Writer: J.M. Coetzee

 Another writer known but unread of whom prison gave me a chance to read is J.M. Coetzee.

All I recall reading of Coetzee: Mr. Foe (of which I wrote a blog post), and The Childhood of Jesus.

This video filled in some biographical details, as well as review his novel Disgrace.

A little shorter, a slightly different take on the same novel:

I think both reviewers hit on the chief qualities of Coetzee: a plainness of style that is not a synonym for lameness, telling stories that seem simple on their surfaces with moral questions and ideas underlying the story without any imposition of dogma or preaching. I seem to recall The Childhood of Jesus having a distance, the silence of the character mentioned above may be influencing me now, that I would call not diffident as much as reserved.

The following video I found much better at explicating some of my ideas about Coetzee.

"Easy to read, not easy to digest." A more florid style might make him easier to read, only to obscure what he is trying to say.

Let us now hear the man himself. These are of Coetzee reading from his works. You may get a better idea of his writing this way than what either I or the preceding videos may have given you.

The first is a (relatively) short video of an older work:

And this is Coetzee reading from his then in-progress novel. His reading struck me as much like his writing style: not strident, perhaps even diffident, but always even-keeled:

Coetzee and Paul Auster reading from their works is a bit lighter, but you get two great writers for the price of one.

This is a dialog with Valerie Miles. Do not freak with the Catalan opening; the main is in English. It is also the most recent video that came my way.

Here, Coetzee talks about his writing process. Nice to know another who thinks of writing in terms of cooking. In this video, I got an answer about his language choice and relationship to English. And a broadening of my thinking about the English language, translation, world literature.

This video is a college lecture on Coetzee. It is long, it may even be dreary, and I put it here with a little trepidation, as it is not directly about writing. About the same amount of worry as I had listening to the lecture.

What I took away from the lecture may not have been what was intended; it was the contrast with the materials Coetzee had in hand compared to American writers. Assuming Coetzee was raised in the Dutch Reformed Church, leaves him with the morality of Christianity confronting the law of apartheid. How often do white Americans take a look at the racism of America? Outside of Marilynne Robinson, I can think of none. I sense a difference in education between American education and Coetzee's education; that it opens different perspectives for Coetzee. For all the right-wingers calling America a Christian country, there seems like application of that Christianity to American life is non-existent; again, outside of Marilynne Robinson, I can think of none.

I read long ago that the Irish were such great writers of English because it was a foreign language. Coetzee speaks Afrikaans and English. Does this give a different slant on English prose? Is being bilingual akin to having traveled widely in that it gives one a different perspective on home? (If so, I am screwed; I gave up on French and German when Reagan was still President, which left me only speaking American English and Hoosier.) I hesitate including this video for several reasons: 1) its length; and 2) it is mostly in Afrikaans. I have it here because it is a beautiful video, and often Coetzee does get to speak English.

I will close here. If I have not demonstrated why Coetzee needs to be read, I apologize for the length of this post.

sch 6/14