Finished Coetzee's Summertime, an utterly infuriating book. Coetzee is either overweeningly arrogant (to the point of decadence) or overweeningly insecure (to the point of decadence), and I say that as someone who actually likes the man. At first glance, the former seems to be the case: Coetzee has created an autobiography (an inherently egotistic enterprise) but, by making it a false autobiography has pulled the rug out from under us and robbed us of the "truth" we look for in autobiography in general. and yet, we will read it, looking for...something. It's easy to imagine Coetzee enjoying this state of affairs, chuckling, perhaps, at our foolishness, relishing his plausible deniability.
But maybe it's the latter possibility and he's actually as self-deprecating as you'd conclude if you read the book without irony. I like to think that this is the slightly more likely possibility because it fits with everything I know of the man, which is admittedly not much. Coetzee's conceit in Summertime is that no one really knows him, which we hope is not true given that he did have a wife (at the very time he claims to recount in the book) and, at last check, has a partner. Assumedly he pretends that those who knew him best were mere acquaintances in order to further paint a picture of himself as an emotional shut-in (or "autistic" as one of the women puts it), incapable of connecting with other people. Undoubtedly there is some truth to this notion--the real man is certainly shy and reserved to an extreme degree--but my take on his character has always been that he is not incapable of connecting with others but rather that he does not want to waste his (apparently) limited emotional resources on casual acquaintances or mere social niceties. And one can get away with that when one is a reclusive academic and Nobel Laureate. Those of us not so honored don't have the luxury. The point, though, is that once upon a time, neither did he; there was a moment in his life when his character foibles were in fact pathological flaws.
Reading Summertime it is as though the latter Coetzee--the one I know--did not exist; indeed, several of those "interviewed" haven't even read his mature works and know only the flawed thirty-year-old author of Dusklands. Perhaps he is trying to say that while he has undeniably matured, and redeemed himself as a writer, he has not done so as a human being. This is perhaps true.
He is not, however, "inhuman," as he suggests at one point in Summertime--although he might prefer it if he were. Even in this book--perhaps more in this book than in any book since Disgrace--there are glimpses of a very human truth. This is true, for example, when Julia suggests that John will prove to have been a minor character in his own life, when she speaks of his writing as an "unending cathartic exercise," when she talks about the seeming strangeness of one so unable to connect to others writing novels about intimate human experience, or when Adriana speaks of his not having learned to hide his feelings, "which is the first step to civilized manners."
The ending of the book, when he feels he cannot take care of his father and must turn the responsibility over to strangers is also extremely human. This failure to take care--of one's self, one's loved ones, one's animals--is a recurring theme in Coetzee's work. Does that mean that he sees this failing in himself? Maybe. Does it really matter? Maybe not. Perhaps Coetzee will always hide himself from us. And although it is not our job to psychoanalyze the man, a book like Summertime certainly adds to the temptation. Ultimately it doesn't matter whether the book is classed as fiction or non-fiction--anyone who knows anything about the man and his work will be able to pick up on the themes that have the ring of truth. Coetzee may have given himself plausible deniability, but taken in the context of his life's work, it's clear that in Summertime he is writing about very real failures and feelings, even if they are veiled by a fictional plot and characters.
No comments:
Post a Comment