"Something's in the Air"
The first time I read J. M. Coetzee, I was disappointed. I was a Master's student, taking a course in Postcolonial Literature and had signed up to do a project on Coetzee (we all had to choose one book on the syllabus on which we would make a presentation). My thought process went something like this: We're reading Heart of Darkness in this class. The edition of Conrad's novel we're reading is of the Penguin Twentieth Century Masterpieces series. J. M. Coetzee's Waiting For the Barbarians (1980), is also in that series. I like Heart of Darkness... perhaps the good people at Penguin share my tastes in literature. If they selected Conrad, maybe Coetzee's good, too. Therefore, I shall choose to present on Coetzee.
It probably also helped that the novel was slated to be discussed relatively late in the semester. In any case, I read and prepared a presentation on Waiting for the Barbarians, and remember not loving the book. I didn't exactly hate it, but I wasn't much more than lukewarm about it. I rather liked the nihilistic, absurd universe Coetzee created. I, perhaps not surprisingly, share the author's passion for Mr. Samuel Beckett and delighted in the resemblances.
But I found the book forgettable, in the end.
Now, when I picked up Disgrace (1999), I did not have the same expectations as I did when reading Coetzee's earlier novel. This time, however, I found myself really enjoying Coetzee. In fact, I like Disgrace enough to want to re-read Barbarians, to see if I missed something. That's how good this book is. Somehow Coetzee manages to add a vitality one would not expect out of a topic so stale as a sexual relationship between a Professor and student. Somehow, Coetzee took a character like Camus's Merseault and made him seem new, unique.
Article comments
1 - kenny
a book that can say so much, in such tight, spare prose
2 - Inguuuh
different then I expected but nice :)
3 - karl smith
Its a good read, im using it for my individual study for year 12 english. i have compared it with things fall appart by Chinua Achebe.
4 - Mohan Sundaram
This is an excellent review. I myself was fascinated by this novel, but found very little mental satisfaction in reading it. The novel stage-manages various confrontations between its protagonists in order to raise some fascinating questions about modern South Africa.
However, comparisions with Conrad are exremely premature, to say the least. From the outset we are acutely aware of some impending tragedy. When it does happen we are awed by it ferocity and consequences. However, this novel does not build solid characters. Lurie comes across as a whining old fogey; an amateur at seduction: the encounter with Melanie totally unconvincing. His monologues on life imature, naive. I cannot appreciate the so called "beauty of the sparse prose" when a lot of what the main protagonist says is juvenile. An unconvincing cast of characters, but a facinating essay on the South African dilemma.
5 - asd
"Like a cartoon carrot hung from a string in front of a hungry pack animal, the reader trudges forward, hoping to chomp down on that elusive legume."
A carrot is not a legume.