The Critical Library: J.M. Coetzee
Each week, the NBCC will post a list of five books a critic believes reviewers should have in their libraries. We recently heard from Nobel Prize winner (and former NBCC finalist) J.M. Coetzee, who this year published his third collection of critical essays, Inner Workings. Here are the books he named:
The Iliad. Sets the standard for the narrative of action.
Aristotle, Poetics. Sets the terms for all later debate on the truth claims of history versus the truth claims of poetry.
Cervantes, Don Quixote. The source-book for all writers of fiction. Reminds us how old most of our bright new ideas are.
Rousseau, Confessions. Reminds us how hard it is to tell the truth.
Dostoevsky, Brothers Karamazov. Reminds us what the novel of ideas can achieve.
J.M. Coetzee's work includes Dusklands, Life & Times of Michael K, Disgrace, and, forthcoming in January, Diary of a Bad Year. He has won many literary awards, including the CNA Prize (three times), the Booker Prize (twice), the Prix Etranger, the Jerusalem Prize, the Lannan Literary Award, the Irish Times International Fiction Prize; and the Commonwealth Writers Prize. In 2003, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Labels: The Critical Library Series
posted by Critical Mass 9:27:00 AM
7 Comments:
How about teaching us about literature we don't already know about? Something underappreciated, perhaps -- or maybe something published in the last century?
I think the idea is to list works that are "indispensable" or at least highly influential to the critical tradition as it stands now, rather than celebrating novelty or originality.
Sure. The problem is in how that plays out. A list like this only makes its composer appear to be making a ludicrous claim about his own seriousness, and even to be aligning *himself* with the immortals. God forbid that anything published in the last 100 years be construed as having an influence on him, never mind the critical tradition ...
And practically speaking, what possible use is it to learn -- newsflash! -- that *The Iliad* is indispensable?
You manage to mention Coetzee as a "former NBCC finalist" but but forget two mention his two Booker prizes (enevious of the more prestigious competiton perhaps?).
And B.C. it isn't a ludicrus claim if you're Coetzee. For us mortals I'm sure it would be considered prententious.
Second anonymous
I have to agree with the first anonymous. Firstly, because Coetzee is distinguished by two Bookers and a Nobel -- he is "Coetzee" and it is unpretentious for him to consider the books indepensible. The question, can I remind BC, did not ask him to align himself with any immortals.
Secondly,
Coetzee, rather generously for him, and fortunate for us, provides his reasoning (he usually shuns any publicity and interviews --he didn't even turn up for his prizes ,so, again, that stigma of arrogance that BC postings possess don't carry any weight. I have read these books, and agree with him to some degree. If I had to differ I may have included Flaubert or Joyce or Proust, but then we are getting to that arbitrary "100" number anyway.
Perhaps it takes an extremely long time to provide a proof that a book remains pertinant not only for generations but for different cultures. Most novels written in the last approxamate 100 years, excluding "Harry Potter", haven't stood the same test of time and place that Coetzee's nominations have.
Then again, I am from Adelaide South Australia. I am from the English Dept where Coetzee is seen and I hear him at Writer's Week each Adelaide Festival. He is not so reticent with us colonials and we do not find him the elitist you seem to be recoiling from BC so Fuck Off or come to Adelaide and hear a master speak
Wait...
How can Rowling's work stand the test of time without, er, some time passing first?
And what's the test of place?
As for Coetzee: it seems possible that what he's doing is not so much making a claim as to his own seriousness as stating an aspiration. Everybody's got dreams, even Nobel prize winners. (Well, maybe Beckett didn't. But all the rest....)
I am a lover of Coetzee. I did, do, and will appreciate his oeuvre.
Nevertheless I wonder:" Will it ever be allowed to a 50 years old teacher of English literature living in a non-English speaking country meet for free H.M. J.M.Coetzee or getting his precious e-mail?
Mine is: sabrinapetrillo@virgilio.it
Many thanks
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