Coetzee

[Mr Craig Clark]

Andrew Dinn inquires:
> "Anyone know more about Coetzee's work (hag presumably must). He has
> three other novels which I have not yet read but am placing at the top
> of the pile."

To which Don Larsson replies:
> THE LIFE AND TIMES OF MICHAEL K. is an allegorical novel that I like very
> much.  Though some critics have denied it and others denounced it, it
> s allusions to Kafka--especially "A Hunger Artist"--work nicely in context.

The mention of Coetzee in regard to Pynchon's "hidden" handling of 
Vietnam calls to mind Coetzee's (IMHO) finest novel to date, _Foe_. 
This novel is the narrative of Susan Barton, a castaway who is washed 
ashore on an island where a "Mr Cruso" (I am almost certain that this 
is the spelling Coetzee uses) and his mute slave, Friday, live... The three
are rescued, "Cruso"  dies _en route_ to London, and Barton has to 
narrate his story to a Mr Foe (who has not yet affected the name of 
"Defoe") - all the while knowing that she is speaking for the mute 
Friday, who may know aspects of Cruso's narrative which remain opaque 
to her.

In exactly one passage of this magnificent novel is there an overt reference 
to South Africa: Barton, investigating the possibility of sending 
Friday back to the island, hears of a ship that might be travelling 
to those parts on its way to the Cape of Good Hope. Yet to read the 
novel as I did, within a few days of its publication, deep in the 
dark heart of the State of Emergency declared by the apartheid regime 
in 1986 to prevent the inevitable, was to read as topical a novel 
about South Africa and the control of speech and silence as any work 
set in late-apartheid SA.

> HG will undoubtedly have more to provide.
So do I... Coetzee's works are discussed briefly below. These thumbnail descriptions of 
course fall far short of the reality of these texts. Coetzee is the only South
African novelist whom I think merits comparison with Pynchon. I 
recommend his work heartily to those who enjoy Pynchon (as I recall, 
Coetzee is also a great admirer of Pynchon, and who knows, possibly 
subscribes to this list).  

Dusklands (1977- ? ) - two narratives, one set in America during Vietnam, one set in
         the early days of colonialist exploration in South Africa, both dealing with the horrors
         of exploitation and of political systems which believe in the inherent superiority of one
         nation over another.

In The Heart Of The Country (1979 - ?) - a surreal treatment of a sexually-repressed woman's
        fantasies of incest and patricide set on an isolated South African farm. 

Waiting For The Barbarians (1980 - ?) - A Kafkaesque novel inspired by the C.P. Cavafy poem.
         poem. A magistrate in a remote frontier outpost of the Empire slowly comes to realise that it is
         the Barbarians against whom he must commit genocide who are civilised, and the Empire which is
         barbaric. 

The Life and Times of Michael K (1983) - Again a Kafkaesque narrative: Michael K is a simple man who
        longs only to tend the soil, but who struggles to do so in a South Africa torn apart by violent civil war.

Foe (1986) - see above

Age of Iron (1990 - ?) - I must confess that I haven't read this one: so what follows is based on reviews and
         reading flyleafs (and is probably misleading). Set in South Africa duri
ng the final days of apartheid, and
         deals with the relationship between a white South African woman who is dying of cancer and the black
        "squatter" who enters her life, this is the only Coetzee novel to deal directly with the South Africa he
         was living in and writing in at the time, rather than one displaced into the future or the past (this is not
         IMHO a fault in Coetzee...).

The Master of St Petersburg (1994) - I also have not read this one, but I gather that it does for Dostoevsky
         what "Foe" did for Daniel Defoe.
 
I have it on good authority from a friend of his that Coetzee has 
just completed another novel - when I know more I'll post the details 
here.

Craig Clark (the South Africans are taking over the Pynchon list!)
Craig Clark

"Living inside the system is like driving across
the countryside in a bus driven by a maniac bent
on suicide."
   - Thomas Pynchon, "Gravity's Rainbow"