Here’s the latest book review that has been published on my YouTube channel called Life Lessons From Books.
I love the writing of Coetzee and I’m collecting all his books as I find them in my travels through second hand book stores.
I’ve got another one that will be published soon called Diary of a Bad Year.
2024 so far has been a great reading year with some superb fiction that has been quite profound in making me think deeply about literature; what I want to do for the rest of my life and also radically rethinking what books I should keep and what books I should let go.
I might write about this another time.
Weirdly I was literally just looking at that book on Amazon. It was metioned in a review of The Kindly Ones by Jonathan Littell which I feel strangely drawn to but wary of reading.
I’m not aware of The Kindly Ones but I just looked it up. It sounds pretty bad and not a book I’d read if it’s graphic. Coetzee’s novel isn’t graphic (except for the dog killing) as much of it is implied. He lets your mind imagine what is happening without explicitly stating it.
I think that’s the difference between good writers and others. I don’t want to be reading explicit books because they’re affronting to me and besides, I keep thinking that such authors deliberately write this way to get some kind of reaction (an award; notoriety; reputation, call it “art”, “pushing the boundary” or whatever). To me, the moment it’s explicit, it’s lost its appeal and I think the author has some need to “big note” themselves for taking a risk (in their minds) to present something to the world that others wouldn’t dare. I don’t know, it seems kinda obvious to me so that’s the reason I don’t read those books. If they’re trying too hard to shock, they’ve lost.
However subtlety is another thing altogether. I think I like Coetzee’s writing because of this. He’s a master at it. At the same time, he’s an enigma. He’s a recluse too. That in itself is intriguing for this day and age. In all honesty, I’m a bit wary of it too (what secrets would be uncovered in the future, I think 🤔) but his writing is superb.
I just finished another book of his called Diary of a Bad Year which wasnt as good as Disgrace but still worth it. I’m now looking for all his books to have in my collection.
I heard about The Kindly Ones from this review.
https://unherd.com/2024/04/this-book-will-send-you-to-hell/
Which gives a different take on the writers’ motives.
Great, I’ll check it out (although I still think it might be too much for me. The size for one…..🤣)
I suspect it might be too much for me too. I also have an issue generally with fiction that “it’s not true”. Bizarre, I know. I get so much pleasure from films and TV series like The Wire or The Sopranos but when reading a book somehow the feeling that it’s made up gets in the way.
I do find the chilling bureaucratic nature of what happened in the Holocaust fascinating. That it’s not evil people that do it but ordinary people and what is it that allows it to happen, that stops us from standing up and at the very earliest stages saying this is daft.
Anyway I’m feeling drawn to giving the book a go and if I do I will let you know how I get on.
Yes, always interested in learning more about it and what you think about it.
I used to think the same way regarding fiction. There’s “fiction” and there’s “fiction” meaning I want to read something that is more in depth, has some meaning rather than the generalist fiction that is on the current bookshelves in bookstores at the moment. The fluff light hearted reads are a waste of time for me. If anything, I also like exploring what the author was doing and learning about and WHY they wrote this fiction in that way. Herman Hesse was a buddhist anyway so it plays out in his fictional works. In some way, that’s what I like – their interpretation of their beliefs into a story format that makes the reader sit up and think about it too.