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Title: Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee, Michael Coetzee ISBN: 0-14-007448-1 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: February, 1995 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.03 (31 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: A powerful postcolonial text
Comment: "Life & Times of Michael K" tells the story of a man who lived in imposed silence for his entire life.
J.M. Coetzee is a talented writer who effectively uses aspects of the English language such as irony and allegory to undermine society's value systems of power, history and language.
This novel highlights the power politics of modern society and how it distorts the identity of those in the world who are marginalised.
The changing viewpoints show how differently events are viewed by the colonised and the coloniser.
This moving novel compels viewers to sympathise with the silenced Michael K as he lives off the land. It is truly an inspirations piece of postcolonial literature.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Simpleton.
Comment: Michael K is a very thin, weak-looking man who is a gardner. As the book opens, he is trying to find a way to get his ill mother to Prince Albert where she was born. They make it halfway there when she unexpectedly passes away in a local hospital. Overwhelmed with grief and no longer in possession of any motivation whatsoever, K roams around aimlessly and becomes something of a homeless man. The story is a bit slow until he gets to Prince Albert. Here he begins a lifestyle of survival and escape, which he repeats numerous times throughout his life, and the reader begins to understand K more as a person. He is a man who is so thin he is often described as a skeleton. Even more importantly, he is mentally asleep. He does not desire human contact, food to eat, or work to occupy his body or mind. He is, strangely, not even interested in being nursed back to health at his lowest moment. "All these years, and still I carry the look of an orphan. Everywhere I go, there are people waiting to exercise their forms of charity on me" K says. And, unlike any other man, he resists this charity and escapes to his own company and the company of his gardens for "I am a gardener...I was mute and stupid in the beginning, I will be mute and stupid in the end. There is nothing to be ashamed of in being simple." Let the book speak for itself. It is a fascinating piece well worth anyone's time.
Rating: 4
Summary: A Moving story
Comment: Life and Times of Michael K is a compelling story about a man cought up in a war which he does not want to be a part of. This story is about Michael, a man who wants to fulfill his mothers wishes as well as escape the war.
Coetzee has used many forms and features of post-colonial literature to create this novel. It comments on many issues such as Insecurity, Racism, Superiority, Prostitution and civil war as well as exploring the subject of gardening to some extent.
Coetzee has used the surroundings of Michael K to his advantage to try and convey a message. A message that rings loud and clear. You can never fully understand anyone. This book contains a mix of feelings such as love, loss, betrayl, anger and excitment.
Coetzee explains that people who are unfortunate with their looks and the way that they convey the way that they feel, still feel the same feelings as anyone else. Though someone may try forever and ever to fully understand another person, you will never fully and completley understand them, even if they want you to.
All in all, this book was interesting and was addictive once past the first few chapters. Change of viewpoint in book 2 caught me by surprise, but provided insight into the 'otherside' of the world.
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Title: Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0140296409 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee ISBN: 014006110X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: April, 1982 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0670031305 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: Age of Iron by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0140275657 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
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Title: In the Heart of the Country by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0140062289 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: October, 1982 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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