J.M.Coetzee.
After some meandering I’m back to reading my favorite
author J.M.Coetzee.
Hit several stumbling blocks in the course of reading 166
pages of Marlon James’ A Brief History of Seven Killings. Hence put it aside
for a later time.
Meanwhile, Coetzee, I checked the reports today, does not figure in Man Booker shortlist. Who cares! Reading his Dusklands. Also have Waiting for the Barbarians and Youth lined up on the table.
Sign of insecurity.
"He's sleeping, his thumb in his mouth, a sign of insecurity." (P-38, Dusklands)
"The thumb in the mouth means insecurity, means a troubled heart." (P-121, The Childhood of Jesus)
"On the near side, curled with her thumb in her mouth and one arm cast loosely over her mother, is Matryona." (P-57, The Master of Petersburg)
"As he speaks he watches the child sidelong. She wriggles and for a moment actually puts her thumb in her mouth." (P-74 The Master of Petersburg)
Children as burden.
In The Master of Petersburg, Dostoevsky visits the cemetery where his step-son was buried He lies flat upon the mound, his arms extended over his head and cries freely. A terrible malice streams out of him toward the living, and most of all toward living children. If there were a newborn babe here at this moment, he would pluck its mother’s arms and dash it against a rock. “Herod, he thinks: now I understand Herod! Let breeding come to an end!” (P 9-10).
Eugene Dawn in Dusklands, at a certain moment, considers his son Martin, whom he had saved "from a woman of unstable, hysterical character who was bringing him up as a ninny," nothing but a burden to him. He stabs his son with a fruit-knife and lands in an all-male institution under the care of doctors, where he regrets his part for what happened at Dalton.
Waiting for a sign.
"He is waiting for a sign...But he knows too that as long as he tries by cunning to distinguish things that are things from things that are signs he will not be saved" (P-83, The Master of Petersburg)
"The sign did not come." (P-17, Waiting for the Barbarians).
Meanwhile, Coetzee, I checked the reports today, does not figure in Man Booker shortlist. Who cares! Reading his Dusklands. Also have Waiting for the Barbarians and Youth lined up on the table.
Sign of insecurity.
"He's sleeping, his thumb in his mouth, a sign of insecurity." (P-38, Dusklands)
"The thumb in the mouth means insecurity, means a troubled heart." (P-121, The Childhood of Jesus)
"On the near side, curled with her thumb in her mouth and one arm cast loosely over her mother, is Matryona." (P-57, The Master of Petersburg)
"As he speaks he watches the child sidelong. She wriggles and for a moment actually puts her thumb in her mouth." (P-74 The Master of Petersburg)
Children as burden.
In The Master of Petersburg, Dostoevsky visits the cemetery where his step-son was buried He lies flat upon the mound, his arms extended over his head and cries freely. A terrible malice streams out of him toward the living, and most of all toward living children. If there were a newborn babe here at this moment, he would pluck its mother’s arms and dash it against a rock. “Herod, he thinks: now I understand Herod! Let breeding come to an end!” (P 9-10).
Eugene Dawn in Dusklands, at a certain moment, considers his son Martin, whom he had saved "from a woman of unstable, hysterical character who was bringing him up as a ninny," nothing but a burden to him. He stabs his son with a fruit-knife and lands in an all-male institution under the care of doctors, where he regrets his part for what happened at Dalton.
Waiting for a sign.
"He is waiting for a sign...But he knows too that as long as he tries by cunning to distinguish things that are things from things that are signs he will not be saved" (P-83, The Master of Petersburg)
"The sign did not come." (P-17, Waiting for the Barbarians).
“Nothing in the pressure of her body answers to him.
Disgrace, he thinks: this is how one enters disgrace.” (P-59, The Master of
Petersburg)
Disgrace is the story of a middle –aged David Lurie’s impulsive
affair with a student…
“Nothing escapes, except perhaps the gall bladder, which no
one will eat. Descartes should have thought of that. The soul, suspended in the
dark, bitter gall, hiding.” (P-124, Disgrace)
“Science has not yet put a limit on how long one has to
wait. For ever, maybe.” (P-125, Disgrace).
But the works of Coetzee that drew me closer to the author
include, Diary of a Bad Year, Elizabeth Costello...(Would elaborate later) then
there is the bleak and haunting Life & Times of Michael K.
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