Wednesday, February 13, 2013

Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee

This book disappointed me. The potential for this literary work was so immense, the writing of such high quality, and the explored themes so profound, that this novel could have been a masterpiece. Unfortunately, due to a major, major screw up, what should have been a brilliant work turned out to be a significant disappointment.

The story revolves around Paul Rayment, a sixty-something man originally from France who lives in Adelaide, Australia. An avid cyclist, the book opens with an accident in which a car crashes into Rayment's bicycle, resulting in the amputation of one of his legs. Depressed by his new found handicap, he hires a serious of nurses, none of which he likes. On the verge of giving up hope, he hires a  Croatian expatriate named Marijana Jokic, who is married and has three children.

Rayment soon falls in love with his new nurse, and begins to get involved with her children in an attempt to get closer to her. If the book had stuck with this plot, and had had the discipline to develop a storyline from this pretty impressive foundation, this novel would have been excellent. The relationship between Rayment and his nurse is sufficient to touch on big themes: the trauma of losing a limb and dealing with old age; the common immigrant experience; the moral dilemmas of falling in love with a married woman; and the morality of interfering with her children. In addition to this great material, the book contains absolutely fantastic writing. In fact, after reading this book, it become clear to me why Coatzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

Unfortunately -- and I cannot stress this enough -- the novel suffers from a huge flaw. About a third of the way, a character named Elizabeth Costello barges onto the scene. An ageing Australian writer, Ms. Costello simply appears on Rayment's doorstep, full of knowledge of the lives of the various characters, and overflowing with advice. The appearance of this personality comes completely out of the blue, is never fully explained, and is incredibly jarring. What was up to then a very realistic and moving story, is suddenly turned on its head by a fantastic persona. This completely random character ruined the book for me. It was as if one was watching an intelligent documentary on the Second World War, when all of a sudden a pink unicorn flashed onto the screen.

It is obvious that Coatzee is a superb writer and I plan to read his other books. That being said, the introduction of this confusing character ruined what was otherwise a brilliant novel. If one is kind one can say that this faux pas was simply a poor choice in literary judgement; if one is feeling a bit harsher, one can say that Coatzee took the easy way out in his attempt to resolve the plot lines that he originally set up.

3 out of 5 stars