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Review
Black, hare-lipped, raised in an orphanage, Michael K. works as a public groundskeeper in Capetown until the illness of his charwoman mother - who could not care for him, yet now would be lost without his help. South Africa is at war around them, with troop movements and local riots. And, though simple-minded, Michael gets the idea of taking his mother away, up-country, to where they originally came from. On foot, then, as Michael pushes his disabled mother in a makeshift barrow, they go; they are turned back; they go again. Eventually they nearly make it - but at this point the mother worsens, dies. So Michael, without family or money or even a plan about what to do next, sleeps under cardboard boxes near the hospital for days afterward: he has nowhere else to go, no other idea; he is truly one of the lost. But finally he does go onward, to a deserted farm - where he hunts (a failure), then grows vegetables from seed he finds (some success), is detained in a camp but refuses to eat (no food particularly interests him). . . and finally escapes, somehow continuing his improbable, blank, stubborn survival. Coetzee writes powerfully and often poignantly of Michael's lowest, most desolate moments; and he manages, surprisingly often, to twist out from under the obvious literary parallels here (Beckett, Kafka). Yet the gnarled/naive tone of the narration offers only the narrow fascination of inertia; except for a scene with a camp medic, there's no real drama, interaction, or deeper pathos. And, like Coetzee's previous book, Waiting for the Barbarians, this effectively bleak but monotonic novel doesn't develop its few ideas - resulting in superficially striking fiction, grimly engaging at first but increasingly thin. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
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.
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Black, hare-lipped, raised in an orphanage, Michael K. works as a public groundskeeper in Capetown until the illness of his charwoman mother - who could not care for him, yet now would be lost without his help. South Africa is at war around them, with troop movements and local riots. And, though simple-minded, Michael gets the idea of taking his mother away, up-country, to where they originally came from. On foot, then, as Michael pushes his disabled mother in a makeshift barrow, they go; they are turned back; they go again. Eventually they nearly make it - but at this point the mother worsens, dies. So Michael, without family or money or even a plan about what to do next, sleeps under cardboard boxes near the hospital for days afterward: he has nowhere else to go, no other idea; he is truly one of the lost. But finally he does go onward, to a deserted farm - where he hunts (a failure), then grows vegetables from seed he finds (some success), is detained in a camp but refuses to eat (no food particularly interests him). . . and finally escapes, somehow continuing his improbable, blank, stubborn survival. Coetzee writes powerfully and often poignantly of Michael's lowest, most desolate moments; and he manages, surprisingly often, to twist out from under the obvious literary parallels here (Beckett, Kafka). Yet the gnarled/naive tone of the narration offers only the narrow fascination of inertia; except for a scene with a camp medic, there's no real drama, interaction, or deeper pathos. And, like Coetzee's previous book, Waiting for the Barbarians, this effectively bleak but monotonic novel doesn't develop its few ideas - resulting in superficially striking fiction, grimly engaging at first but increasingly thin. (Kirkus Reviews)
Product Description
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.
See all Product Description