Reading 1001 discussion

Rating: 4 Stars
Read: February 2017

Set in South Africa during a civil war, the novel tells the story of a luckless man thought by others to be simple-minded (mainly due to a hair lip and difficulty coherently expressing himself) who seeks freedom and independence. In the beginning of the book, his sick mother asks him to take her back to the place of her birth. This is not an easy task without a car or permit to travel to that part of the country. She dies a short while into the journey, but Michael presses onward toward their goal. Essentially dehumanized, he learns how to survive and find meaning in a world where he is all alone. This is my 3rd list book by Coetzee and my favorite so far.

April 14, 2009 – Finished Reading
Rating: 3 stars
Not reviewed: This was my first Coetzee, I remember it being a short book but difficult to read. It was very bleak. Michael K was not a character one engaged with.

For such a short book, this was a slow read for me. I was somewhat intrigued in the beginning, but I kept wanting to know more of the details surrounding Michael's situation. I was also kind of confused by the whole fact that the setting was a fictional war in South Africa during apartheid. I couldn't quite figure out how to put together the realistic and fictional aspects of this setting, Then my interest declined with the change in narration during the second section and the odd events of the third section.

This one is going to stick with me for awhile, sad & heartbreaking, it’s one man’s journey through a war torn South Africa to return his elderly mother to her childhood home...without the proper papers that are difficult to get, he must avoid patrols, forced labor camps, starvation, insurgents, and so much more. Although this takes place during a fictional war, it’s a bit too real in how it portrays the horrors of an apartheid system, and the way a human life can become dehumanized.

4 Stars

I have read three of Coetzee's books and this one is my favorite so far. It is a well crafted illumination of the humiliation and dehumanization of war. Our protagonist, K, is depicted as simple and slow to the point at times of being little more than a remnant of what human life can be. As a character, he is largely allegorical rather than someone we can empathetically relate to. However, he has a deep and profound understanding of what his freedom should look like and an attachment to the earth and it's gardens that motivates him where little else does. The civil war that is the setting for the book is fictional, but it nevertheless gives us a feeling for what apartheid did to the people of South Africa, dividing it and creating great stress. By making the setting fictional, Coetzee elevates the narrative to a broader critique of human activities and interactions. The "doctor" or pharmacist pressed into being a medical officer of the second book, also is not someone that one really relates to and his thoughts are often too well crafted to voice Coetzee's themes rather than any human feeling. Yet, again, I found that reading his so called musings and thoughts were not offensive but kept the book engaging. Is this educated and erudite man any more capable of understanding what is going on in the camps or any more capable of living a good life than K? A quick read plus there were no literary interruptions, such as Elizabeth Costello showing up, to mar the reading.