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`Both a gripping mystery and a meditation on the relationship between art and life' --BBC History Magazine
Book Description
WINNER OF THE NOBEL PRIZE FOR LITERATURE 2003
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
JM Coetzee is definitely an audacious author. Delving into the mind of such a complex man as Dostoevsky is no straightforward undertaking, but Coetzee carries it off brilliantly. A meditation/fantasy recreation of some of the pivotal moments in FMD's life this does take some liberties with the truth, but that's not the point. Dostoevsky was a true artist working in the medium of the novel, and this book is a piece of art in itself, blending fact and fiction into a mesmerising look at the mechansims of creative genius. I read this and then read 'The Devils' afterwards, and reading the latter was greatly enriched. Coetzee doesn't write straightforward plot-driven novels, they are more like complex dreams put on paper with many convoluted undertones and hidden meanings but they are well worth getting into.
13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Knowledge of Dostoevsky, particularly C&P and the Brothers K is essential to understand this magnificent work. Additionally, some knowledge of is personal life will definately leave you less confused at the beginning of the book.
Once you pass the historical aspects, this book becomes rapidly an exploration of the most fundamental ideas, desires, instincts and terrors of the human experience. Coetzee wrestles out the same profundity that Petersburg's Master himself did. Coetzee's stark and ruthless prose has always matched perfectly his subject matter, but in this book the marriage is at it's highest point since 'Barbarians'.
Coetzee is probably the greatest author of ideas living, possibly the greatest since Dostoevsky. This book is a jewel. This book is an indictment. This book is a ravishment.
Coetzee is the reason we read. Coetzee is the reason we fear to read.
4 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
I was most of the way through this when I learnt that Coetzee's own son died aged Twenty-three shortly before the writing of The Master of Petersburg. The novel's protagonist is Fyodor Dostoyevsky, gone for Petersburg to collect the effects of his son- an apparent suicide. It's a dark novel, written in Coetzee's typically compact, incisive manner. It's not an easy read, simply because Coetzee never lets up: the novel is about a great writer overcome with grief, overcome with a need to assemble some coherence from the conflicting theories surrounding his son's death. As a novel in it's own right it is compelling, deeply moving and indelible. As an essay on the great Russian writer, on the people and the times his works portrayed, it is an exemplary and unforgettable piece of writing. The grief, the compact pain which floods across these pages, is a perfect partner to the life and work of Dostoyevsky.
Dostoyevsky's novels, particularly The Devils- a work which is intrinsically bound to Coetzee's own- give us some of the most complex and tumultuous characters in all of literature. The revolutionary Russian youth examined in Master of Petersburg are the embodiment of all the painful confusion Dostoyevsky faced. It's a youth disgusted with the complacency of their elders, a youth bent on destruction, a destruction which shirks even tying itself to theory. Destruction for its own sake. This mind-set is that of a people so morally confused and so bitter at their own confusion- illuminating as it does the ineluctable obviousness of man; if you have no reason for doing as you do, then why do you do it? If you wilfully contradict that rigid question, then you are merely acting out of childish stubbornness. Where does that leave the radical mind? For Dostoyevsky's characters- Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Verkhovensky- it leaves them to act for the sake of it and run like mad from the consequential questioning. It's nothing like a simple, nihilistic shrug of the shoulders, it is a blind, existential panic. Coetzee's Dostoyevsky finds the same panic throughout this novel; as a writer, a soul-giving plunderer of all this frightening mess, he gives himself over to the void, and from it produces his work. D.'s son's white suit is emblematic of this routine: it parallels the story of Stavrogin from the Devils who wears it to indulge the delusion of the simple-minded Maria. Why does Stavrogin behave in such a cruel way? Why did Raskolnikov kill Lizaveta and her sister? These are questions without resolve, and a writer who can present such questions is transcendent of all that is neat about literature, all that can be explained away. Dostoyevsky is the man for giving yourself to unshakeable grief and all the frustration and pain it brings with it.
Coetzee's novel also touches on the familiar, Dostoyevskian theme of the sexual corruption of children, perhaps because it is an ultimate perversion- an ultimate sacrifice of oneself to motiveless, destitute, reckless amorality.
The Master of Petersburg is a miraculous novel. I've been working through Coetzee for a short while, about half a dozen of his books so far, and it is evident to me again and again that he is our greatest living novelist.
Dostoyevsky's novels, particularly The Devils- a work which is intrinsically bound to Coetzee's own- give us some of the most complex and tumultuous characters in all of literature. The revolutionary Russian youth examined in Master of Petersburg are the embodiment of all the painful confusion Dostoyevsky faced. It's a youth disgusted with the complacency of their elders, a youth bent on destruction, a destruction which shirks even tying itself to theory. Destruction for its own sake. This mind-set is that of a people so morally confused and so bitter at their own confusion- illuminating as it does the ineluctable obviousness of man; if you have no reason for doing as you do, then why do you do it? If you wilfully contradict that rigid question, then you are merely acting out of childish stubbornness. Where does that leave the radical mind? For Dostoyevsky's characters- Raskolnikov, Stavrogin, Verkhovensky- it leaves them to act for the sake of it and run like mad from the consequential questioning. It's nothing like a simple, nihilistic shrug of the shoulders, it is a blind, existential panic. Coetzee's Dostoyevsky finds the same panic throughout this novel; as a writer, a soul-giving plunderer of all this frightening mess, he gives himself over to the void, and from it produces his work. D.'s son's white suit is emblematic of this routine: it parallels the story of Stavrogin from the Devils who wears it to indulge the delusion of the simple-minded Maria. Why does Stavrogin behave in such a cruel way? Why did Raskolnikov kill Lizaveta and her sister? These are questions without resolve, and a writer who can present such questions is transcendent of all that is neat about literature, all that can be explained away. Dostoyevsky is the man for giving yourself to unshakeable grief and all the frustration and pain it brings with it.
Coetzee's novel also touches on the familiar, Dostoyevskian theme of the sexual corruption of children, perhaps because it is an ultimate perversion- an ultimate sacrifice of oneself to motiveless, destitute, reckless amorality.
The Master of Petersburg is a miraculous novel. I've been working through Coetzee for a short while, about half a dozen of his books so far, and it is evident to me again and again that he is our greatest living novelist.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Recommended
Beautifully written masterpiece, unlike other Coetzee books. Manages to convey his normal emotional engagement with a careful study of late 19th Century Russia, through the eyes... Read more
Published on 22 May 2010 by Graham Hitchen
Small recommendation
It's a good book but you'd certainly benefit if you read Demons (& even the relevant volume of Frank) before you started it.
Published on 23 Jan 2010 by B. Mullen
Rather difficult to read
After the death of his stepson Pavel Isajev, Fjodor Dostojevski returns to St. Petersburg to say farewell and to find out the true cause of his death. Read more
Published on 14 Oct 2005 by Linda Oskam
Not Coetzee's Best
The Master of Petersburg is a good piece of literature, and I can see why it would be particularly enjoyable for lovers of Dostoevsky. Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2003
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