university barbarians provincial petersburg

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335 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 2008

Why J.M. Coetzee emigrated from South Africa
Disgrace is not about a rape. It is not about an University professor having affairs with students. The fact that he is 50sh, the fact that he has a daughter running a kennel in the countryside are not relevant. The book is about the condition of living as a white in South Africa today. The rape is not an ordinary rape, it is a bloody premeditated vengeance on an innocent victim who must leave ...

Waiting for the Barbarians: A Novel

74 reviews
J.M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1982

A Fine Allegory on Cruelty and Colonialism
This exquisitely written book may also be the most important thing Coetzee has written. Like many of his other books, it explores the meaning of what it means for people to cause each other pain--this time, in the context of a remote colonial outpost of a "generic" empire. Coetzee is not only a scholar but a true artist.

Brighton Rock

40 reviews
Graham Greene

Penguin Classics, 2004

A surprisingly deep novel....
Brighton rock is a interesting novel, a very good one. Are the characters realistic? is pinkie pure evil? Ida pure good? or is the answer more ambigious? can there be pure evil if its good for pinkie? really, this book is one you wont be able to relate with. The problems of these characters portray good and evil on a grand scale and only later, under quite study show difficulty in ...

The Poems, Short Fiction, and Criticism of Samuel Beckett: Volume IV of The Grove Centenary Editions

1 review
Samuel Beckett

Grove Press, 2006

Beckett poems and literature
An inspiration for my writing and my creativity, and I could never dare emulate him well enough. But what a wonderful book and an excellent time to share with friends and family. I highly recommend it in every way. I am so glad that I purchased this product and have nothing but praise for his great poetry which I used in common correspondence immediately.

The Lives of Animals (The University Center for Human Values Series)

16 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Princeton University Press, 2001

Creative Context for Animal Rights Review
This small book provides a wonderfully insightful perspective on the issues surrounding compassion and respect for animals. It reviews some of the main arguments, but in the context of two lectures given by an aging academician. Adding to the substance of her lectures is the curious passive nature of her son's response, who seems to miss the point, while mainly experiencing a sense of ...

Foe (Methuen Modern Plays)

22 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Methuen Publishing Ltd, 1996

Not Difficult, but Inscrutible
In Daniel Defoe's classic novel "Robinson Crusoe," the island is a boys' playhouse with no girls allowed. Solitude is a relentless adventure. And the servant Friday is a slaveholder's pipe dream, a black man with no past who becomes European thanks to the civilizing influence of the white title character. J.M. Coetzee dares to ask: what if all of that is wrong? This book is divided into ...

Elizabeth Costello

50 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Viking, 2003

A compelling read, and re-read
This is such a tricky book that short reviews can't really capture it, even if the premise is simple: Elizabeth Costello goes around the world on the celebrity-writer circuit delivering lectures. Poorly. Those lectures are not cryptic but they are challenging and frequently original; the stories around the lectures are well-observed and clever; and it ends with a series of surprises. It is ...

Diary of a Bad Year

18 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 2008

4.5 out of 5: Interesting structure, impeccable execution
This "novel" unfolds in three parallel tracks: a series of "strong opinions" written for an anthology by an aging South African writer living in Australia (Senor C); Senor C's internal thoughts, particularly regarding his young, sensuous typist, Anya; and Anya's internal thoughts. All three tracks share the page, but the structure remains easy to follow. Senor C's strong opinions are interesting ...

White Writing: One the Culture and Letters in South Africa
J.M. Coetzee

Pentz Publishers, 2008

Since it first appeared in 1988, JM Coetzee s first volume of criticism, White Writing, has emerged as an indispensable reference in the study of South African literature. In the seven essays comprising the collection, he reads a range of texts, in various genres, which represent the endeavours of white writers to come to terms with the South African landscape and their tenuous place within it. Their projects, Coetzee argues, are vexed by the ...

Life and Times of Michael K

46 reviews
J.M. Coetzee

VINTAGE, 1998

A tale at once subsumed by race and yet never mentioning it
Literary historians credit much of Ireland's rich literary tradition to its often tragic history. No surprise then that the nation of South Africa, likewise so rich in grief that it might as well diamonds, has produced so many extraordinary writers, two of whom, Coetzee included, who can boast a Nobel Prize. Which brings us to one of his many fine novels, the Life and Times of Michael K. ...

Age of Iron

13 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1998

A taut and gripping book
In this novel first published in 1990, Mr Coetzee gives the grim account of both a human being facing imminent death and a country - South Africa - still immersed in the tragedy of the apartheid regime. Mrs Curren, a professor of classics in Cape Town, has just received the fatal news from her doctor, Dr Syfert, that she suffers from an incurable form of cancer. Part of the narrative consists in ...

Platero y yo/ Platero and I
Juan Ramon Jimenez

Editorial Lectorum, 2007

Slow Man

39 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 2006

One Character too Many
I was thoroughly enjoying "Slow Man" until the emergence of Elizabeth Costello. Remember her? Actually, I can't even though I read Coetzee's book by the same name. It was the one book of his I didn't enjoy and, frankly, not liking it was all I could remember about it. I didn't care for her emergence into "Slow Man" either. The pre-Costello "Slow Man" gives us a 60ish man, divorced, alone, ...

In the Heart of the Country: A Novel

9 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1982

The stifling torpor of colonial South Africa
Magda is a lonely and embittered spinster who lives on a sheep farm in the heart of South Africa. Her mother died in childbirth, the cause of which Magda attributes to her father's "relentless sexual demands". Her bitterness comes from the fact that she feels that she has been an absence all her life to her father. They have always fronted each other in silence and so Magda became an unhappy ...

The Master of Petersburg

16 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Vintage, 1999

Following the dance of the pen
In J. M. Coetzee's "The Master of Petersburg" when the main character is asked what kind of books he writes, he doesn't know what to respond. Page later, thinking about it he concludes he could have said he `write[s] perversions of the truth. [He chooses] the crooked road and take[s] the children into dark places. [He] follow[s] the dance of the pen'. In novel "The Master of Petersburg" South ...

The Confusions of Young Torless (Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics)

14 reviews
Robert Musil

Penguin Classics, 2001

intellectual exploration of latent sadomasochism
I first read this book over 10 years ago, when I came across it by chance (bookshop browsing). Since then I have read it every few years and am impressed every time. This book is about as high-brow as it gets, but it is not pretentious or gratuitously intellectual. Rather, it is an authentic analysis of a sadomasochistic mind-set, mysticism, and the sense of not-belongingness/social alienation. ...

Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005

3 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Viking Adult, 2007

Magisterial
This bundle of essays contains superb reviews of important authors and (part of) their work. Hereafter, a brief summary of Coetzee's comments and evaluations, with a few remarks. Italo Svevo considered himself as a peer, a fellow researcher of Freud into the grip of the unconscious on conscious life. Robert Musil (Young Törless) was skeptical of the power of reason to guide human conduct. ...

Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II

23 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 2003

Haunting
This is a haunting book for me. Like the protagonist, I also studied mathematics with an interest in philosophy and literature. Like him, I happen to be working as a computer programmer and I just turned 26 years old, making me about the same age as the protagonist is at the end of the book. Finally, I too come from a former colony, Canada, and often feel that I am far from the centre of ...

Boyhood: Scenes From Provincial Life

14 reviews
J. M. Coetzee

Penguin (Non-Classics), 1998

Twice-born
In this youth memories, J.M. Coetzee defines himself as `twice-born: `born from woman and born from the farm'. He is, first of all, a mother's son (`he clings to her as his only protector'), but `the farm is his secret fate'. Growing up in a rude and unsocialized family with eccentric characters, with a father who becomes an alcoholic and a mother, for whom `studying is just nonsense' and ...

Robinson Crusoe (Oxford World's Classics)

103 reviews
Daniel Defoe

Oxford University Press, USA, 1999

The Best of the Robinson Crusoe readings.
Everyone knows the story...so the issue is who can read the literature in a compelling way. Clearly, Martin Shaw has the touch. My only criticism is that this audio Cassette should be made into an audio CD for most modern listeners.

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