You know how you are idly browsing in a library and open a book by a writer you've never heard of, or only think you may have? Or the front cover tells you he won a big prize?

Such was my experience, with JM Coetzee's 'Slow Man', which had a terrific first page, describing the thoughts of a man as he flies through the air, having been knocked off his bicycle. Immediately following is a vivid account of his half-conscious state as a hospital doctor tells him he will have to amputute his leg.In a superbly intriguing style, the book goes on to relate how the man, aged 70 and independently wealthy enough not to have to work, refuses a prosthesis but engages a daily nurse, of Eastern European origin, to tend his daily needs. The story is set in Melbourne but we hardly leave the house. After a while I became impatient with the man's self-pity, lack of any wish to come to terms with the accident, and, to top it all, his fantasies of a romantic relationship with the woman, whom he proceeds to exploit. This book definitely began to sag but the introduction of a mysterious elderly female 'author' who tries to move in and direct his recovery, enlivened the narrative for a while. There was no happy ending.

The second book I read 'The Story of Michael K.'tells of a the declining fortunes of a young black South African. Again, there is a compellingly miserable start. Michael is born with a cleft palate to a woman whose husband deserts her. She hands him over to an orphanage where his disfigurement and treatment turns him into a loner. When he is a young man he receives a summons from his mother: she is dying and wants to move from her workplace in the city, where she is a houseservant to a wealthy family, to her birthplace in the country. The rest of the story is about Michael's desperate attempt to get her there in a home-made cart whilst evading road-guards and about his eventual capture, imprisonment in a camp and his wanderings after he escapes. There are powerful evocations of landscapes in time of war and detailed accounts of Michael's aspiration to live by himself off the land. If the prison camp is frightening, the hospital where a half-starved Michael is taken is even worse. There is much meditation on the effects of captivity on hunger from an enlightened white doctor.

These books were a very depressing but compelling read. The second one roused my interest in wanting to know a little more about South African history. For a very sour view of human nature it would be hard to beat JM Coetzee, although admirers of Kafka, to whom the second book's title is an oblique reference, would like his work.

Sheila



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The title of the second book is 'The Life and Times of Michael K.'

In the first book the 'author' character's name is Esther Costello, the title of another novel by Coetzee. I'll get it from the library after reading a couple of antidote thrillers, I think.

Hi Cornelia, Thanks for your review. J M Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians is a tremendous book too. I have a friend who hasn't stopped raving about Disgrace. Charlev

Charlev, you've reminded me how much I enjoyed these books - if enjoy is quite the word for such relentless miserablism. Maybe I'll take a trip to the library and look up the ones you mention.

Sheila

Hi Sheila, Relentless miserablism - superb! It is almost like enjoying savory food rather than sweet. I'm off to find one of yours too. Charlev