![]() ![]() But a few sly chuckles starts to peek through in Coetzee’s best mid-period books, like the great Disgrace and Elizabeth Costello and the memoir installments.Some Coetzee readers have expressed disappointment with Coetzee’s latest two productions, both of them twisted multi-narrative love stories, Diary of a Bad Year and Summertime. ![]() It’s hard to laugh about characters who are being tortured, humiliated and ostracized (usually all at once). Waiting For The Barbarians and Life and Times of Michael K., for all their moral excitement, are tough, sinewy, dreary narratives about martyrdom and suffering. A video went around the Internet recently mocking the dignified South African writer’s demeanor at a ceremony when Geoff Dyer dared to make a joke about Nadine Gordimer only to receive the stoniest of reactions from the guest of honor (it’s still fun to watch).Ĭoetzee’s earliest major novels are also very low in light humor. Coetzee, a Nobel-prize winner and one of my very favorite living writers, is not known for his funny side. didn’t have the quail, he had a butternut and tofu tartlet) Alan made serious inroads into the shiraz.” hardly drank at all but over supper (roast quail with baby vegetables followed by zabaglione, except that Senor C. ![]() ![]() By the time she brought in the snacks Alan had downed two glasses of champagne, and that set the pattern for the evening. “The girl in the apron turned out to be the totality of the catering by Federico’s. ![]()
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