Diary of a Bad Year
by J. M. Coetzee
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Book Summary Information
Author: J. M. CoetzeeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2008-10-28
ISBN: 0143114484
Number of pages: 240
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Diary of a Bad Year
Book Review: Diary of a Bad Year
Summary: 3 Stars
Rosemary Ceravolo:
Diary of a Bad Year (Paperback)
by J.M. Coetzee
read in March, 2009
Rosemary said: "J. M. Coetzee's pseudo-novel,
"Diary of a Bad Year," is almost, but not really,
once you accept his 'concretismo' terms of writing,
irritating to read.
He sections off each page into three vantage
points of view by the three main characters.
The first section on the pages is the typed
manuscript of the author's, (thinly disguised
as Coetzee, himself), "Strong Opinions," comprising
all subjects from "01. -On the Origins of the State,"
through "24. -On Dostoevsky."
The second section on the pages is the voice of the
erotic, yet compassionate, downstairs neighbor, a
Filipina woman named Anya, whom the aging author
hires to type his manuscript.
The third section on each page concentrates on the
relationship Anya has with her live-in lover, Alan,
who gradually and predictably becomes jealously
obsessed with Anya's daily meetings with the famous,
old author upstairs. Alan tries unsuccessfully to
engage Anya in a plot to steal the old man's money.
Anya refuses to accomodate Alan's avaricious
greed and leaves him, once the manuscript is finished.
She winds up quite liberated after the experience of being
honored by the old author's attentions and his literary
works over the period of time she works for him.
Alan, by contrast, remains full of sour grapes, and can only
find fault with the author's work on every envious level
imaginable.
It took me awhile to enjoy the book. After all, I had just
read the epic masterpiece by Roberto Bolano, "2666," and
had to adjust my expectations to the different, more insular
and almost parable-like work of Coetzee in the "Diary of a
Bad Year." The three-tiered arrangement of the novel is
both clever and poignant, making clear the differences
among face-to-face communications, the exchanges behind one's
back, and the words that eventually wind up being published,
in German no less, without the back stories.
Summary of Diary of a Bad Year
An ingenious new work of fiction from the Nobel Prize? winning author of DisgraceJ . M. Coetzee once again breaks literary ground with Diary of a Bad Year, a book that is, in the words of its protagonist, ?a response to the present in which I find myself.? Aging author Senor C has been commissioned to write a series of essays entitled ?Strong Opinions,? of which he has many. After hiring a beautiful young typist named Anya, the two embark on a relationship that will have a profound impact on them both? especially when Alan, Anya?s no-good boyfriend, develops designs on Senor C?s bank account. Told in these three voices simultaneously, Coetzee has created any entirely new way of telling a story, and nothing less than an ?involving, argumentative, moving novel? (The New Yorker).
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