Comments on: JM Coetzee in York

By: Sandhya Nambiar

Sandhya Nambiar — Fri, 01 May 2009 13:11:14 +0000

I am reading all of Coetzees works and oh my what an amazing man!

By: spirulina

spirulina — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 13:33:06 +0000

I read Disgrace, and i am very impressed of this novel

By: john baker

john baker — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:46:02 +0000

Disgrace is a fine novel and a very good place to start.

By: Polaris

Polaris — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 22:39:58 +0000

Just yesterday, at the airport bookstore in SFO, I leafed through the first few pages of Disgrace. I think I would like to read Coetzee. Which book do you think is a good one to start with?

I realize that it might be a little too late to leave a comment here, but I thought of asking anyway since I remembered reading this post last month.

By: Lee

Lee — Thu, 08 Jun 2006 07:45:22 +0000

Elizabeth Costello pushes the envelope of the novel altogether, for which Coetzee has been roundly criticised, as if a writer of his ilk might not know what a novel is ’supposed’ to be.

By: john baker

john baker — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 19:39:18 +0000

This question of readers’ dependancy on categories is not easy to fathom. But it is patently true that publishers and booksellers, at least, believe that we won’t buy their wares unless they put a label on each text describing it as ‘literary’ or ‘romantic’ or ‘crime’, etc. etc.
Within these categories, of course, there are sub-categories and sometimes sub-sub-categories. ‘Noir’, for example, describes a sub-category within the general ‘crime’ genre. But you might well find historical-noir, or some such label, as the entrepreneurs within the publishing industry try another trick to tie you in to their latest offering.
After that there are the names of the individual writers, and these, as well as the other categories are all, in one sense, expressions of ‘brand loyalty’.
This situation has brought about the various initiatives, mainly through the library and reading-group communities, in reader development.
Reader development attempts to sell the reading experience and what it can do for individual readers, rather than selling individual books or genres or writers.
It builds the audience for literature by moving readers beyond brand loyalty and helping them develop the confidence to try something new.
Reader development is also at the heart of the lit-blogging community. It involves active intervention to increase readers’ confidence and enjoyment of reading. It consistently opens up more reading choices. And it offers opportunities for people to share their reading experiences.

By: Rebecca Jane

Rebecca Jane — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:30:52 +0000

Thanks for this post. I read Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello and am still profoundly provoked by the character Costello and her idea that the Chicago stock yards were a model for the Nazi concentration camps. How is it, exactly, that Coetzee gets away with pushing envelopes? Three cheers for him! Any idea of HOW he does it, or why it works for him?

By: Bookworm » Panning Martha

Bookworm » Panning Martha — Wed, 07 Jun 2006 13:25:50 +0000

[...] Also, the veracity of this “memoir” has been called into question. Was her marriage as happy as she portrayed it? Or was it dissolving even as she wrote? Etc., etc. According to the introduction, she originally wrote it as a novel and no publisher would accept it. Only when she called it a memoir . . . sound familiar? John Baker commented yesterday that “we, as readers, depend on categories to shape our understanding of texts.” Certainly that’s true for this book. [...]