JM Coetzee (was Vietnam and Pynchon - Wrong Question?)

[Andrew Dinn]

Hartwin Alfred Gebhardt writes:

> As to his "putative? Dutch ancestor, Jacobus Coetzee", I seem to 
> recall that this is genuine, but of course such a 'fact' falls plumly 
> into his area of interest as both writer and critic, so one never 
> knows. Btw, it seems that he shares that ancestor with Andre Brink. 
> On the day I received my MA degree JM Coetzee was collecting another 
> honorary doctorate, presented by Andre Brink, who referred to the 
> same Jacobus Coetzee in his speech. It's of course possible that the 
> two are having everybody on - it wouldn't surprise me. The then head 
> of the English Department, whom I happened to come across at the 
> reception afterwards, asked me whether I knew if this was genuine, so 
> there seems to be general confusion. And for some reason simply 
> asking them seems just not on. I suspect that this is once again 
> entirely the wrong _kind_ of thing to ask, though. 

Perhaps Brink meant this in the sense that everyone who has inherited
the legacy of colonial war has thereby inherited Jacobus Coetzee as an
ancestor. Not by way of guilt - I'm not really very keen on inherited
guilt - so much as culture. Clearly what links Jacobus Coetzee's story
to Vietnam and to modern South Africa (and to those Slothrops) is
colonialism.

I'll forward some comments on these two novel(lette)s which I posted
privately to Craig Clark and he recommended me to pass on. He
intimated mild surprise that I considered the pair in isolation. I
replied:

    Oh, I only treated them separately to link in to the Vietnam
    thread. I see them as deeply interconnected and both are clearly
    commentaries on South Africa or perhaps on colonialism and
    colonial war. The most telling image in the first story is at the
    end of part 1 where Dawn describes the gun as the only copula the
    US has at its disposal to link it to the Vietnamese. And the most
    telling image in the second book is where Coetzee conflates the
    outer radius at which the Hottentots come within range of his gun
    with the outer radius at which they enter his awareness. The inner
    radius of their bow shot range defines an annulus within which the
    only choice he sees is destruction lest they penetrate into his
    virgin circle. The gun is a stronger copula than the bow.

    Not only do these two passages link to each other I think they
    also make a neat link to GR. What happens when the outer radius
    expands outward with more and more powerful weapons breaking the
    link between perception of threat and application of
    violence/vengeance - brutality is distanced, rationalised,
    accepted as `normal'. Contrariwise, when the inner radius expands
    past the outer radius (the situation of the Hottentots and the
    Vietnamese when confronted by their colonisers) the
    over-distributed, (ultra-paradoxical?) self explodes in its
    unstability. Combine these two situations in the nuclear arms race
    where both radii expand to infinity and you arrive at Gravity's
    Rainbow.

I was intending to type in the relevant passages I mention above as
they strike me as highly relevant to Pynchon only I've been off sick
for the last couple of days. I'll try to post them tomorrow.

While laid low in my sick bed I read `The Life & Times Of Michael K'.
It's also highly impressive and shares another theme with `The Vietnam
Project' and with GR. Eugene Dawn recommends indiscriminate slaughter
of the Vietnamese because its arbitrariness breaks the collectivist,
higher-sacrifice mentality of villagers, instilling paranoia. If the
villagers can be made to ask `Why me?' then the war is won. In `The
Life & Times Of Michael K' the doctor in section 2 who tries to tend
to Michael as he starves himself to death ends up being so threatened
by Michael's desire for independence, finds his rejection so
threatening, that in despair of being granted absolution by Michael he
can only ask `Why me?'. Perhaps this reveals that `The Vietnam
Project' is more to do with colonialism in South Africa than the war
in Vietnam. Perhaps in this it parallels GR.

> Coetzee is recommended reading, no doubt about it.

No doubt at all and joy of joys still 4 more of the buggers to go.


Andrew Dinn
-----------
And though Earthliness forget you,
To the stilled Earth say:  I flow.
To the rushing water speak:  I am.