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The Life and Times of an Outsider
Life & Times of Michael K, by J.M. Coetzee (1983)
Review by Bob Maram (USA/Netherlands)
It is impossible not to be held captive by the words and moods of this special man J.M. Coetzee. His book Life & Times of Michael K conjures up thoughts of Kafka, Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell and the best of Steinbeck. Yet, there is a uniqueness about Coetzee’s writing that places him alongside, rather than as an imitation, of those other great literary artists.
This novel was originally published in South Africa in 1983, and while Coetzee, a South African, does not directly mention “apartheid,” the shadowy, oppressive rulers in his story bring to mind the callousness and brutality of the pre-Mandela regime. Coetzee tells the tale of Michael K, the hare-lipped son of a working mother, who was always ashamed of him but was dependent upon him all her life until he literally pushed her along in a wheelbarrow to a hospital where she died. Because of his misshapen face, Michael, a loyal son and a hard worker, did not have woman friends and very few male acquaintances. He was more comfortable being by himself. There was a “Robinson Crusoe” quality about him, without of course a good man Friday to help him. In a series of misadventures his need for being free in nature takes on an almost mystical aura.
“... He returned to eating insects. Since time ‘was poured out upon him in such an unending stream’, there were whole mornings he could spend lying on his belly over an ant nest picking out the larvae one by one with a grass-stalk and putting them in his mouth. Or he would peal the bark from dead trees looking for beetle-grubs; or knock grasshoppers out of the air with his jacket, tear off their heads and legs and wings, and pound their bodies to a pulp which he dried in the sun...”
Yet in a society where personal freedom is suspect, Michael soon finds himself interned in a re-adjustment camp where there is brain-washing reminiscent of Soviet and North Korean “re-education” camps, and of the starkness and moral corruption in Huxley’s Brave New World. In Michael’s hostile environment, which includes other undesirables, thieves and vagrants, the most despicable are the guards who enforce the rules. As the captain of the guards declares to his workers...”
“... 'What do you think you are doing here – running a holiday camp? It is a work camp, man! It is a camp to teach lazy people to work! Work! And if they don’t work we close it down and chase all these vagrants away! Get out and don’t come back! You have had your chance!’ He turned to the group of men, ‘Yes, you, you ungrateful bastards, you, I am talking about you!… You appreciate nothing! Who builds houses for you when you have nowhere to live? Who gives you tents and blankets when you are shivering with cold? Who nurses you, who takes care of you, who comes here day after day with food? And how do you repay us? Well, from now on you can starve!’”
At the end of this horrifying, yet tender tale of human striving and decay, unlike the anti-hero (victim) of Kafka’s The Trial who murmurs “Like a dog,” the moment before he is killed, Michael K finds a way to live. This novel should be read and re-read in order to capture its complex simplicity.
Review by Bob Maram (USA/Netherlands)
It is impossible not to be held captive by the words and moods of this special man J.M. Coetzee. His book Life & Times of Michael K conjures up thoughts of Kafka, Cormac McCarthy, George Orwell and the best of Steinbeck. Yet, there is a uniqueness about Coetzee’s writing that places him alongside, rather than as an imitation, of those other great literary artists.
This novel was originally published in South Africa in 1983, and while Coetzee, a South African, does not directly mention “apartheid,” the shadowy, oppressive rulers in his story bring to mind the callousness and brutality of the pre-Mandela regime. Coetzee tells the tale of Michael K, the hare-lipped son of a working mother, who was always ashamed of him but was dependent upon him all her life until he literally pushed her along in a wheelbarrow to a hospital where she died. Because of his misshapen face, Michael, a loyal son and a hard worker, did not have woman friends and very few male acquaintances. He was more comfortable being by himself. There was a “Robinson Crusoe” quality about him, without of course a good man Friday to help him. In a series of misadventures his need for being free in nature takes on an almost mystical aura.
“... He returned to eating insects. Since time ‘was poured out upon him in such an unending stream’, there were whole mornings he could spend lying on his belly over an ant nest picking out the larvae one by one with a grass-stalk and putting them in his mouth. Or he would peal the bark from dead trees looking for beetle-grubs; or knock grasshoppers out of the air with his jacket, tear off their heads and legs and wings, and pound their bodies to a pulp which he dried in the sun...”
Yet in a society where personal freedom is suspect, Michael soon finds himself interned in a re-adjustment camp where there is brain-washing reminiscent of Soviet and North Korean “re-education” camps, and of the starkness and moral corruption in Huxley’s Brave New World. In Michael’s hostile environment, which includes other undesirables, thieves and vagrants, the most despicable are the guards who enforce the rules. As the captain of the guards declares to his workers...”
“... 'What do you think you are doing here – running a holiday camp? It is a work camp, man! It is a camp to teach lazy people to work! Work! And if they don’t work we close it down and chase all these vagrants away! Get out and don’t come back! You have had your chance!’ He turned to the group of men, ‘Yes, you, you ungrateful bastards, you, I am talking about you!… You appreciate nothing! Who builds houses for you when you have nowhere to live? Who gives you tents and blankets when you are shivering with cold? Who nurses you, who takes care of you, who comes here day after day with food? And how do you repay us? Well, from now on you can starve!’”
At the end of this horrifying, yet tender tale of human striving and decay, unlike the anti-hero (victim) of Kafka’s The Trial who murmurs “Like a dog,” the moment before he is killed, Michael K finds a way to live. This novel should be read and re-read in order to capture its complex simplicity.
Ineke Bosman (Netherlands/Ghana): Complicated simplicity is a great way to end this review. I so admire Coetzee for this, for his hopeful absurdity and complicated simplicity, as you say.