Diary of a Bad Year [Paperback]

Coetzee, as he approaches old age, and the dark backing of what lies beyond, seems to share with that other great contemporary of his, Philip Roth, an obsession with eros, and thanatos, and the metaphysical wistfulness and ache of the heart this creates - in other words, the longing of old men who can't shag attractive young women any more.

Roth is the jazzier of the two stylists, Coetzee the more philosophical, the more willing to stare deep into the hard essence of things, but both men these days are producing short, magnificent metafictions that encompass so much of the great poetic wisdom they have accumulated over their writing lives.

Diary of a Bad Year has echoes of Disgrace (which now looks like it will be Coetzee's last 'conventional' novel), in that an elderly writer develops an infatuation with a young, beautiful woman - this time, Anya, a half Phillipino woman acutely aware of her sexual magnetism and the power it holds over men. The writer, Juan Coetzee, who is a sort of fictional projection of the real JC, is commissioned to write a series of cultural and political essays for a German anthology entitled 'Strong Opinions' (clear Nabokovian echoes). The book is set out in a curious manner - divided horizontally by ruled lines in three sections. The top section contains the essays Coetzee writes - on a vast number of subjects: the state, democracy, terrorism, music, Tony Blair, the kiss, animal rights (but nothing, curiously, on global warming, probably the definining issue of the era - I would be interested to read Coetzee's views on the subject). The middle and bottom sections are the novel proper parts of the book - contrapuntal voices of Coetzee's telling of the story as he commissions Anya to become his typist for his manuscript, and her version of events as she becomes more involved in the life of this curious, melancholy, solitary old writer and the suspicious attentions of her boyfriend, Alan, an investment consultant whose world view and male jealousies are predictably at loggerheads with Coetzee.

How to read such a novel? Unclear. You can read the strong opinions first in each chapter, then turn your attention to the thin slivers of story; or you can do what I did - alternate between them, sometimes hunkering down to engage with the ficto-factual opinions of Coetzee, sometimes (more likely) spooling a way along the fictional rope and turning back to pick up the essays.

Some reviewers have criticized this book as offering thin fare, not a proper novel with meat to bite into, but I found the book, with its curious playfulness with form, built up a compelling picture of contemporary clashes in world view, politics, lifestyle, masculinity, and generational change that stiches an uneasy and formidably perceptive seam close to the surface of the anxieties of millions of people living in relative democratic security at this time.

Literary heavyweight J.M. Coetzee returns with... well I'm not exactly sure. Is it a fictionalised excuse for Coetzee to air his thoughts on the world we are living in? Is it a subtle critique of the idea that everyone should have `strong opinions'? Is it a biography of an aging man thinly veiled under the guise of fiction?
The plot revolves around a seventy year old writer (who happens to be Coetzee himself) who is asked to contribute to a book entitled `Strong Opinions'. He uses the opportunity to air his views on the world, writing essays on the nature of the state, Al Quaida, Tony Blair, and music. But he is losing muscle control in his arms and cannot type up his notes so he hires a beautiful young woman to act as his secretary come surreptitious muse. What ensues is typical old man fiction: slightly perverted, slightly pathetic. Familiar in a sense to the plots of both Disgrace and Slow Man but scaled down. It is a very short book.
Does that sound simple? I can assure you it anything but. Each page is separated into three separate sections: one the essays he is writing; one with his voice on what is happening; and one in the voice of his graceful young Philippino secretary. I am not sure if you are meant to read it page by page, or as three separate stories one after the other.
Overall it is billed as "a thoroughly contemporary novel" and in a way it is. It is post-modern in structure and airs views on the complex world we are living in. The essays are interesting, at times controversial and deeply philosophical. At one point he laments that no one reads political discourses anymore and you get the impression that this is really what he is trying to accomplish - but in a format that will reach a wider audience. If so that is a shame.
I enjoyed reading this but I fear it is a novel that will not live long in my mind. There are some really interesting topics discussed and as a work of non fiction it is intensely interesting, but as a novel, either I missed something, or it doesn't really quite work.

I'm a J.M. Coetzee fan -- one of the biggest, probably. But even I have to admit a tinge of frustration with his output since his last conventional novel, Disgrace, appeared in 1999. He's given us autobiography (Youth), philosophical stories (Elizabeth Costello), essays (Inner Workings) and a metaliterary oddball (Slow Man), but nothing resembling the towering oeuvre of fiction that made him one of the 20th Century's greatest novelists. So what, then, is his latest book, Diary of a Bad Year? None of the above -- again.

Each page is divided into three unequal parts. The top part is given over to essays, mainly political in character but increasingly personal as the novel progresses. In the middle part: a diary, by the fictionalised author of the essays, JC (an elderly man who bears no small resemblance to Coetzee). JC records how he recruits a secretary, Anya, to type his essays, while fending off the interference of her boyfriend, Alan. In the bottom part, Anya presents her diary: her side of the story. All three sections run continuously from one page to the next, leaving the reader with a tricky choice: does one read all the essays at once (then go back and read all the accompanying "diaries") or read all three parts in the chopped-up bitesize chunks in which they appear on the page?

It's a fascinating experiment. But be warned: in practice, the essay part occupies at least two thirds of the space, while the diaries amount to little more than short stories. And there is as much empty space in this book as there is fiction. I'm not exaggerating. In this 231pp volume there are 35 blank pages, and huge gaps between the three sections on each page. In real money this is a 150pp novella, containing two 25pp diaries. Thin fare.

The two diaries, though lightweight, are at least very good for what they are. Coetzee fictionalises himself as JC, a grumpy, lonely old man who stumbles his way through a series of awkward scenarios: the "diary" almost invites comparison to HBO staple Curb Your Enthusiasm. Funny, thoughtful and diverting, they are vital in holding the reader's attention (and I personally, therefore, recommend reading the diary entries as they appear -- intertwined with the essays).

Ultimately, the primary function of the diaries is to offer counterpoints to the essays. Diary of a Bad Year displays with excruciating comedy the impotence of the columnist: the stupid, meaningless everyday frustrations that underpin ostensibly political anger. Behind every ferocious argument (from Swift to yesterday's Guardian) lies a sorry JC-esque figure, venting spleen with no real reward to justify the exertion.

But how good are those political essays? So much of the book is given over to them that one assumes that, even while he masochistically portrays JC as a deluded loser, the real J. Coetzee still hopes (against hope) that they will persuade his reader. At times, they succeed. Some of the longer essays, ranging across South African politics, anarchism, mathematics and more, are feats of sustained brilliance. There's no word wastage, no rambling: it's all wonderfully readable. The political issues will be strangely familiar to lovers of Coetzee's postcolonial fiction, but, pleasingly, more writerly topics (notably Tolstoy and Dostoevsky) creep in among the tirades during the novel's second half.

In short, Diary of a Bad Year serves as a superb companion piece to Coetzee's fiction. The leftist postcolonial concerns that lie implicit in the novels of past decades are brought to the fore here, and Coetzee emerges as (in JC's words) the "pessimistic anarchistic quietist" you always suspected he was.

And yet many of the essays are just 200-300 word nuggets, rumps of columns that would never be published by a newspaper. So much of the book is given over to single-page chapters and half-baked ideas. On terrorism and Guantanamo Bay, for example, Coetzee could be quoting the Independent leader for all I know -- he has very little new to say.

Short, thought-provoking, intermittently brilliant and strangely captivating, Diary of a Bad Year is one of the most bizarre novels (if you can even call it a novel) I've ever read. But it's also a little irritating -- for its brevity and for its staccato rhythm, as Coetzee hops from one political bugbear to the next. At one point JC, commenting on Tolstoy, argues that, as authors age, their interest in plot and character wanes, to be replaced by an ability to address the "big questions" more clearly. He may be right, but I fear I'm just one of those naive young people who'd prefer a novel a bit less oblique than this, with a bit more of a story between its covers.