Waiting For The Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians by J. M. Coetzee is one of those books I had to read for college that I read only well enough to take the mid term or final and move on with other assignments. In other words, all these years later, I couldn't remember thing one about the novel. This Thanksgiving weekend I set things to right by re-reading the novel at a leisurely pace without the stress of having to study it. The book has now gone from "unmemorable" to "damn good novel" for me. The book follows the life and times of a small town magistrate at the edge of an unnamed empire that is trying to expand its borders into "barbarian" territory This outpost at the edge of the hinterland sees first hand the war with barbarians and the ways in which the empire ill treats its prisoners of war. Much of the book focuses on one prisoner, a young woman who has been crippled and nearly blinded during her "interrogation." The magistrate lives with her for a while but decides in the end that she should be returned to her people. His act of kindness is taken as an act of treason. As the empire is never named it works well as an allegory for any number of nations. It could be either Coetzee's own homes, South Africa, the place of his birth, or Australia, his current home. To me, it fits easily in any of the South American nations, although I was especially reminded of Brazil. The book also reminded me in tone of George Orwell's 1984. Waiting for the Barbarians is short but powerful. It's less than 160 pages and can easily be read over a weekend. It's well worth a read, or perhaps a re-read.

Powerful themes of colonialism and antagonism.

Knocked off two stars because of the hyper sexualization of an oppressed character...but Coetzee generally explores themes of power and sex. The main character is a bit pathetic imo. I could care less for him. Not my most rewarding Coetzee read. It's now a movie though with Depp and Pattinson.

Written in 1980, Coetzee's meditation on the power of the state, and how it uses fear of the other to maintain power, is a reflection of his experience of apartheid government in his native South Africa, but it is also a timeless story. It is set in a fictional Empire at an outpost where the Barbarians are nearby, but are rarely seen; this could be the 19th Century American West, or similar periods in Mexico, or the steppes of Russia. My personal candidate location is the area around the Caspian Sea, based on a few clues in the text, but it really doesn't matter; the story is a parable. As in Disgrace, Coetzee's protagonist is an aging man, fifty-something; in Disgrace the protagonist was a womanizing professor whose philandering with students is his downfall; in Waiting for the Barbarians he is the magistrate of an outpost town on the fringes of the Empire who falls from grace because of his infatuation with a younger woman. But in this story, the woman is a left-behind barbarian, permanently damaged by torture. The "security forces" have come to the outpost to investigate reports of nascent unrest and anti-Empire organizing by the barbarians, and they seek "evidence" by capturing and torturing a group of wandering nomads. Coetzee looks deeply into how power, or at least a certain kind of power, requires enemies, and how torture is rarely about seeking information, but about demonstrating a government's power to intimidate. The book is also about how aging men need younger women to re-affirm their masculinity, and how that pairing often makes them ridiculous, and sometimes destroys them. This is a short book with a powerful message that resonates with me. It is impossible as an American to read this book, which was written in 1980 by a South African author, and not think of what the forces of the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Torture was sanctioned by the Bush Administration, and it is a source of shame that the CIA put us in the same league as the authoritarian nations of the world in embracing torture. Coetzee makes a moral case against torture, but also explores how all of us are made complicit in our government's acts. I have given this four stars instead of five, only because Coetzee pontificates a little bit past the necessary point in some cases, but generally the story is told in compelling tones, and it moves forward briskly.

I get what he was going for but I really didn't enjoy this at all, even in an intellectual way. Coetzee is certainly good at visceral writing, but it ultimately didn't prove a rewarding read for me.

There are interesting aspects of this novel but this Altesroman left me questioning why I bothered with it. Personally, I am sick of protagonists who are utterly pathetic and unable to muster personal conviction.