Decoded: A Novel
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Decoded: A Novel Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

3.3 out of 5 stars 370
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One of China's best-selling novels, an unusual literary thriller that takes us deep into the world of code breaking

In his gripping debut novel, Mai Jia reveals the mysterious world of Unit 701, a top-secret Chinese intelligence agency whose sole purpose is counterespionage and code breaking.

Rong Jinzhen, an autistic math genius with a past shrouded in myth, is forced to abandon his academic pursuits when he is recruited into Unit 701. As China's greatest cryptographer, Rong discovers that the mastermind behind the maddeningly difficult Purple Code is his former teacher and best friend, who is now working for China's enemy - but this is only the first of many betrayals.

Brilliantly combining the mystery and tension of a spy thriller with the psychological nuance of an intimate character study and the magical qualities of a Chinese fable, Decoded discovers in cryptography the key to the human heart. Both a riveting mystery and a metaphysical examination of the mind of an inspired genius, it is the first novel to be published in English by one of China's greatest and most popular contemporary writers.

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  1. Listening Length
    15 hours and 19 minutes
  2. Author
    Mai Jia, see all
  3. Narrator
    Ryan Gesell
  4. Audible release date
    March 18, 2014
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B00J09GO84
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
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Product details

Listening Length 15 hours and 19 minutes
Author Mai Jia, Christopher Payne - translator, Olivia Milburn - translator
Narrator Ryan Gesell
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date March 18, 2014
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B00J09GO84
Best Sellers Rank #206,880 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#1,808 in Espionage Thrillers (Audible Books & Originals)
#5,276 in Espionage Thrillers (Books)
#7,626 in Literary Fiction (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

3.3 out of 5 stars
3.3 out of 5
370 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Timothy L Mayer
4.0 out of 5 stars Coded Madness
Reviewed in the United States on February 1, 2015
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Decoded by Mai Jia is the first English publication of one of China’s famous writers. First published in 2002, it’s the story of Rong Jinzhen, a mathematical genius who becomes China’s greatest cryptographer. It’s an amazing book with a story of espionage, spies and secret codes which pulls the reader into the narrative. The author also manages to make some profound observations on the nature of state secrets and the human condition.

The novel is written like a biography. The author is the narrator who is trying to find the real story behind China’s greatest code breaker, Rong Jinzhen. He doesn’t have a lot of information to go on in the beginning since his subject is clouded in mystery and official government secrecy. The author is forced to interview all kinds of people who knew Jinzhen and where he originated. Much of the novel is written in the form of transcripted interviews with the people who knew the man: his wife, family members, colleges and government directors. Eventually, Jinzhen’s story emerges.

We find out that Jinzhen was raised in a family compound of genteel poverty. The family had been wealthy salt merchants, but fell on hard times. Decades earlier, one of the prominent members of the clan had traveled to an unamed foreign country and leaned he talented in mathematics. When he returned to China, he changed his name to John Lillie and started a college for teaching math. Years later he had a daughter who became a mathematical prodigy, traveled all over the world before tragically dying in childbirth. Her son became a wastrel, spending his short life spending money and seducing women. After he died mysteriously, a woman showed up at the family compound claiming to be pregnant with his child. She too died in childbirth, but Jinzhen was born. Shunned by the rest of the family, Jinzhen is raised by an elderly foreigner who had attached himself to the family. Eventually, another family member comes to fetch Jinzhen for the college founded by his great-grandfather. Adopted into the new branch of the family, Jinzhen is discovered to be a self-taught mathematical genius.

Western readers will find the book fascinating as it shows the way prominent families organized themselves before the downfall of imperial China. The extended family of salt merchants live in a huge compound complete with servants and guards. As they fall from fortune, the palace becomes empty and weed-choked. This is the environment where Jinzhen reaches his maturity: ignored by the rest of the clan as a bastard and cared for by a lonely foreigner. It’s mentioned the only reason he’s not tossed out into the street when Mr. Auslander, the foreigner, dies, is because of a large sum of money left to Jinzhen as an endowment.

At the college, Jinzhen becomes a brilliant student. A foreign instructor attaches himself to Jinzhen when he discovers the young man’s gifts. The instructor conducts class in a very Prussian manner, sketching out a problem on the board which will place out any student who can solve it. Naturally, Jinzhen cracks it every time, getting full credit for every class the man teaches.

After the communists seize power in 1949, Jinzhen’s talents come to their attention. He’s recruited for a super secret intelligence division known as group 701, which is involved with code breaking. He meets another math progeny, famous for breaking Japanese codes in WW II. But the older code cracker has gone mad, spending his days wandering around the Unit 701 facility, trying to get the workers to play chess with him. At first, the director of Unit 701 can’t figure out what Jinzhen is actually accomplishing. He spends most of his days playing chess with the lunatic and reading novels. But Jinzhen shocks everyone by breaking a code known a “Purple” which had until now proven unbreakable.

But even with all the accolades, Jinzhen will face another task: breaking a new code known as “Black”. Trying to crack this one will eventually drive him mad. The author’s task is to discover what caused Jinzhen’s mental collapse. It’s a task he never fully resolves, but learns a lot about ciphers and what their creation does to people.

The novel can be a little trying on those not familiar with Chinese culture. For instance, Jinzhen starts out as being called “Duckling” by the house where he lives. Further on, while he is traveling to the college, his adopted father gives him yet another name, Jinzhen or “Golden Pearl”. He’s also called Zhendi, a nickname close friends use, not a formal name. He takes the family name (“Rong”) of the academic family whom he lives with, even thought they are distant relatives. Are you confused? I was.

Don’t expect a lot of soul-searching on the rights of whistle blowers and state secrets in this book. That the government and party of China have the final say in such manners is a given. But the author does bring the issue of state secrets up numerous times. In his view, all states have secrets which they must protect. There are some mention of contemporary events. During the madness which gripped China during the culture revolution, Jinzhen is able to stop a mob from attacking his family at the university.

Finally, there’s an interview with another code breaker, in retirement at the end of the novel which touches on why people constantly strive to find a field where they might excel. As the cryptographer puts it:

“But for those with commonplace lives, it is different. Those of talent, members of the inner circle, would refer to us as the fairer sex. It meant that we possessed elements of genius, but could never perform such work. We spent our years searching, feeling oppressed – filled with talent but never able to truly demonstrate it, to release it. For this kind of person their later years possess no memories of glory; there is nothing to sum up. What are they to do in their so-called golden years? Only what they have done their whole lives: they continue to search in vain for something to do, unconsciously trying to find some way to put their abilities to use; enacting the ultimate and final struggle.”

Decoded is an excellent spy and espionage novel, but more in the George Smiley mode than James Bond. There’s no gun battles in crowded foreign ports, but a lot of grinding out the method of the cypher. The author doesn’t give a lot of examples of secret codes, for which I am grateful, as they tend to slow down the narrative. Decoded makes me want to find more books by this writer, which is one of the highest compliments I can pay.
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V. R. Esselaar
3.0 out of 5 stars Unsatisfying tale
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2014
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The story is strange. There are plenty of words, not all meaning very much. It is very slow. I could precis the whole novel in a paragraph. It is definitely not the first great Chinese novel as it was hyped to be. In the end it is unsatisfying and not universal as a great novel should be. It is also locked in the time and place of a Chinese Maoist world, which is a world truncated or stripped of a good deal of human potential and emotional power. There are insights but also a lot of obscurity and opaque thoughts and descriptions. I waited for it to go someplace but it kept avoiding anything tangible in the sense of philosophy or meaning.
2 people found this helpful
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Hans Henrici
5.0 out of 5 stars Story of a mathematical genius, vulnerable in everyday life
Reviewed in the United States on May 22, 2014
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The book has been reviewed as a must read by the Economist and the Wall Street Journal. The author asserts that the story is real, by necessity he has changed only a few details. It is a fascinating book, at its end painful to read.

The story begins with the Rong family, having made their fortune in the salt trade in China, later having founded a university at the provincial capital, specializing in mathematics. The hero of the story, Rong Jin Zhen is the illegitimate child of an ill-begotten son of the family. Nobody cares for the child, except for a foreigner in the Rongs’ house, himself almost an outcast like the child. Before he dies at 89, he beseeches the head of the Rong family at the university to take the child, as it is extremely intelligent. This turns out to be true, Jin Zhen, now twelve years old, is adopted by the Rong family.

For the rest of the book we are constantly confronted with the problems of a mathematical genius. On the one hand, it is inevitable that he skips several classes in school and arrives at the university with 16. On the other hand, he is very uncommunicative, not good at dealing with everyday problems, and therefore very vulnerable. At the university he gets the attention of a Polish Jewish professor, their cooperation is probably the happiest part of his life. He is then recruited by a secretive work unit, secluded in the mountains, where his work consists of breaking the encryption codes of enemy countries. In spite of his apparent lack of enthusiasm for his work, he singlehandedly breaks the PURPLE code, sometimes considered impossible to do. He gets honored and promoted, but later, with the BLACK code, there is no progress at all.

Now, with the prolonged lack of progress, the problems of his personality accumulate and break him. He becomes ever more secluded, hardly sees his wife, unplugs the telephone in his office, even seeks inspiration in his dreams and daydreams. A small security breach during a trip to Beijing finally precipitates his personal disaster.
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C. D. Lynn
2.0 out of 5 stars Tedious and disappointing
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2014
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This book failed to live up to its billing as 'a thriller' and 'a joy to read'. Partially, I suspect, as a result of the translation, the story is told in an oddly flat reporting style that defies engagement with the material and is irritatingly repetitive, especially on the subject of the central character's genius. The stultifying and de-humanizing nature of the totalitarian state is well conveyed, but the result is frankly tedious. And if you were hoping for some technical, rather than philosophical, insights into cryptography, or for an exciting read, look elsewhere - 'Cryptonomicon', perhaps.
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Leo
1.0 out of 5 stars Bemused
Reviewed in the United States on June 3, 2014
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Encouraged by a review that hailed this novel as an absolute joy to read, I looked forward to immersing myself in it. On reaching the beginning of the novel's final section, I was informed by the narrator that the remainder of the book was not required reading, that it would add little to my understanding, that it was a mere coda and that whether I read on to the end was a matter of choice. After enduring the tedium, emotional aridity and implausibility of the narrative up to that point, I decided to read the remainder of the novel in case there was something in it that would justify the delirious praise that has been heaped on this novel by various reviewers. There wasn't.
8 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

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xifang roberto
4.0 out of 5 stars Varietà della letteratura contemporanea cinese
Reviewed in Italy on April 26, 2016
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Qualcuno dei lettori forse conosce la storia della crittografia e di cosa sia la crittografia oggi (almeno a partire dalla decodifica di sistemi come Enigma). Mai Jia invece parla di una crittografia misteriosa e avvolta nei meandri di operazioni segrete (dopotutto oggi è così, cosa sappiamo dei sistemi contemporanei di crittografia e di chi spia chi ?). Nel solco della letteratura classica cinese, il romanzo evita la brevità e spazia nella vita dei personaggi e nelle loro vicende. Non sappiamo come opera il crittografo ne' del suo lavoro, Mai Jia ci dice che la sua vita è mistero e genio (il libro riporta anche le note del recuperato in una discarica diario del protagonista). Leggere questo libro consente di scoprire qualcosa della letteratura contemporanea cinese, che è vastissima e copre tanti aspetti diversi, da quelli sociali a quelli politici. Però il libro si trova solo o in cinese o in traduzione inglese, traduzioni italiane di libri cinesi sono piuttosto rare (a meno che lo scrittore non prenda il Nobel).
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BARRY C MCQUADE
4.0 out of 5 stars China unique spy story.
Reviewed in Canada on July 11, 2014
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Serious writing from China, a real psychological thriller in the heart of modern China. Excellently rendered in English.
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Amazon Customer
1.0 out of 5 stars It's a book which gives a decent perspective on a ...
Reviewed in India on December 8, 2015
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It's a book which gives a decent perspective on a forward looking china ! Universities etc. but the book which starts off promising seems to go slow after140 pages. !the so called decoding then falls on the reader.
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reader 451
4.0 out of 5 stars Fairly cryptic
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 27, 2015
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Mai Jai's debut novel Decoded may be many things, but it is not a spy novel. To some extent it is historical, but it really is a half-psychological, half-philosophical tale. If you expect some sort of cliff-hanger, some mystery in which it is revealed, in a stunning reversal at the end, that such and such character was always a behind-the-scenes puppeteer, you will be disappointed. The story is that of Rong Jinzhwen, a neglected youth from a family of brilliant academics, whose mathematical genius is discovered in his adolescence. Jinzhwen does not necessarily have the personality of a recluse, but circumstances contrive to make him so, and for his fragility to match the depth of his mental abilities. Part of the book is about code-breaking, but the it is essentially written in the style of a biography. At the same time, it is a meditation on genius and the nature and meaning of exceptionality.

Mai Jai's idiosyncratic style contributes to making the novel hard to place. It not so much that the narrative is interrupted with interviews of some of the protagonists, drawing the plot away from the format of a simple thriller and more towards the fictional biography it aims to be. The narrator's voice simply tends to jump around, from one topic to another, from action to general considerations at the oddest moments, from realistic to entirely off-beat scenes, like a cameraman changing lenses mid-way through shooting. Perhaps it is the effect of translation, perhaps Mai Jai aimed to mark his novel as specifically Chinese, an impression that also arises from its very orthodox political ambience. Decoded is an interesting work, but all this nevertheless makes for something of a curate's egg, and at the same time I would only give it a weak four stars.
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N.
3.0 out of 5 stars Un roman intéressant, gaché par une vision obsolète de la cryptographie.
Reviewed in France on December 26, 2014
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Ce roman est une biographie d'un cryptographe chinois fictif. La construction est intéressante, parfois déroutante, éloignée des habitudes occidentales.

Le problème principal à mon goût est la description de la cryptographie (et des math), qui semble bien éloignée de la réalité (si encore l'histoire se passait avant la seconde guerre mondiale...) et ne fait pas grand sens. Pour un lecteur qui ne connaît pas ce domaine, ce n'est pas forcément gênant cependant.
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