The Master of Petersburg

In J. M. Coetzee's "The Master of Petersburg" when the main character is asked what kind of books he writes, he doesn't know what to respond. Page later, thinking about it he concludes he could have said he `write[s] perversions of the truth. [He chooses] the crooked road and take[s] the children into dark places. [He] follow[s] the dance of the pen'. In novel "The Master of Petersburg" South African writer Coetzee could state that of book he writes is the same kind of his character's -- who, by the way, happens to be Russian master Fyodor Dostoevsky. Once the contemporary writer picks the nineteen-century author as his main character and draws the narrative following a period of his life, the novel develops a dialogue between past and present. Coetzee is one of the best and boldest writers alive and working. He is at the prime of his career and had proven it for over ten years, producing relevant books dealing with current issues -- or past issues that resonates in the present. "The Master of Petersburg" is not different. Although the story is set in 1869, the narrative echoes in the present once it portrays a man in quest of the truth. This truth is linked to social problems of dissatisfaction and will of revolution. Part a thriller, part a mediation on life and arts, this book asks the reader to fully give himself to the narrative. The characters are very vivid and while very local, they reach universal dimensions. Dostoevsky's books bridges past and present in the narrative. The allusions are very subtle and the more you know about the Russian writer, the more rewarding will be the experience of reading this book. When it comes to contemporary writers, Coetzee is one of the very likely to have a timeless body of work -- just like Dostoevsky and other masters. There is no doubt that in two-hundred year time people will still be reading the South African author just like we read the Russians today.

This novel is a contradiction in terms.The confrontation between Nechaev (the author of the 'Revolutionary's Catechism'), his disciple Pavel and the writer Dostoevsky, Pavel's stepfather, is an essential one. It's the eternal problem of, in the words of Jorge Semprun - L'ecriture ou la Vie -, writing (reflection, literature) or living (action, politics).In the beginning, Nechaev is portrayed as a fundamentalist, an anarchist full of hatred, who curses the intellectuals, because they don't eliminate the old way of thinking.But at the end, Pavel (his follower) is considered as a martyr for a just cause ('he gave himself up for the future').Dostoevsky, on the contrary, ends as a writer of 'perversions of the truth' and as an ink-slinger, 'who receives lots of money for writing books in return for his soul'.So, the winner of the confrontation is Nechaev, the pure and revolutionary politician, against perhaps (and for me) the greatest writer of all times.In our world, we need the two of them, philosophers and experimenters, and the latter are mostly influenced by the former, otherwise their experiments are hot air.Also, the case of Dostoevsky is a special one, because he had to write (and to gamble) in order to try to reimburse the debt he inherited from his family.Apart from this controversy, the novel contains some weaknesses. The parricide theme is flawed, because Pavel is a stepson. There are also some melodramatic passages (e.g. Matryona: 'I would like to have a child with you').This novel is certainly not an easy text. But, even if I don't agree with its basic thesis, I must recommend it, because it treats fundamental questions and it forces the reader at least to reflect upon them.

Very often, when we let our pen wander trough empty paper sheets, when we let it have his own free will, and when the dark ink starts to pour itself in spasmic bursts on that paper, in that moment, great works of art are being made, those works that came from heart.It does not matter wheter it is the pen, brush, hammer, or a pice of wire, greatness of love that emerges from mere act of creation, marks, with undeletable scent, a newborn baby... and very often, that baby pulls along with him new generations of the epoch.Master of Petersburg is one such baby. Written in a dash of brilliance, written from the heart. It does not matter that no one can adequately present the inside universe of the great man like Dostoyevski, Coetzee's Dostoyevski is his trusty image. Without greatness and mistique which is invoked by the title 'great', Dostoyevski is just another on of the "poor men", obsessed with memory, posessive love for his foster child, in the same time categorically refusing to accept his son's world, young, revolutionary Russia, thinking that those kind of times are long gone (1848)...It is a wonderful book, which, unfortunatelly will not present itself in a histories of literature as a great work, but will indoubtley present itself as a great work in a hearts of a reader...

A father travels to Petersburg upon learning of the death of his beloved stepson, Pavel. There he resides in his son's apartment for what he intends to be a time of remembrance and vigilance. Yet, before he can even begin this time of healing, he is spun into a web of unknowns and deception. The police, who are keeping some of Pavel's personal papers, say that he killed himself while the social group to which he belonged believe he was murdered. Add to all this confusion a landlady whom the father finds himself totally taken by and you have The Master of Petersburg. Coetzee's writing is, as usual, superior. He has the ability to draw in the reader and then keep him there wanting to better understand the feelings of the protagonist and the forces that surround him. I think Coetzee is one of the best-kept secrets in the entire literary world. Although he may have won many a prize, the typical reader is not familiar with his name or his works.

Dostoevsky and Coetzee readers might find this novel interesting. It seems that Coetzee and Dostoevsky have the same temperaments as writers, that both explore the same crevices of the human psyche. However, I'm not too sure whether Coetzee succeeds in interpreting Dostoevsky's frame of mind between 'Crime and Punishment' and 'The Brothers Karamazov.' In some passages, the novel becomes too obscure to follow, and perhaps someone with a better knowledge of both Dostoevsky's life and his novels might understand what Coetzee is trying to get at in them. In this sense, 'The Master of Petersburg' doesn't stand on its own. But Coetzee's favorite fiction themes--isolated suffering, glimpses of madness, rivalries between family members, revenge, oppression by the known and unknown, the burdens of empathy--are abundantly represented in the novel, and the tension he creates at some moments through his language and images is truly enviable. I definitively recommend this book to those interested in Coetzee's ideas.