Dusklands: A Review
J.M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. I know this as a fact as every work published by him after this date is plastered with this fact. Two things are wrong with this statement: 1) you don’t win a Nobel Prize, you are awarded one, and 2) having a Nobel Prize conferred on you doesn’t automatically make all of your work wondrous. I have always admired Coetzee – and admired is so the right word. You don’t love Coetzee, in fact sometimes he repels you; sometimes he spits in your face and expects you to like him for it. His prose is deliberately provocative, and it can be notoriously difficult. I read Disgrace in hardback, in 1999, and about six years later I read Life & Times of Michael K. Each successive new novel since Disgrace I’ve put on my ‘to read list’ and never gotten around to. There always seems to be some other author I should buy first, read first, and be angered by first. Then, the ot...