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A small miracle of a book...of marvellous intricacy and overwhelming power (Washington Post )
A finely honed testament to its author's intelligence, imagination and skill (The New York Times )
A finely honed testament to its author's intelligence, imagination and skill (The New York Times )
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In the early eighteenth century, a woman finds herself set adrift from a mutinous ship and cast ashore on a remote desert island. There she finds shelter with its only other inhabitants: a man named Cruso and his tongueless slave Friday. In time, she builds a life for herself as Cruso's companion and, eventually, his lover. At last, they are rescued by a passing ship, but only she and Friday survive the journey back to London.
Determined to have her story told, she pursues the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe in the hope that he will truthfully relate her memories to the world. But with Cruso dead, Friday incapable of speech and Foe himself intent on reshaping her narrative, Barton struggles to maintain her grip on the past, only to fall victim to the seduction and tyranny of storytelling itself.
Treacherous, elegant and unexpectedly moving, Foe remains one of the most exquisitely composed of this pre-eminent author's works.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
"Foe" begins like an epic poem requiring all six senses to tune in. Our protagonist is a young woman struggling to survive. She fascinates like a spider constructing her web. Her rhythmic motions, her sensual fiber, her instinctive powers and her appetite for natural beauty guide the scene with all its vital ingredients--terror, exhaustion, suspicion, satisfaction, failure, passion, anger, triumph. With the completion of the web, in all its silky and resilient perfection, the reader exalts in the young woman's victory, but not for long.
This is not a straightforward story. The reader has fallen into the web or so it seems. Frustration at first irritates and then infuriates. The memory of a beautiful tale drifts out of focus. Truth evades. The reader, overcome by his incapacity to react wraps himself in a sticky state of inertia--a frail observer of a ever more vanishing truth. But not all webs are constructed to trap a prey. Spiders sometimes simply gloat with the pleasure over a perfect exercise.
And so very slowly after the mental anguish there comes the relaxed appreciation of an unreachable beauty, a truth suspended forever in time like John Keats' lovers on a Grecian urn. "Forever wilt thou love and she be fair!" A vision of an unattainable success.
J. M. Coetzee deserves a poet's laurel wreath for this hypnotizing portrait of human turbulence. I highly recommend J.M. Coetzee's "Foe".
This is not a straightforward story. The reader has fallen into the web or so it seems. Frustration at first irritates and then infuriates. The memory of a beautiful tale drifts out of focus. Truth evades. The reader, overcome by his incapacity to react wraps himself in a sticky state of inertia--a frail observer of a ever more vanishing truth. But not all webs are constructed to trap a prey. Spiders sometimes simply gloat with the pleasure over a perfect exercise.
And so very slowly after the mental anguish there comes the relaxed appreciation of an unreachable beauty, a truth suspended forever in time like John Keats' lovers on a Grecian urn. "Forever wilt thou love and she be fair!" A vision of an unattainable success.
J. M. Coetzee deserves a poet's laurel wreath for this hypnotizing portrait of human turbulence. I highly recommend J.M. Coetzee's "Foe".
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a book I had to read for my English degree and I would advise that it is best read in conjunction with Robinson Crusoe as it is a literary reworking of that. This book primarily seeks to deromanticize the heroic island myth and present the reality of the silenced other and colonialism. Wordy part aside, it is worth a read, although you may want to do some further reading around the ending and avoid reading that section at 3am - it can be rather confusing.
I understand all the literary devices at work here, but I must admit that I found Susan an almost unbearable heroine, the spider imagery used within the book certainly seems to sum up her character - she is something of a parasite. This is not a light fiction book to enjoy by a pool, but if you want something that probably ticks the intellectual box, it is worth a go.
I understand all the literary devices at work here, but I must admit that I found Susan an almost unbearable heroine, the spider imagery used within the book certainly seems to sum up her character - she is something of a parasite. This is not a light fiction book to enjoy by a pool, but if you want something that probably ticks the intellectual box, it is worth a go.
Format:Paperback
This is not Robinson Crusoe told through the voice of Friday, as perhaps would have been a more obvious choice for Coetzee (yet perhaps more complex). Friday is again silent; though here more disturbingly so, and for reasons not disclosed(or conceived) in 1720. On the island there are other changes; constant tropical winds, mysterious apes,and obsessive agricultural terracing by Cruso. Cruso's tale is revealed as in large part a fiction, which, of course it is in reality, and this game of truth/fiction/re-telling is at the heart of the novella. Robinson himself is revealed as dull, authoritarian,utilitarian,yet slightly mad - as is not surprising given his isolation. The novella unfolds as an exercise in the act of storytelling itself, and in the residence of identity, personal and cultural.
But do make sure you read the Defoe original first, or you will miss the myriad references and allusions which help give the Coetzee work such depth. It also helps to know Defoes' other works a little, though this is less important.
But do make sure you read the Defoe original first, or you will miss the myriad references and allusions which help give the Coetzee work such depth. It also helps to know Defoes' other works a little, though this is less important.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Friend or Foe?
Daniel DeFoe's classic novel of shipwreck and survival is given an alternative re-telling by South African Nobel Laureate JM Coetzee in this short novel "Foe". Read more
Published 10 months ago by Sam Quixote
Robinson Crusoe revisited
Tedious and pretentious, with an incomprehensible ending. I believe this book raises issues of how fact and fiction are always liable to subjective interpretation by the narrator,... Read more
Published 15 months ago by areader
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