Could have done without reading this ( )

Susan Barton hazatér hosszadalmas hajótöréséből Angliába, és megkísérli eladni történetét Crusoe-stul, Péntekestül Mr. (De)Foe-nak, a híres írónak. Coetzee becsapósan olvasmányos könyve tulajdonképpen nem tesz mást, mint a Defoe-regény, és az annak alapjául szolgáló igazi esemény közé beilleszt egy harmadik sztorit – az egészet egy nő szemszögéből újramesélve. Ezzel pedig bevisz minket az alternatív igazságok labirintusába – hiszen honnan tudhatjuk, hogy Susan Barton nem hazudik-e? És vajon Mr. Crusoe mit titkolt el? És maga Defoe miért olyan formában regényesítette meg az egészet, amilyenben? (Hogy Coetzee-ről már ne is beszéljünk. Alighanem ő a legnagyobb simlis a bagázsban.) Az igazságot talán csak Péntek tudja – aki ezáltal válik a regény igazi kulcsfigurájává –, csak hát ő meg néma. Szívás. Mindent összevetve ebben a regényben az a trükk, hogy bár egy alapvetően egyszerű cselekménnyel operál, de ez csak a látszat, mert az elbeszélés tulajdonképpeni terén kívül számtalan kérdés bukkan fel – ezeket nemhogy az olvasónak kell megválaszolnia, de esetenként még neki is kell feltennie. Ahogy Coetzee mondja: „…ha a történet laposnak is tűnik, az csupán annak tudható be, hogy makacsul leplezi mondanivalóját.”

Megj.: Ehhez képest nagy kár, hogy Coetzee helyenként (különösen az utolsó harmadban) bántóan túlbeszéli az egészet. De azért érdekes könyv. ( )

When I set aside J M Coetzee's Foe for Novellas in November, I had completely forgotten that I'd read it before.  Indeed, I had even posted at Goodreads an embarrassed 'review' from my 2002 reading journal that seemed like the thoughts of a stranger, not of my own mind.

I feel that my rating is wrong... the fact that I didn't understand it at that long ago time in my reading journey means that it's not the book that should be rated, it's me. The reader who read it 15 years ago is not the same reader as the reader now, and I bet if I read it again now after many years of reading and enjoying postmodern novels, I'd rate it very differently.

Twenty years later, here we are, and I certainly have changed my rating.  I rarely rate books with five stars, but Foe is brilliant.

By the time I got to Part III of this cunning little book, increasingly I was finding myself amused.  Mr Foe, seeking to reassure (or maybe to dupe) Susan Barton who is beginning to doubt her own existence, says to her:

'But if you cannot rid yourself of your doubts, I have something to say that may be of comfort.  Let us confront our worst fear, which is that we have all of us been called into the world from a different order (which we have now forgotten) by a conjuror unknown to us, as you say I have conjured up your daughter and her companion (I have not).  Then I ask nevertheless: Have we thereby lost our freedom? Are you, for one, any less mistress of your life?  Do we of necessity become puppets in a story whose end is invisible to us, and towards which we are marched like condemned felons? You and I know, in our different way, how rambling an occupation writing is; and conjuring is surely much the same. (p.135)

Ha!

Part I begins with Susan Barton's narrative about her experience as a castaway, which we learn later has been written in an attempt to make some much needed money.  Washed up on an island where she finds Cruso and Friday, whose names of course are those we know from our childhood reading of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe.  She was on her way home to Britain after a fruitless search in the New World for her unnamed daughter who was abducted by a trader.  En route to Lisbon the crew mutinied, 'insulted' her and then cast her adrift with the dead Captain.

(Her use of the term 'New World' and the euphemistic 'insulted' gives the reader an indication of the era in which this tale is taking place. And Coetzee's dialogue is flawless.)

Playing with the reader, Coetzee begins her description of the desert island with a nod to Daniel Defoe:

'For readers reared on travellers' tales, the words desert isle may conjure up a place of soft sands and shady trees where brooks run to quench the castaway's thirst and ripe fruit falls into his hand, where no more is asked of him than to drowse the days away till a ship calls to fetch him home. (p.7)

Debunking the idea of a lush paradise, her desert island lacks the ingenious contrivances fashioned by Robinson Crusoe because her Cruso has salvaged only a knife and after many years on the island has used it only to make a rudimentary shelter.  Their diet is monotonous because there are no plants that can be cultivated for food, there are no fauna suited to animal husbandry, and there are no fruits falling from the trees or otherwise. They live on a kind of weed, and fish, caught by Friday.

Worse than that is that Cruso has no initiative.  He resists all Susan's efforts to encourage improvements in their tedious life, and continues building useless terraces for plants that can't be cultivated in them.  He has lapsed into inertia and a morose listlessness, unable and unwilling to talk, to share his personal history, or to offer any consolation.

The slave Friday is mute, because his tongue has been cut out.  He follows orders, but there isn't much for him to do.  He has a kind of dignity that the others lack...

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/11/07/foe-by-j-m-coetzee/ but note that from this point on there are spoilers there. ( )

In Foe, J. M. Coetzee delivers a different spin on the Robinson Crusoe story. By adding some new characters and giving the original author, Daniel Defoe a major role, he reworks the story and raises the question of artistic license – where is the line between fiction and reality, imagination and fact?

Susan Barton is a widow who is tossed overboard during a mutiny. Her tiny boat brings her to a desert island that is, in fact, Crusoe’s island. She joins with Crusoe and Friday in their quest for survival on this barren island. Crusoe has become comfortable in his solitude and has no wish to leave his island while Friday cannot say what he wants as his tongue has been cut out and so he cannot express himself. When they are rescued from the island, Barton and Friday return to England while Crusoe dies on the journey. Susan comes into contact with author Foe and she feels that since she was there and he was not, her version, although rather dull, should be the one told leaving no allowance for the author to use his imagination to liven up the story.

I found this a fascinating addition to the original story. I particularly found the character of Friday very interesting. His tongue was removed giving him no voice, very much like the black South Africans during apartheid. With it’s sharp observations and interesting angle on the art of storytelling I thoroughly enjoyed Foe. ( )

Fancy being driven to pictures.

When I read a novel, I'm looking for this:



and this:



with big hints along the way like:


and this:



I thought I was doing fine with this Coetzee I found in Leiden recently. There's a woman and she is on a desert island for a while and then she's rescued and she's bogged down with Man Friday and Daniel Defoe's in it writing her story and I thought I got it. But I couldn't help feeling now and again like:



and trying to figure it all out made things worse.



Frankly, in the end, I felt like I was in the middle of xkcd's google map directions (goodreads has made a hash of this, please go link: here to see it:



I don't know, Mr Coetzee. I really don't know. I wish when I'd got to the lake and saw the trouble ahead, I'd just turned back. I'm going to have a lie down and a nice cup of tea now. That's if I'm still alive, if I was real. Perhaps the book has the answer to that. ( )