In a surprise move, John Maxwell Coetzee became the first Nobel Laureate to give up writing and join the ATP tour. He’s playing men’s and mixed doubles in this year’s Open. Toni Morrison had considered it back in the mid-1980s, but wrote Beloved instead.
DIARY OF A BAD YEAR
By J.M. Coetzee
Viking, 231 pages, $24.95
Remember Roland Barthes’ distinction between “readerly” and “writerly” texts? If the answer is no—and especially if the answer is a pointed “no thank you”—then I suspect that J.M. Coetzee’s Diary of a Bad Year is not for you. Read More
INNER WORKINGS: LITERARY ESSAYS 2000-2005
By J.M. Coetzee
Viking, 304 pages, $25.95
Each of the 21 essays included in Inner Workings: Literary Essays 2000-2005 is named for the author whose works it examines, making the collection’s table of contents read like a syllabus. In the first half of the course, J.M. Coetzee lectures Read More
If book publishing is a horse race, this fall we’re being treated to a Nobel trifecta. In September, we have Slow Man (Viking), a bag of tricks from the newest laureate, J.M. Coetzee (b. 1940); in October, Memories of My Melancholy Whores (Knopf), a typically sonorous title from Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928); and in Read More
If book publishing is a horse race, this fall we’re being treated to a Nobel trifecta. In September, we have Slow Man (Viking), a bag of tricks from the newest laureate, J.M. Coetzee (b. 1940); in October, Memories of My Melancholy Whores (Knopf), a typically sonorous title from Gabriel García Márquez (b. 1928); and in Read More
Just five years ago, age 66, John Updike was a sour old geezer, humped with envy, pouring out complaints. He’s always graceful and prolix, even when he’s bitter-nothing can stop the prodigious flow of his words (20 novels now and counting, more than 50 books all told, essays and reviews in assorted periodicals on what Read More
Elizabeth Costello , by J.M Coetzee, Viking Press, 224 pages, $24.95
J.M. Coetzee’s latest work of fiction, Elizabeth Costello , is subtitled “Eight Lessons,” as if the author were giving his readers fair warning not to expect a novel in the traditional sense. Elizabeth Costello is anything but: It’s the literary equivalent of an Read More
