Life and Times of Michael K by J.M. Coetzee

First published in 1983

Oppression is a recurring theme in Coetzee novels, and it is the theme that drives Life and Times of Michael K. While the novel is set in South Africa, it is not explicitly (perhaps not even impliedly) a novel about racial oppression. Rather, Michael is treated as an outsider, as subservient, because he is disfigured and mentally dull. Having been raised in an institution where he was taught to peel potatoes before being given a job as a municipal gardener, Michael wants nothing more than to be left alone, nose to the ground, to work the fertile land of his ancestry. He is a simple man with simple needs and the simplest of those--freedom--is bedeviled by travel permits and curfews and work camps, by a civil war he does not understand, by societal demands that do not concern him. Throughout the novel, Coetzee illustrates the oppression of war, of institutions and bureaucracies, of demanding parents, of uncaring employers and landowners. Even the doctor who envisions himself as Michael's savior wants to bend Michael to his own will.

Using prose that is plain yet elegant, Coetzee creates empathy for Michael's plight--we feel for him when his crops are trampled, when he is removed from the land he loves, when he is forced to do physical labor for the benefit of those who have political pull with the authorities, when he is badgered to talk about his past, when he is not permitted to indulge the simple pleasures of sleeping and eating as he chooses. Michael thinks of himself as an earthworm, but he lacks an earthworm's freedom to be true to itself. The last few pages of the novel are almost an ode to simplicity, to the freedom of living off the land, unencumbered by the dictates of those who would imprison nonconformists.

Life and Times of Michael K is an important contribution to world literature. It is also a moving, beautifully written novel.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED

The Chequer Board by Nevil Shute

First published in 1947

John Turner has a health condition that will end his life. How will he spend his last days? Working? Spending time with his wife despite his troubled marriage? It's easy to empathize with Turner as he ponders his options while plugging along. Ultimately, in the limited time that remains before his death, Turner decides to locate and assist three servicemen who befriended him while he was laid up in a hospital during the war.  He feels the need to do something positive with his last months of life and relishes the opportunity to repay the kindnesses they showed him.

Turner's account of the servicemen's stories is enriching and frequently moving. Although Turner's quest leads him to the three men, the story focuses on two of them:  Phillip Morgan, who married a Burmese woman and adapted to her culture; and Dave Lesurier, a black American soldier who was persecuted and unjustly accused of rape by white members of the American military.  Morgan's story gives Shute a chance to compare British and Burmese cultures, philosophies, and political organizations.  While Morgan's story is fascinating, Lesurier's is more powerful.  Some American readers might think Shute went too far in portraying members of the American military as racist (although, to his credit, he introduces an American character who is not) while portraying the white residents of a British village as accepting, and indeed embracing, the wronged soldier.  I thought the story had the ring of truth but I'm not an expert in the racial attitudes that prevailed in small English villages during World War II.

In each of these situations, Shute addresses dynamic issues of culture and bigotry with sensitivity and insight. Unsurprisingly, Turner learns as much about himself as he does about his old friends, ultimately making his journey one of self-discovery. To some extent, the novel is about clearing the path for death.  He returns to his wife a better man than the one who left on his journey..

In prose that is characteristically quiet and graceful, Shute tells an end-of-life story that is sad but uplifting.  The Chequer Board is a very impressive work.

RECOMMENDED

The Interrogation by J.M.G. Le Clezio

First published in French in 1963.  This review is of the English edition published by Simon & Schuster on July 14, 2009.

"The Earth is blue like an orange": the words of a clever poet or of a madman disconnected from reality? J.M.G. Le Clezio explores the legendarily thin line separating the mentally astute from the mentally ill in The Interrogation.

Adam Pollo isn't sure whether he has recently been discharged from a mental institution or from the army. He lives in an abandoned house at the top of a hill, spends his days in a deck-chair by an open window, waiting "without moving, proud of being almost dehumanized," in a state he describes as meditative, watching the shadows of insects and "reconstructing a world of childish terrors." Adam is isolated, but claims he doesn't want to be alone: he wants to "exist with the coefficient 2, or 3, or 4, instead of that infernal coefficient 1." He thinks about and sometimes tries to write to Michele, the woman he met on the beach. Sometimes he follows a dog through the streets. Toward the end of the novel Adam makes a rambling speech to a gathering crowd and later finds himself in an asylum where he's interrogated by students under the disdainful supervision of a psychiatrist.

Although the psychiatrist is quick to attach diagnostic labels to Adam's mental illnesses, the reader is less certain, in part because Adam is so adept at verbal jousting with the students. Adam is disturbed and troubled, but those are traits shared by many who avoid institutionalization. It's clear that Adam doesn't function well in society, equally clear that he doesn't much want to -- his isolation is self-imposed, as evidenced by a letter from his mother -- but in his self-absorbed world, Adam's mind flourishes. Adam finds meaning in random forms of light and shadow, the product of a different way of seeing. This resembles mental illness more than genius, but the novel seems to be asking: who is to say? It is Adam, after all, who calls attention to the poetic phrase "the Earth is blue like an orange," asking why its author isn't regarded as a lunatic. Adam defines life as "a kind of disorder of the consciousness," and despite our ceaseless attempts to impose order on our straying and occasionally irrational thoughts, Adam might be right.

I confess that I found some of the novel's middle passages tiresome, particularly when Le Clezio began playing with the novel's form, changing fonts and lining out text and leaving big blank spaces between brackets. The devices approximate the disorder of Adam's mind, I get it, but after awhile reading disordered thoughts gets to be a lot of work. Other parts of the novel, including the interrogation and Adam's interaction with the students, struck me as brilliant.

RECOMMENDED

The Day of the Triffids by John Wyndham

First published in 1951

For a very long time I avoided reading The Day of the Triffids because I thought the notion of flesh-eating plants gobbling up the newly-blind population of England would be the literary equivalent of The Little Shop of Horrors ("Feeeed Meeeeee") -- so awful that it might be funny, but not to be taken seriously. My bad. I finally read it and I wish I had done so years ago so that I could enjoy rereading it now. The Day of the Triffids is a masterpiece.

This is a novel that challenges the intellect. As the story progresses, characters intelligently debate a variety of topics: the nature of leadership, the role of women in a survivalist society (from a 1951 perspective), whether spirituality conflicts with practicality in extreme situations. The book poses moral questions to which there are no easy answers: Should the sighted form their own society, separate from the blind (who arguably would contribute little and drain their resources), to assure humanity's survival? Or should the sighted help the blind survive, knowing that the overwhelming task is mostly futile, that they would merely be postponing the day when triffids will devour the blind, and knowing that they might risk humanity's survival by diverting their attention from efforts to preserve the fittest? When most of humanity is destined to die, should sighted men impregnate as many women as possible to assure that the human race continues, or should monogamy remain the norm? Wyndham provides no easy answers; he raises the questions and leaves it to the reader to decide. Some will dislike that kind of moral ambiguity but the preponderance of five star reviews indicates that most readers enjoy having their minds stimulated by this fascinating novel. I certainly did.

The Day of the Triffids works on many levels: as a science fiction adventure, a love story, a morality play, an allegory about the breakdown of societal structures, and one of the strangest visions of the apocalypse ever imagined. It works so well because Wyndham wrote in a convincing voice, using understated prose, giving believable dialog to credible characters. Some are arrogant, some are decent, some are just lost. He wrote about the fundamental emotions of fear, hope, despair, loneliness, and love. The Day of the Triffids has joined A Canticle for Leibowitz and Alas, Babylon as my favorite post-apocalyptic novels.

RECOMMENDED

The Breaking Wave by Nevil Shute

First published in the United Kingdom in 1955 under the title Requiem For A Wren. 

The characters in Nevil Shute's novels always seem to share two qualities: decency and dignity. The novels are filled with pain and death; war is a frequent theme. Toward the end of The Breaking Wave, Shute writes: "Like some infernal monster, still venomous in death, a war can go on killing people for a long time after it's all over." Despite the tragic events they experience, Shute's characters are kind and helpful and caring. The moral of Shute's novels seems to be: death is inevitable; what matters is that you behave decently during your life, so that you can die with your dignity intact. That's certainly the lesson I took from The Breaking Wave.

It's difficult to write a synopsis of The Breaking Wave without including spoilers, so this will be brief. Alan and Bill Duncan are brothers. They grew up on a sheep farm in Australia. The farm is a big business and the family is rather wealthy. Alan and Bill are both in England during World War II. Alan is a fighter pilot in the RAF; his plane is shot down and his feet have to be amputated. Bill is the equivalent of a Navy Seal; he dies on a mission in preparation for D-Day. (Those aren't spoilers; the reader learns these facts early on.) As the novel begins, Alan is returning to the family farm, having finished his post-war law degree at Oxford. He discovers that his mother is distressed by the apparent suicide of the parlor maid. Alan digs around and discovers the maid's diaries. He spends all night reading them and soon realizes that he had met the woman during the war. What Alan learns about her and about his family changes his life.

The woman's story is incredibly sad. I'm glad I was alone when I read The Breaking Wave because my misty-eyed reaction to the last chapters would have destroyed my carefully cultivated image as a manly man. Yet it's also the story of an eventful life, albeit one that is derailed by tragedy. The woman meets her death with her dignity intact, and Shute's moving story makes clear why she made the choice to end her life. As always, Shute writes with a soft voice; there's nothing flashy about the quiet elegance of his prose; he lets the story unfold without getting in its way. And it's an amazing, powerful story, filled with insight about war and relationships and the human condition. The characters are as real and believable as your neighbors, and probably more likable.

Shute is best known for two wonderful novels -- A Town Like Alice and On the Beach -- but his lesser-known novels are every bit as good. The Breaking Wave is one of his best.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED