J. M. Coetzee

John Michael Coetzee

Michael K, a young South African, becomes unwillingly and unwittingly involved in a war in South Africa after he loses his gardening job in Capetown and embarks on an odyssey to return his dying mother to her homeland.

Life & Times of Michael K

J.M. Coetzee

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience - the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision. 'This is a truly astonishing novel... I finished Life & Times of Michael K in a state of elation, for all the misery and suffering it contains. I cannot recommend it highly enough' Evening Standard

Winner of the Booker Prize 1983

Life And Times Of Michael K

Hannah Gallacher

A really interesting story about forgotten people and their dynamics with the world around them. Ended with me wanting to re-read the whole book to try and piece together the ending.

Michael K, a young South African, becomes unwillingly and unwittingly involved in a war in South Africa after he loses his gardening job in Capetown and embarks on an odyssey to return his dying mother to her homeland

Melody Izard

A companion read to Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying". Neither rank high on my list. This one was a bit more interesting. Kind of linked up well with "Three Day Road". Trying to live a life connected during times of war. Trying to make sense of war.

In South Africa, whose civil administration is colapsing under the pressure of years of civil strife, an obscure young gardener named Michael K decides to take his mother on a long march away from the guns towards a new life in the abandoned countryside. Everywhere he goes however, the war follows him. Tracked down and locked up as a collaborator with the rural guerrillas, he embarks on a fast that angers, baffles, and finally awes his captors. The story of Michael K is the story of a man caught up in a war beyond his understanding, but determined to live his life, however minimally, on his own terms. J.M. Coetzee has produced a masterpiece which has the astonishing power to make the wilderness boom.

Trevor Berrett

"The damp weather was no good for her, nor was the unending worry about the future. Once settled in Prince Albert she would quickly recover her health. At most, they would be a day or two on the road. People were decent, people would stop and give them lifts."

This is one of those rare works of art that by showing ugliness gets the person paying attention to recognize, more deeply, beauty. I'm not sure how it happens, but while reading this book, this book about a war and about one man's physical decline as he attempts to become invisible--I looked around me and saw so many wonderful things. I would read the sad way Michael K passes time while alone or in captivity and feel some fundamental truth, some elemental beauty even among the ugliness of human nature. For example, this simple passage from early in the book is simple, its momentary bliss is rare, yet for all its simpleness it shouts a message louder than the ravages going on around the characters:

"[H:]e was again able to take his mother, wrapped in coat and blanket, for a seafront ride that brought a smile to her lips."

I liked this book more than Coetzee's Disgrace. In both Coetzee has a way of using simple words in seemingly simple sentences, coming up with a fabulously understated style:

"He had a feeling that he was losing his grip on why he had come all these hundreds of miles, and had to pace about with his hands over his face before he felt better again."

But Life and Times of Michael K felt more compassionate. Because Coetzee had to recognize the fundamental beauty I talked about earlier, I felt more drawn to K and to the writer. Simple passages like the one here made me feel like Coetzee was not merely defending a character--as I felt in Disgrace, where the character was almost completely unlikeable--but also working hard to get the reader to love a character that he loved.

"There was a cord of tenderness that stretched from him to the patch of earth beside the dam and must be cut. It seemed to him that one could cut a cord like that only so many times before it would not grow again."

Michael K is deceptively complex. He seems simple. He barely talks. The simple style of the novel strengthens this feel. However, like the novel itself, there is much more to Michael K. The doctor, who tells Part II, is one of the only characters who recognizes Michael K as something more than a simpleton. His revelation is probably flawed too, but that leaves more room for the reader to get what they can from the life of Michael K.

Catherine Nicolai

No. I did not like this book. I did not like this book at all.

Clare B

Gwen Chodur

From author of Waiting for the Barbarians and Nobel Prize winner J.M. Coetzee. J.M. Coetzee's latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, is now available from Viking. Late Essays: 2006-2016 will be available January 2018. In a South Africa turned by war, Michael K. sets out to take his ailing mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. This life affirming novel goes to the center of human experience—the need for an interior, spiritual life; for some connections to the world in which we live; and for purity of vision.

Life & Times of Michael K

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