place in the realm of modern cultural critique.

That being said, I found the book to be a repetitive and over-the-top slog through the themes listed above, with an edge of ridiculousness and surreality that I generally don't enjoy without a bit more of a through line that I can follow through the work. There was a lack of personal resonance with this work that I think would have allowed me to better understand the themes. In all fairness, I am not in a position ethnically or nationally to fully understand the perspective of the author. Generally, with contemporary fiction novels that aim to make a commentary of real-world conditions, I find myself just wanting to set the fictionalized account aside in favor of nonfiction alternatives. This was something I wanted to do frequently while reading 'Hospital'.

HOSPITAL by Han Song (#gifted by Amazon Crossing) is a really f*cking weird book.

I feel like I have to preface this by admitting this isn’t going to be most people’s cup of tea. I feel the urge to review this publicly mostly for the sake of rebutting Goodreads reviews by white people that always make me face palm.

As for the review, I have one big gripe about this book, and it’s about the amount of times rape and incest are brought up in this book. I get what the author is trying to get at, but he could have done it any other way to show the breakdown of family conventions. But male writers really can’t contain themselves.

The story itself though, is about a middle-aged man named Yang Wei who takes a business trip to a city to write a corporate jingle. He drinks a bottle of water and suddenly experiences stomach pain. He’s brought to a hospital as a patient. What he thinks will be a simple procedure turns into a nightmarish journey in a hospital system he can’t escape. It’s claustrophobic and frustrating. As he grows delirious, so does the reader as you try to figure out fact from fiction.

Goodreads reviewers always complain about Asian characters falling flat or being unrelatable. Honestly I think they just don’t know how to read anything that doesn’t follow western storytelling conventions. I feel like I have to constantly repeat myself when I say that Chinese storytelling is different and often the characters are subject to the whims of their surroundings. They aren’t always the hero characters. They’re often part of a bigger societal picture.

The second thing is the hospital setting. It’s very clear that this is some sort of allusion to something else, and not actually about being ill or about ableism. The translator’s notes mention that it has a more political commentary. But like a lot of Chinese speculative fiction, you really have to read between the lines to figure out what’s actually happening. I do think part of this is due to years of censorship. And you have to have some context on Chinese politics to figure out that this book is about censorship in a roundabout way.

Yang Wei is trapped and then deluded where his sense of reality becomes distorted. I feel like I shouldn’t have to spell it out how it riffs off of Chinese media and it’s censorship. The author himself works for a Chinese news company.

Personally, I enjoyed reading it, since I’m always looking for more Chinese translated fiction. This does feel a bit like a standard pick for English publishers looking for Chinese political content. I do wish the translator’s delved into it a bit more but with a white translator, I do wonder if they often miss details that a Chinese translator would have caught. I also find a lot of white translators to be quite dry in their delivery, which I wonder if that’s why this book read a bit drier. Clearly I’ve been a little spoiled by Ken Liu and Jeremy Tiang.

I think it could be interesting for someone interested in Chinese scifi literature, but I don’t think this is really going to be everyone’s choice.

I have mixed feelings about this book because on one hand the premise of the story — a social and political commentary on Chinese society, the medical system and so forth — was interesting, but on the other hand the book felt like an absolute drag to get through. It felt like it went on for far too long, it felt too long winded, and as if the author wasn’t exactly sure where he wanted the story to go — like he made it up on the go.

This isn’t surprising when reading the translator’s commentary, which btw provides a great insight into the translation process, core understandings of the source text, and a short description on the references in the book to parts of Chinese society. The translator basically talks about, when it comes to the translation process, that the text he translated was from the original draft and not the final book, and that the author and him basically cut-and-pasted wherever. It seems like a very creative process, I’m sure it was a very interesting and unique experience, but I feel it’s also what left things to be desired in the book.

As I said, it felt long winded and that it was simply just too long. I wish it had been shorter. I also wish it didn’t leave the reader feeling like nothing was accomplished in the end — like why leave a reader feeling like the reading process was initially for nought? I guess the ending and the overall story is all up to interpretation and however you interpret it, makes the overall reading experience different to others.
I’ll give the book credit for keeping my interest piqued enough to want to continue, just to find out what was actually happening (I got no answer) and also out of stubbornness as this was an ARC I finally read through from last year. There were weird and hilarious moments, it felt very satirical and very “weird fiction” a lot of the time, but then you had intense moments of misogyny and off-putting rapey comments which really took me out of my reading experience.

Hospital by Han Song was overall an Experience™ and one which I dreaded engaging in, but alas here we are at the end, so I can’t justify a very high rating of it.

I received an ARC by the publisher, Amazon Crossing, through NetGalley for an exchange of my honest review.

I found this book extremely difficult to follow and decided it wasn't worth the effort to continue. The prologue itself was a chore to finish. It didn't hold my interest.

I DNF'd this one after a while - this was just not good. The writing was clunky and the imagination was not where it needed to be. Sorry!

Firstly, do not let the negative comments on Goodreads deter you. While HOSPITAL is definitely not for everyone, these reviewers are exceedingly shallow and there’s no convincing a 10-page DNFer anyway.

But I'll admit, I struggled a bit to get into the book myself. Like Yang Wei, I had no idea what’s going on and all I could do was rely on my guide and follow them into unknowingness, desperately hoping something would start making sense soon.

But having previously read Han Song, I should have known better. The plot instead grows increasingly bizarre until the pinnacle of its absurdity when, suddenly I realize I’m utterly hooked.

Reading HOSPITAL is a harrowing experience, like being served a plate of rotting flesh and maggots laced with opium for dinner. It’s dark, vile, grotesque, repulsive… and indescribably addicting.

A warning to those who’re easily offended: genetic engineering in a dystopian setting opens the doors to highly controversial possibilities, and there’s enough TWs to fill half a caption. Although it wasn’t a part of the main story, medical experimentation as a sci-fi element was actually a very enjoyable part of the book for me, unethical as it may be.

HOSPITAL is a multi-layered novel, simultaneously allegorical and satirical. It’s dark, funny, critical, deeply philosophical, and will push the boundaries of what is permissible in the publishing world.

Han Song is a demigod at the craft of weird literature and shows us why he is the undisputed king of Chinese dark fiction.

Thank you, Amazon Crossing and NetGalley for my first-ever ARC!

Though Hospital follows one man's journey through a dystopian healthcare system, the book feels so much larger. The horrors of government, rapid urbanization, and misplaced faith and care creep in slowly but surely, effectively creating a sense of dread. It creates a surprising blend that I haven't quite read before of horror and sci-fi and the book feels as relevant today as it was when originally published in Chinese. I'm very curious how Yang Wei's story ends and what other layers Han Song will add to this world once the rest of the trilogy has been published.

I did not enjoy this book. It was ableist, uninteresting, and shocking for the sake of shock. Save your time and choose something else.

Couldn't get into this but tried really hard. Just didn't capture nor hold my interest. Sorry, wouldn't recommend.

A twisted dystopian story about Yang Wei. Yang is an imaginative character who is put into some difficult situations and all he wants to do is the right thing. This story is a rollercoaster ride that will keep the reader engrossed in the story until the very end.

Disclaimer: Thank you to NetGalley and Amazon Crossing for this ARC, I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.

To be honest, I didn’t really like this book, and to be fair, I don’t really know why. I liked the storyline, but sometimes I didn’t like how it was written, and sometimes it felt dull. I might give it a try some other time.

This had an interesting premise throughout that was definitely intriguing, however the writing style felt very stilted and "factual" that kept me from fully engaging in the story.

DNF - I really appreciate the premise of this story & perhaps, had I been in a different state of mind, I might have truly been able to immerse myself in the flow. Unfortunately, I realized very early on that the format of this story isn't for me; I'm not the target reader. Should this be made into a film (visual format) I would watch it. For the time being, I am removing myself from the reader race & setting this aside for the readers who will find so much to adore within the narrative.

I don't think this book was for me. I didn't connect, I didn't feel attracted to him and it's a shame because the synopsis had caught my attention a lot.

It touches on very sensitive topics, in a way that you may like, or you may not like at all, there are no grays and I think I'm on the dark side, on the side that I couldn't really empathize or understand the author's point of view on certain topics.

I think it is a reading that challenges you to think and also to see other realities and experiences, but it was not for me.

I feel like it's a book that's going to be very controversial.

I admit I just ended up skipping some parts to try to get to the good bits. Perhaps some meanings were lost to me because it is a translated fiction (I find a lot of English translations awkward, even the best of them), but I found this just mainly bizarre and I don't think I liked it.

I don't think it's fair of me to rate this book bc I really don't understand what I read. It was wild. I'm not a big sci reader although this didn't necessarily feel sci Fi. There was something about the story that kept me reading though. I'm going to give this a 3 star review bc it wasn't badly written it just kind of fell flat for me.

Hospital by Han Song is a dystopian, sci-fi book set in the near future. If the title didn't already give it away, this tale is told in the setting of a hospital so trigger warning for anyone who is afraid of hospitals. This book also touches on chronic illnesses/ disabilities, and contains some sexual content that might be triggering for some.. There did seem to be (although it could just be my fault) where some of the words/phrases did not seem to translate well.

"Hospital" is a modern-day Orwellian dystopian. Through Song's Buddhist perspective,, the "Hospital" offers an opportunity to examine our medical and political system, cosmos, and beliefs. Song's use of the hospital as a city seemed especially relevant to 2020.

While "Hospital"explores what it means to be sick, and what healing means, it also presents an incredibly unflattering view of the chronically ill. Song writes of the ill as merely wanting to be sick, finding comfort in pain, desiring diagnoses because they WANT to have X condition, and want unnecessary treatments. While there MAY be SOME truth in that diagnosis and treatment are reliant on the patient, the depictions bordered on groteqsque. It did however raise some valid points: (doctors make mistakes and shouldn't be under threat of getting sued, harassed, or threatened/abused.)

It also takes a deep dive into the VAST corruption of the medical system and the Doctor-God complex. In the book, the hospital confiscates personal belongings and signs all their belongings as collateral for future costs incurred, charges INSANE interest rates, and blames patients for not accepting treatment and not placing enough faith in the hospital/doctors. It explores the corruption that is the US health-care system.

Despite my many gripes with this book, I also thought it offered a unique perspective and served its purpose: to make the reader think critically.. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

This book is intelligent and makes you think.
A good piece of social satire that’s a bit unconventional.
I don’t know if I enjoyed the book. Still, I will remember how it made me uncomfortable and questioned how sickness is perceived in society and power dynamics.