The Immoralist
In language and tone, I find Andre Gide’s The Immoralist reminding me much of the work of J.M. Coetzee, specifically Disgrace. Both authors use a very pared down, austerely beautiful language; in a...
View ArticleCoetzee on Nooteboom
I enjoy few novelists as critics as much as when JM Coetzee steps in to contribute on essay. He’s already written eloquently on Cees Nooteboom in the past, and here he is again, discussing the...
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Friday Column: Overcoming Your James Wood Habit
With the publication of James Wood’s new book in England, we can already see the beginnings of the coverage that will soon attend its publication over here. In other words, more attention for the one...
View ArticleCoetzee and Crossreferencing
Matthew Cheney: And then I realized that I was marking up my teaching copy of Michael K. as if I were marking up a poem. I looked, then, at my teaching copy of Disgrace, from when I used it in a...
View ArticleSummertime by JM Coetzee
Moving into prolific author territory, J.M. Coetzee will be publishing his 20th book in late summer, the aptly titled Summertime. Hat tip to the Literary Saloon for the head’s-up. The book doesn’t yet...
View ArticleMovie Trailer: Disgrace by JM Coetzee
Oddly enough, they've made a movie of what is probably JM Coetzee's most popular novel, Disgrace. And odder yet, it stars John Malkovich as the philandering professor Lurie. The trailer: Looks almost...
View ArticleSummertime Excerpt Watch
Another one just popped up ($$$) in Harper's. This one takes the form of a mock interview with a woman whom a man referred to as "Coetzee" once propositioned, the woman declining because "Coetzee"...
View ArticleCoetzee on Walser
Writing in 2000 on Jakob von Gunten: As a literary character, Jakob von Gunten is without precedent. In the pleasure he takes in picking away at himself he has something of Dostoevsky’s Underground...
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Obviously Novels Are Constructed
Stephen Mitchelmore offers my first reasons to want to read Summertime and Diary of a Bad Year: The Complete Review offers another curious judgement: “Coetzee is an incredibly talented writer and a...
View ArticleThe Body Writer
I’m very much intrigued by the intersection of literature, identity, and the human body. That is probably at least one reason why I enjoy reading J.M. Coetzee so much. The current issue of the TLS has...
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