Slow and Underwhelming

Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee

I often wonder if there is a drop-off after a writer wins the Nobel Prize. At some point, I’d like to sample of books from writers who have won the Nobel directly pre-dating their win and directly following it. I wonder if winning the prize somehow makes it impossible to push yourself and your writing because you have already arguably won the literary prize of prizes. If so, I will immediately send a letter to the committee and tell them not to award Ian McEwan, Philip Roth (well, maybe awarding him the prize he has clearly been waiting for will get him out of his slump), and Haruki Murakami anytime soon because I think they each have so much good writing within them.

I wonder know, reflecting on Coetzee and the arc of his work, if this book was published simply to publish. The first twenty pages are riveting, as gripping as a good thriller. When we are first introduced to our protagonist, he is just realizing that he has been hit by a car while he was riding his bicycle. This single moment changes his life. I really cannot emphasize enough how strong the opening was, how much potential Coetzee set up. And then it all self-combusts. Instead doing something memorable, we get something searching for concreteness. The redemption the character tries to find in others is so flat that I found myself rushing to finish it just so I could start something new. For those who love Coetzee’s past work, most notable Disgrace and Elvis Costello, this will be a major disappointment.

I can only hope that the Nobel has not forever ruined any chances of Coetzee pushing the literary envelope the way he has in the past.

Some beautiful quotes (at least he has not lost his ability to write beautiful and memorable passages):

“Don’t immigrants have a history of their own? Do you cease to have a history when you move from one point on the globe to another?”

“We do not need love, old people like us. What we need is care: someone to hold our hand now and then when we get trembly, to make a cup of tea for us, help us down the stairs. Someone to close our eyes for us when the time comes. Care is not love.”

“Once upon a time his heart was his strongest organ. Any one of its brother organs might let him down – bowels, spleen, brain, but his heart, tried and tested first on Magill Road and then in the operating theatre, would serve him faithfully to the end.”