The Coma

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The Coma is a novel by Alex Garland, illustrated by his father, Nicholas Garland. [1] It explores the boundary between the conscious and subconscious mind. The Coma was published in 2004, eight years after Garland's first novel, The Beach. Alex Garland is in a position that most writers dream of. Young, financially flush and extremely successful. But The Coma is such a letdown that one wonders if Garland has fallen prey to the business side of writing. With his nest egg and fan base, there was no need for him to rush out this unpolished and instantly forgettable book. It's unfortunate that with his third effort, he's overplayed his bluff. | August 2004

Annihilation' director Alex Garland chats with CNET about the upcoming film". CNET. 8 February 2018 . Retrieved 18 March 2018– via YouTube. @ 32m15s-33m30sGarland is very good at recreating the virtual worlds of the half-awake and then subtly dissolving them. As his protagonist realises that he is only dreaming about recovery from his assault, he questions where his thinking self is located. The result is compelling and chilling. Fritz, Ben; Brodesser, Claude (3 February 2005). "Halo, Hollywood, Microsoft readies video game for first pic". Variety. Archived from the original on 5 April 2005 . Retrieved 23 September 2022. The Coma is a haunting story on the nature of reality and the search for identity. It could also be read as many other things like the purpose of memories in informing our reality, the aim of narrative in our lives and our art, and, more simply, a fine, unusual entertainment for fiction lovers everywhere. Definitely well worth a read. But there is no real answer to The Coma. The ending is that most polarising of finales: open-ended. In a way, that’s the best choice to end it - to give the illusion of finality while leaving poor Carl in his spiral of never-ending searching. In that interpretation, this is a very true representation of being in a coma - the same thing going on and on forever until you either wake up or die. Though really a narrative of aimlessness could never have a solid conclusion due to its nature.

Alex Garland". British Council. n.d. Archived from the original on 9 February 2018 . Retrieved 9 February 2018. a b c Lewis, Tim (11 January 2015). "Alex Garland on Ex Machina: 'I feel more attached to this film than to anything before' ". The Guardian. Urban in Shirey, Paul (7 March 2018). "EXC: Karl Urban Says Alex Garland Directed Dredd & Updates on Reprising Role". JoBlo.com. Archived from the original on 7 March 2018 . Retrieved 8 March 2018. A huge part of the success of 'Dredd' is in fact due to Alex Garland and what a lot of people don't realize is that Alex Garland actually directed that movie. ... I just hope when people think of Alex Garland's filmography that 'Dredd' is the first film that he made before Ex Machina. Miller, Ross (14 July 2006). "DB Weiss takes on Halo script". Engadget. Archived from the original on 22 September 2020 . Retrieved 23 September 2022.The atmosphere of the book reminded me of reading Kafka, that sense of shifting alienation. He agrees that it was exactly that mood that he was trying to generate. a b Watson, Grant (6 November 2014). " 'Something in the blood' | 28 Days Later... (2002)". Fiction Machine . Retrieved 21 June 2018. It’s interesting how Garland looks at language as well - Carl has been in a coma for so long that he begins to forget how to use and the meaning of language. He throws out unconnected words and then muses on why those don’t make sense but others do, like the ones he uses to express himself. Or do they? Towards the end, the gibberish begins to make sense to him. Does that mean he’s freeing himself from the bonds of the author? Does that mean he’s deteriorating - that he’s actually dying and his brain is giving up?

I often find writing a kind of irritating way to spend my one shot at life. I never felt short of things to write about. It was more to do with the will to write. I'd read stuff I'd written and think, "Who cares? I don't. Why should anyone else?"' The Coma isn't without its moments. A trip to a bookstore and a record shop are entertaining digressions that recall Garland's culturally attuned ear (and made The Beach a big hit). But with The Dark Tower's urban identity crisis hovering in recent memory (with text and literal illustrations to boot), these two moments feel lifted from Stephen King's muddled riffs. After bolting out of the gates with The Beach, which met both popular and critical success (and a sizable advance), Alex Garland drew comparisons to Graham Greene for his sparse, quasi-cinematic prose and his juxtaposition of Gen-X angst with westerners wandering exotic lands. Garland followed his debut up with The Tesseract, an inexplicably condemned novel that explored circumstance and coincidence, painted a percolating mosaic of the Philippines, and hinted at a deeper human intimacy germinating in Garland's gourd. Salisbury, Mark. "Home on the Rage". Fangoria. Vol.May 2007, no.263. Starlog Group, Inc. pp.31–34. ASIN B001QLDCPC. Garland made his directorial debut with Ex Machina, a 2014 feature film based on his own story and screenplay. Starring Domhnall Gleeson, Alicia Vikander and Oscar Isaac. the film won a Jury Prize at the 2015 Gerardmer Film Festival and earned Garland a nomination for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay.

A man wakes after a brutal subway assault to a world that isn't quite right, in this brief but unputdownable summer read from the author of "The Beach."

There’s also other ways to interpret The Coma: it might be an exercise in exploring narrative fiction from the perspective of the character. Carl is a character in a novel, so this story might be about him slowly realising this. All he knows are the facts that the author has supplied him with that we see in the opening passage of the book: he works in an office with papers, he has a secretary, he was brutally assaulted, and he’s in a coma. When he thinks about other aspects of his life, he draws a blank. If that could happen to Carl, could it happen to us – are we characters in a story we’re not aware of? Garland has recently become a father, I wonder if this growing sense of domestication makes it harder for him to summon the disconnectedness that his books describe. Lovece, Frank (20 February 2018). "Unnatural Resource: Alex Garland and Natalie Portman probe the mysteries of 'Annihilation' ". Film Journal International. Archived from the original on 21 February 2018 . Retrieved 22 February 2018. Q. You were born in London, May 26, 1970? Correct? A. Yep, that's right. So I'm told. Cailee Spaeny on What to Expect From Alex Garland's New Show, Devs". Indiewire. 26 July 2019 . Retrieved 7 September 2019.

Granted, length is hardly the arbiter of quality. But The Coma is hardly Albert Camus. Its plot, which bears discomfiting similarities to the opening moments of 28 Days Later (a man emerging from a coma, trying to unravel his displacement), is as thin as its binding. The Coma is the sad revelation of a once fresh talent running on empty. Garland made his directorial debut when he wrote and directed the sci-fi thriller Ex Machina (2014). The film earned him an Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay and won him three British Independent Film Awards (Best Screenplay, Best Director, and Best British Independent Film). His second film, Annihilation (2018), was an adaptation of the 2014 novel and was also a critical success. He wrote and directed the miniseries Devs (2020) and the horror film Men (2022). a b Fritz, Ben (31 October 2006). "No home for 'Halo' pic". Variety. Archived from the original on 17 August 2010 . Retrieved 23 September 2022.Kroll, Justin (29 April 2016). " 'Containment' Star Joins Natalie Portman in 'Annihilation' ". Variety . Retrieved 9 April 2017. Robinson, Joanna (30 March 2016). "Oscar Isaac Re-unites with Ex Machina Director to Join the All-Female Cast of Annihilation". Vanity Fair . Retrieved 30 March 2016. Grobat, Matt (21 January 2022). "Alex Garland Reteams With A24 For Action Epic 'Civil War'; Kirsten Dunst, Wagner Moura & More Set To Star". Deadline Hollywood . Retrieved 4 April 2022. A reviewer for Bookslut said, "Initially, some of Garland’s motifs and literary devices seemed too elaborate and obscure; yet on a second read they disentangle and shine." [4] It's a short read. It was always designed to be. I suspect it would not have worked had it been much longer. Those jumps in mental landscape get frustrating after a while. You need something to grip on to.'