Summertime

Before writing this review, I did something I rarely do: I read other reviews of the book. What seems faintly amusing from them is an apparent mindset by reviewers regarding the relationship of authors to their fictional works. England's Guardian newspaper wonders if Summertime - a fiction in which Coetzee is the principal character - is not an act of evasive action, i.e. an attempt by Coetzee to obfuscate his life. Others sense something afoot with this book that they can't put finger to. So they step gingerly around what might seem autobiographical revelations. A wise move, such wariness. It's indeed tempting to attach the word "cagey" to Coetzee, but I propose that "inventive" may be the more accurate descriptive, although certainly less alluring. Think of a pair of his recent books: In Diary Of A Bad Year, Coetzee weaves a seeming series of crank essays on a number of topical subjects into an "almost" romance between an aging writer and his young typist. Elizabeth Costello gives us another snapshot of an elder writer, this time a woman, bent on assessing the world around her. As part of her assessment she can't escape the notion that her fame as a writer has long since outdistanced the reality of who she is. Seeing some similarities, despite the differing characterizations and novel structure? Don't be deceived here: wariness is still the watchword regarding Coetzee and his relationship to his writing. But I'm going to throw that word aside and make my own stab at what Coetzee is - and has been - up to in his more recent novels. But first a word or two about this story: In Summertime, Coetzee has died and a man named Vincent is researching for a biography of Coetzee. As part of his research, he's selected five people from Coetzee's life to interview. * Julia, a married woman with whom Coetzee has had an affair while in his early to middle years * His cousin Margot * A Brazilian dancer whom Coetzee knew indirectly - Coetzee was for a time her daughter's tutor. * Martin, a university colleague of Coetzee's, and... * Sophie, a French woman with whom Coetzee had a sexual liaison in his early life. Among the topics discussed in these interviews are: * Coetzee's lack of social graces * His lackluster performances as a sexual partner * His possible homosexuality * His abilities as a writer * His successes - or lack thereof - as a tutor and teacher Clearly, some of these interviews unearth accurate biographical bon mots. But which? Beware! Okay, I step into literary quicksand here. These are my contentions: * Coetzee is first and foremost a novelist of great stylistic inventiveness. While his prose may seem pedestrian to some, that's not where his talent and vision lie. Birthed as a writer in the crucible of South Africa and that nation's checkered history, he has rarely written directly about that nation's history. In fact, his writing on the subject, as with other subjects he treats, is somewhat oblique. He prefers metaphor and symbol t

In an exquisitely constructed exposition, J. M. Coetzee writes about himself. The book is much more than a memoir. It is a story, depicted primarily as a journalistic exercise consisting of six (6) interviews with people who were influential in Coetzee's life, five (5) of whom were women. The book covers primarily the years 1971, when Coetzeee returned to South Africa after completing his studies in the United States, through 1977 when he was first formally recognized as an outstanding author of fiction. In many ways the story is reminiscent stylistically of such authors as Thomas Wolfe in "You Can't Go Home Again" and Henry Miller in his epic trilogy "The Rosy Crucifixion" where the authors talk about their struggle to write. However, uncharacteristically, Coetzee deigns to write this `novel' from the perspective of a posthumous study by a journalist who is researching Coetzee's life for the purpose of writing a biography. As such, the book is highly autobiographical. Yet it would seem that due to Coetzee's personal secretive nature, the incidents and characters are real, but `the names have been changed to protect the innocent.' The text is truly extraordinary in that because it is written in the words of others, Coetzee tackles his view of how he had been perceived by others rather than how he perceives himself. Thus, it leaves the reader wide latitude to interpret what really was going on in the author's mind during the subject time frame. To help round out the projected image of himself, a number of what Coetzee calls "Notebook Fragments" are included in an appendix to the book. Again, these fragments are reminiscent of yet another author with whom Coetzee has great familiarity, Franz Kafka. In fact, Coetzee makes great use of a Kafka story, "A Report to an Academy" in one of his previous novels. It is of tremendous interest to Coetzee devotees, the things that the author reveals about himself, especially since the main body of the text is his impressions of how he believes others perceive him. And it is probably true that as he says of himself through the lips of another, that J. M. Coetzee "... could not dance to save his life." He describes himself as very secretive, stiff, English, unromantic and loner. His text makes a very graphic attempt to explain these perceptions, as well as his "anti-political" personal position. It was during his lifetime that South Africa transferred from a legally sanctioned racist country with apartheid as the way of life; to a democracy. The country was ruled by a wealthy white upperclass minority of outsiders that completely subjugated and in essence enslaved the native "Coloured" majority. This transition was all but earth shattering to the denizens of South Africa. In fact, a large percentage of the white population of South Africa emigrated after the transition to democracy. This faction includes Coetzee himself, who now lives in Australia. In essence, the book is a truly monumental

'Summertime' is the brilliant new book by John Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize for literature in 2003. This book is part novel, part fictional biography, part memoir, part alternative history, and an obituary for a living writer. Its essence is the imagined life of John Coetzee from 1971 - 1977 as gathered by a biographer who may or may not be Coetzee himself. The basis of the biography consists of interviews with a few people who knew the author, and fragments from the author's journals. This book is both ambiguous and a page-turner. It is a mystery about the essence of a man or perhaps his imagined self or alter-ego. We see Coetzee through the eyes of female lovers, relatives, colleagues and unrequited loves all interviewed many years after his supposed death. All of these people paint a similar picture of Coetzee as a bland man, socially inept, unassuming, diminished in some emotional capacity, and lacking passion. Is this who Coetzee was or is this a self-deprecatory construct? Is this bland, diminished man the author stripped of his art? Can any artist be viewed separately from his art? Clearly, Coetzee, stripped of his art, is only a cipher. The book weaves interlocking aspects of Coetzee's personality with ever increasing subtlety. Is the fictional Coetzee the 'real' Coetzee's homunculus or is it a shadow of the real self? Coetzee lives with his father and both are closed men, emotionally guarded, at times antagonistic towards one another. Coetzee's father is a disbarred lawyer who now works as a bookkeeper. Coetzee is said to have gotten into trouble in the United Stated during the Vietnam war and was deported back to South Africa. The two men live simple, apparently boring and vacuous lives together. Both have been displaced and are socially isolated. Coetzee's first journal entrees speak to his dissatisfaction with living in South Africa. "How to escape the filth: not a new question. An old rat question that will not let go, that leaves its nasty suppurating wound." He writes of the borderlands, murders followed by denials and how he feels soiled by all this. He has conflicted and complex feelings about the corrupt leadership in Africa and the violence correlative with the new apartheid. The first person interviewed by the biographer is Julia, a therapist with whom Coetzee had a brief and relatively dispassionate affair. Julia describes Coetzee as "scrawny, he had a beard, he wore horn-rimmed glasses and sandals. He looked out of place, like a bird, one of those flightless birds; or like an abstracted scientist who had wandered by mistake out of his laboratory. There was an air of seediness about him, too, an air of failure." It is she who seduces Coetzee and she questions her motivations as "he had no sexual presence whatsoever. It was as if he had been sprayed from head to toe with a neutering spray." Further, he is not a good talker. She perceives John as incapable of love and self-absorbed. "Sex w

Summertime is everything that I have come to expect and enjoy when reading Mr Coetzee's writings. Although noted to be fiction, Coetzee seems to be offering a self-revealing glimpse that readers will come to appreciate not only for its honesty and lack of pretense, but for providing a revelation into what makes a good writer great. All is not what it appears to be from the outside, but rather, we are a compilation of history, of family, and of country. This is captured through a series of interviews (with those had known Mr. Coetzee prior to him becoming renowned) that touch upon each of these factors. As one proceeds through this book you will note that a seemingly non-descript, passionless, lonely, fatalistic man can, through his history, his family, and his country, transform and develop an introspection that rises to levels that we would not expect (nor do those who knew Coetzee personally suspect) and is capable of poignantly delivering this message through his writings, if nothing else. This is what makes J.M. Coetzee great and why Summertime will resonate with its readers as all his books do.

This was a strong contender for the 2009 Man Booker Prize. Many felt it didn't have a chance because Coetzee had already won two Bookers. I certainly preferred Summertime to the Man Booker winner, Wolf Hall. This is the third in a series that began with Boyhood and continued with Youth. The first two books were fictional biographies of writer John Coetzee and were told in the third person but with insight into Coetzee's thoughts. It is very difficult to assess what is fiction and what is true biography though I simply didn't worry about it and just enjoyed the novels. They're both excellent books but Summertime is even better and is structured very interestingly. In this novel, he chooses a different approach in that he tells of dead writer John Coetzee through a journalist's interviews with old friends and acquaintances of Coetzee (mostly women.) The perspective is interesting and his writing about his dead self from the perspective of others was fascinating. It is set in the 70s when Coetzee lives with his aging father in Cape Town. This is around the time just before he first started to publish novels. Those that tell the story include his cousin Margot whom he planned on marrying when he was a child,a woman whom he became infatuated with but would have none of him and a former lover. A consistent theme throughout the book is that Coetzee may have turned out to be a great writer but he certainly didn't strike anyone as a person destined for greatness. Through the eyes of others, Coetzee portrays himself as cold, distant, arrogant and somewhat strange. One of the characters does make a comment that Coetzee may not have appeared that he would be a great writer but he didn't win the Nobel Prize for nothing. The portrayal of his life in 1970s South Africa is very creative, moves well and gives great insight into JM Coetzee I loved how he wrote about himself but by doing it through the words of others said things that are not quite the same as when one does it directly. I thoroughly enjoyed it, highly recommend it and wished he had won a third Booker for it