Slow Man - Hardcover

Coetzee, J. M.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670034592 ISBN 13: 9780670034598

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2005

Synopsis

When photographer Paul Rayment loses his leg in a bicycle accident, his solitary life is irrevocably changed. Stubbornly refusing a prosthesis, Paul returns to his bachelor's apartment in Adelaide, uncomfortable with his new dependency on others. He is given to bouts of hopelessness as he looks back on his sixty years of life, but his spirits rise when he finds himself falling in love with Marijana, his practical, down-to-earth Croatian nurse who is struggling to raise her family in a foreign land. As Paul contemplates how to win her heart, he is visited by the mysterious writer Elizabeth Costello, who challenges Paul to take an active role in his own life.
In this new book, J. M. Coetzee offers a meditation on what makes us human, on what it means to grow older and reflect on how we have lived our lives. Slow Man is a novel that asks questions but rarely provides answers; it is a portrait of a man in search of truth. Paul Rayment's accident changes his perspective on life, and as a result he begins to address the kinds of universal concerns that define us all: What does it mean to do good? What in our lives is ultimately meaningful? Is it more important to be loved or to be cared for? How do we define the place we call "home"?

About this title

About the Author

Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on February 9, 1940, John Michael Coetzee studied first at Cape Town and later at the University of Texas at Austin, where he earned a Ph.D. degree in literature. In 1972 he returned to South Africa and joined the faculty of the University of Cape Town. His works of fiction include Dusklands, Waiting for the Barbarians, which won South Africa���s highest literary honor, the Central News Agency Literary Award, and the Life and Times of Michael K., for which Coetzee was awarded his first Booker Prize in 1983. He has also published a memoir, Boyhood: Scenes From a Provincial Life, and several essays collections. He has won many other literary prizes including the Lannan Award for Fiction, the Jerusalem Prize and The Irish Times International Fiction Prize. In 1999 he again won Britain���s prestigious Booker Prize for Disgrace, becoming the first author to win the award twice in its 31-year history. In 2003, Coetzee was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Reviews

Is it the responsibility of Nobel Prize winners to showcase their brilliance or ensure a strong readership? If intelligent readers don’t understand the author, what’s the point? The Washington Post likened Slow Man to "an episode of The Twilight Zone by John Barth," with the feeling "that it means something important," even while this meaning remains elusive. Simply, Coetzee’s postmodern literary trick overwhelms what could have been a provoking rumination on love, old age, and life. Instead, the novel flounders under the weight of ambiguity, cerebral analysis, and lack of scintillating conversation and action. Even readers up for a challenge may be frustrated: it would be better for them to start with the award-winning Disgrace (1999).

Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

Nobel-winner Coetzee (Disgrace) ponders life, love and the mind/ body connection in his latest heavy-hitter; he also plays a little trick. When retired photographer Paul Rayment loses his leg in a bicycle accident, his lengthy, lonely recuperation forces him to reflect on a life he deems wasted. The gloom lifts with the arrival of brisk, efficient Marijana Jokic, his Croatian day nurse, with whom Paul becomes infatuated. (He also takes a special interest in Marijana's teenage boy—the son he never had.) It's here, while Paul frets over how to express his feelings, that Coetzee (perhaps unsure if his dithering protagonist can sustain the book) gets weird: the distinguished writer Elizabeth Costello, eponymous heroine of Coetzee's 2003 novel, comes for a visit. To Paul's bewilderment, Costello (Coetzee's alter ego?) exhorts him to become more of a main character in the narrative, even orchestrating events to force his reactions. Some readers will object to this cleverness and the abstract forays into the mysteriousness of the writing process. It is to Coetzee's credit, however, a testament to his flawless prose and appealing voice, that while challenging the reader with postmodern shenanigans, the story of how Paul will take charge of his life and love continues to engage, while Elizabeth Costello the device softens into a real character, one facing frailties of her own. She pushes Paul, or Paul pushes Elizabeth—both push Coetzee—on to the bittersweet conclusion.
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South African Nobel laureate Coetzee sets his new novel in Australia, his current residence. It could have been a good book. The power of his prose--at once nimble and muscular--and, concomitantly, the immediate recognition we gain of his penetrating vision into human motivation all work to keep the narrative buoyant. But because of one particular plot device the author chooses to fit in, the novel refuses to sail very high in the water. A 60-year-old former photographer by the name of Paul Rayment, who has no family, is struck by a car while riding his bicycle and must have his leg amputated. A day nurse is called for, and one is called; and so are launched more complications in Paul's life than "simply" the readjustment of losing a limb. His affection for his married-with-children nurse accompanies an intense retrospection prompted by his new physical condition. But, at a cost for the good of the novel, Coetzee ushers onto the stage the eponymous character from his previous novel, Elizabeth Costello, as a sort of nemesis and fairy godmother for Paul. What Coetzee wanted this novel to do--show the ultimately humanizing effect of a crisis of physical frailty--could have been accomplished much more expressly without this exasperating contrivance. Still, Coetzee is a major writer, and this novel will be highly requested. Brad Hooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Edition details

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2005
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0670034592
• ISBN 13: 9780670034598
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 265