read proust

For the Barbarians.

Finished. I reread passages to make the book more linear for me.

This is a story within a fictional empire that exists in a timeless, somewhat feral world. This Empire centres around the trade of provisions and the protection against attacks from the Barbarians who live on the outskirts of the Empire. The narrator is a magistrate who oversees the fort. He is forced to examine his loyalty to the Empire when a sinister colonel arrives one day to gather information from nomadic traders about supposedly imminent Barbarian attacks. The colonel’s method of interrogation – torture – leaves the magistrate unsure of his purpose within the Empire. In the aftermath of the torturing, one captive dies and another, a young woman, is left behind blinded and crippled.
The magistrate, for unknown reasons, attempts to bond with the girl in a ritual that is almost but not quite romantic. He then sets out to return the girl to her tribe, and subsequently suffers an accusation of treason by the colonel. Armies who have arrived to destroy the Barbarians take him prisoner. His own subsequent degradation and torture makes him a sort of fallen hero, one that forces him to examine how and why he is willing to suffer for what he believes in, as confused as it may or may not be.

It’s not out of step as far as Coetzee novels go, in their spare, descriptive exploration of degradation and redemption.

An attempt again at Proust, but concentration was off. I went back to Waiting for the Barbarians, but it was an off day. Waiting is not my favourite book. I admit I’m going through it for its style. It is spare and yet densely lyrical. I know someone who writes like this, though I am not sure he realises it.
I will write a review when I finish, maybe after the weekend.

Then Proust when my thoughts clear.

but I am reading J.M.Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians.

Proust at last! It’s going to be a long, long ride. I tried to cozy up to the first chapter, but it felt like I was thinking with a sock. Proust composes the longest sentences known to humankind.

Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee. Another remarkable and bizarre book. I found the last paragraph unsatisfying, so I reread the last two chapters. There was still something incomplete. But it is a tiny blemish on a masterwork.

Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee.
This, like Elizabeth Costello, is one of those books that needs to be drawn out, savoured. It is delicious. I read, absorb, synthesize. I am imbued with its peculiar cadence, its ease of impossibility.

And Elizabeth Costello has appeared as a character!

The Life and Times of Michael K. by J.M. Coetzee. Why is it every time I pass a library shelf, the Coetzee books jump off and into my hands?
This is a gloriously depressing read. Relentlessly grim.
But is decidedly not Proust.

(In Elton John’s voice: Can’t someone do something about that?)

To the Lighthouse- begun!

No Proust here either.

Diary of a Bad Year. Begun. Glory hallelujah, Rat is reading novels again. All’s well with the universe. Reading endless literature on mitral regurgitation gets tedious when it ceases to be obsessive.

Finished and absolutely enjoyed Coetzee. Coetzee has begun to seep into my speech and consciousness.
I must look for more Coetzee. In the meantime, I begin Woolf.
No Proust yet.