cover image J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing: Face-to-Face with Time

J.M. Coetzee and the Life of Writing: Face-to-Face with Time

David Attwell. Viking, $27.95 (272p) ISBN 978-0-525-42961-6

Drawing on Coetzee’s manuscripts, notebooks, and other archival papers, his former student Attwell marches placidly through the South African novelist’s writings, from his debut, Dusklands (1974), to his most recent novel, The Childhood of Jesus (2013). Unsurprisingly, Attwell discovers that Coetzee’s fiction is heavily autobiographical, even when it strives for a sense of artistic detachment. In Dusklands, Coetzee situates himself and his family history against the history and cartography of colonial South Africa, searching to discover “whose fault I am.” Life & Times of Michael K (1983), whose outlaw title character is named for Kafka’s Josef K., takes place in South Africa’s mostly barren Karoo region. The bleak setting, a symbol for the barrenness of society, becomes a central motif in Coetzee’s work. Foe (1986) contains Coetzee’s feelings about both the injustices of colonialism and “failure of post-colonial nationalism.” Through his close readings of Coetzee’s manuscripts and other archival materials, Attwell provides a glimpse into the Nobel laureate’s creative process: much of Coetzee’s writing begins with the ordinary and continues onto a “determined process of deliteralization.” While fans of Coetzee will find little that’s new, Attwell’s study may entice readers unfamiliar with the author to pick up his novels for the first time. (Oct.)