READIN

🦋 Historical Background

I started reading Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K this morning. It is a dark, fascinating book, drawing me in to its violent, damaged world immediately from page 1 onward. I'm wondering a bit about the precise historical setting of the novel -- it was published in 1983 and I'm assuming without any confirmation, that it is set in the present, i.e. the late 70's or early 80's. (And Michael is 31, so would have been born around 1950.)

I realize suddenly how limited my knowledge of South African history is -- I remember as a young teenager reading in the paper and in magazines about apartheid, and thinking it was important that it should end, and self-identifying as an opponent of apartheid; but it was all pretty abstract. I did not realize that a hot civil war was being fought -- and I would not have thought of it that way prior to reading this book. But it seems from the book like at the point where the narrative starts, war is an established, ongoing state of affairs -- people are used to living in wartime.

This is the second book of Coetzee's I am reading that is not Disgrace... I went to the library this morning thinking (among other things) of checking out Disgrace; but looked at the first couple of pages and it did not really seem like what I wanted to be reading right now. (Also checked out Saramago's History of the Seige of Lisbon.)

posted afternoon of Saturday, June 20th, 2009
➳ More posts about Life and Times of Michael K
➳ More posts about J.M. Coetzee
➳ More posts about Readings

Mostly responding to the mention of Disgrace. Started reading the post thinking I knew nothing of Coetzee... but realize I read Disgrace in 2000. Picked it up in an airport bookstore on a flight to (or from?) Europe. Tremendous novel - ah the exquisite pain of being human! But now am quite intrigued by your comments on Michael K, and will keep readin'.

posted evening of June 20th, 2009 by edward

Yeah -- it's funny, I got into Coetzee earlier this year by way of thinking I wanted to read Disgrace -- now this is the second non-Disgrace novel of his that I am loving.

posted evening of June 20th, 2009 by Jeremy

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