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Title: Foe by John Michael Coetzee ISBN: 2-02-047693-2 Publisher: Seuil Pub. Date: 06 May, 2003 Format: Paperback

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Average Customer Rating: 4.22 (9 reviews)

Rating: 4
Summary: Who¿s story is this anyway?
Comment: "Foe" is a short yet complex and rewarding engagement with Daniel Defoe's classic account of the archetypal castaway Robinson Crusoe. Coetzee approaches the story of Crusoe as one of dubious genealogy - in "Foe" it is related by the opportunistic castaway Susan Barlow, a woman who found herself stranded on the island kingdom of a man named Cruso and his mute servant Friday. At the time of the novel's telling, Susan and Friday are in England where she is attempting to get the tale of her adventures retold by the embattled writer Daniel Foe.

The primary concern of this novel is the art of storytelling. It is a story that is almost painfully conscious of its status as a story; as a narrative, or rather, collection of narratives. As such, it is continually punctuated with other stories and echoes of other stories - fairy tales, myths, other novels - and is continually debating the ownership and authorship of the tale being told. This narrative reflexivity becomes most apparent when Foe acknowledges that they (the characters) are themselves the creations, 'puppets', of some 'conjurer unknown to us'.

The relationships between the four main characters - Susan, Cruso, Friday and Foe - are constantly explored in terms of master/slave dialectics. The mutual dependency central to the master/slave dialectic is emphasized continually and the four characters form a complex web of relationships with reciprocating obligations and reliances resonating through the text. The most interesting of these bonds is Susan's relationship with Friday - a man whom she frequently regards as lacking even the most basic status as a person yet depends on nonetheless. Tellingly, Friday's lack of a tongue dooms his 'story' to be forever lost. Through this relationship the text raises, if allegorically, the wider issue of the impact of European imperialism upon those who became subjects and their resultant lack of 'voice' in the culture that enveloped them.

The novel's primary flaw is its overt and all-consuming concern with issues of narrative voice and the status of language. These preoccupations verge on being heavy-handed and may deter some readers, particularly in the third section where Susan and Foe repeatedly engage in discussions of their own position in relation to the story that is being told. However, if you are even remotely interested in these issues you will find it a compelling and intelligent work.

Because of the overriding concern with issues of narrative voice and origin in "Foe", the first-time reader of Coetzee would be better directed to either of his two Booker Prize-winning novels - "The Life and Times of Michael K" and "Disgrace" - as they are more orthodox (and more importantly, artistically superior) works and would serve as better introductions to the work of this important and increasingly recognised author. Nevertheless, "Foe" is a unique if imperfect accomplishment and well worth a read.

Rating: 3
Summary: To vex the literary world, Cruso as L'Etranger
Comment: First of all, I enjoyed this book. It's surreal and dreamy, and Cruso is a great character, undeserving of the scorn that has been heaped (in tiny, feckless, literary-journal-sliced rashers) upon him. Read this for Cruso, a Mersault with a moral compass of his own devising. He lives well. I would take that last, suitably rendered in the past tense, as my epitaph.

Still, the contortions that are going on here are a bit much. Coetzee is a published critic of English literature, and this novel seems to be his Shelob, a creature set down to trouble a weary age (probably not quoting my Tolkien just right). He writes that there was "No footprint" for example--well, the footprint in Robinson Crusoe is like THE most important, self-created-reality-skewing device that DeFoe employed to show Robinson's idyllic world upset by the mere hint of savagery.

Susan Barton, the main character, encounters a dead infant on her agonizing jaunt across England. The symbolism could not have been more pungent. Or more open to interpretation. Ditto the ending: cryptic enough to rattle rarefied lit-journal cages from here to 2040.

Coetzee is pretty cool, in any case. When I finish my grad courses I might read more of his stuff. Maybe if I hadn't had to read all the schlock criticism (oxymoron?), and had just picked this up, I would have been blown away.

Rating: 5
Summary: Lilting and surreal
Comment: This slim volume was beautifully written and held a rich story. I have not read Robinson Crusoe, but I knew enough about the story to enjoy this version, that is a thoroughly engaging story, but also offers existential and linguistic food for thought. The characters are written in a dream-like way; one isn't sure of their reality or hold on reality, but as the reader, I just kept wanting to know more.

I recommend this. It's lighter than Coetzee's Master of Petersburg, but it is a similar style to that book and evocative of the same emotions.