Life and Times of Michael K (1983)
Who wrote it?
John Maxwell Coetzee (1940-; active 1974-), born Cape Town, South Africa. A much-awarded novelist, with accolades including the Nobel Prize for Literature, he was the first author to win the Booker twice (in the chronological sense, at least) - with 1999’s Disgrace also taking the Prize.
Something of a polymath, he studied English before working as a computer programmer for IBM in London, and managed to combine the two by completing a computer-aided analysis of the language of Beckett for his doctoral thesis while in the US on a Fulbright scholarship. He was one of a small number of prominent white South African authors to overtly criticize Apartheid, and has a history of protest dating back to anti-Vietnam war protests and continuing through recent involvement in animal rights issues.
What's it about
Michael K, a poor man with a cleft lip, quits his job as a gardener in Cape Town to honour his sick mother’s wishes to return her to the countryside of her childhood, in Prince Albert. In a fictionalized South Africa which is descending into civil war, Michael is unable to leave freely by ordinary means due to a (shall we say, kafkaesque?) bureaucracy that is purposefully paradoxical and impossible to defeat, so sets off on an impossibly long journey, carrying his mother through heavily guarded streets and freezing nights on a shoddily improvised rickshaw.
Relatively early in their journey, his mother succumbs to her illness and passes away. Michael is left to continue his journey alone, carrying her ashes to Prince Albert but otherwise lacking either purpose or a true sense of freedom. Wherever he goes he is met by people who seek to imprison or enslave him (literally or metaphorically), spends time in internment camps and on labour gangs, as well as living in mountain caves. He becomes chronically malnourished, unable to stomach food even on the rare occasions he can get hold of it. Nonetheless, he finds purpose in cultivating and growing food, and ultimately escapes and finds his way back to Cape Town, where he has a strange encounter on a beach.
What I liked
If you’re anything at all like me, you’ll have read the above and thought “Well, this sounds like a right barrel of laughs. Maybe I’ll give it a swerve.” That, readers, is absolutely what I would have done in any normal circumstances (despite a couple of glowing recommendations from trusted friends!) But luckily I’m ploughing through all these winners, like it or not. And once again I’m very pleased that I am, because this is an incredible novel. I don’t think I’ve ever read anything quite like it.
Above all else, I loved the sparseness of the prose. Every short sentence, particularly in the first three quarters of the book, felt like a line of poetry. There is a huge amount of depth and studied ambiguity in a lot of the writing.
The world created is fictionalized but clearly deeply allegorical of an incomprehensibly divided South Africa, as well as more broadly of a world inclined to destroy itself rather than try to reconcile its issues. There’s a sense throughout of a vast landscape, with room enough for everyone and everything to thrive, but that its vast riches and possibilities (at least for some members of society) are shut down at every corner by a small number of powerful men trying to protect their own interests.
The non-too-subtle Kafka referencing of the title is more than borne out by references in the narrative - particularly near the beginning in a series of pages you can’t help but read with a profound sense of exasperation at the prison of bureaucracy Michael finds himself in.
Overall it’s a complex novel, despite its brevity. One of the more interesting aspects is the withholding of information about Michael. Some other reviews I’ve read see this as frustrating, a sign of an underdeveloped character (or cipher, perhaps), but for me it’s surely a deliberate move on Coetzee’s part. Other characters (deliberately or not) fail to acknowledge who Michael is, seeing only his physical appearance and repeatedly misnaming, aging and otherwise dismissing him. The system refuses to allow him the documentation to move freely. His effective erasure by society is something that he can ultimately only defeat by embracing it, playing his own part in self-obliteration by starvation, refusal to speak, and a belief that “man should live so that he leaves no trace of his living.”
One of the more surprising parts of the novel is an abrupt narrative shift as a second “chapter” appears, almost at the end of the novel. We briefly switch away from Michael’s own perspective into the lens of a (relatively) sympathetic doctor who tries to argue his case. The fact that this narrative collapses with Michael taking control of his own destiny and escaping the camp by his own means is surely also symbolic. As, you have to imagine, is the fact that all it leads to is a strange, sad climax (literally) on a beach right back where he started - a little more philosophically advanced, perhaps, but no further on in any practical sense.
What I didn't like
I can certainly empathize with some of the criticism I’ve read that suggests that Coetzee puts a lot of philosophy (and indeed scientific and horticultural capability) into the words/thoughts of someone who’s also supposed to be - in generous terms - not the smartest. But I also think it misses the point. It’s easy to get frustrated with some flaws of Michael’s “realist” characterization because you’re drawn in by huge amounts of emotional heft in places that makes you think you’re dealing with straightforwardly “realist” characters, when it seems far more to me to be a novel of metaphors and allusions in which “characters” are more of a vehicle for ideas, not necessarily intended to believable or internally consistent. So… I don’t actually think this is something I didn’t like, is it? Sorry…
You can certainly tell that Coetzee is not in any sense a laughing man (see below), but let this be a reminder to me that perhaps not every novel needs to have that “touch of lightness” I often crave in order to satisfy.
Food & drink pairings
Pumpkins, pumpkin seeds, melons.
Not a whole lot else.
Fun facts
Here’s a fun one to start: according to fellow South African novelist Rian Malan, Coetzee is “a man of almost monkish self-discipline and devotion”, who doesn’t drink, smoke or eat meat and writes to a schedule seven days a week. Even better, Malan continues, “a colleague who has worked with him for more than a decade claims to have seen him laugh just once. An acquaintance has attended several dinner parties where Coetzee has uttered not a single word.” Fun chap!
Fay Weldon was chair of the judges in 1983 and used her speech to rant about publishers’ terrible deals for writers. Know your audience, and that. Immediately afterwards, the head of the Publishers’ Association went over and punched her agent in the face. Apparently she was later “accidentally” invited to another Booker ceremony and told in no uncertain terms that her invite had been an error and wouldn’t happen again. She still bemoans the fact that there isn’t enough punching at modern Booker ceremonies, though, so good on her for that.
Rushdie was apparently a bit grumpy at losing out by a whisker to Coetzee. Sounds a bit greedy to me, he’d only won a few years back (though given he hasn’t won again since, maybe he knew something we didn’t.)
I was born in 1983. Strangely I have no recollection of any of the epic events above. Perhaps I was busy.
Vanquished Foes
Malcolm Bradbury (Rates of Exchange)
John Fuller (Flying to Nowhere)
Anita Mason (The Illusionist)
Salman Rushdie (Shame)
Graham Swift (Waterland)
Wait, what? It’s a book I’ve not only read but actually really enjoyed! I was encouraged to read Waterland at school and loved it. It’s a shame it didn’t win as I now really want to revisit it, half a lifetime later. I actually think I read Shame around the same time, but can’t remember much of that. Should probably give it another go given how much I enjoyed Midnight’s Children, though.
I was actually readying myself to be outraged that anything beat Waterland, but I think this is a fair cop. Close, but I can totally see why this stood out to the judges.
Context
In 1983:
Birth of me
Thatcher re-elected by landslide majority in the UK
Soviet nuclear false alarm incident
Reagan's "Star Wars" defense proposal
Fake "Hitler Diaries" published
Turkish part of Cyprus declares independence
Maze prison escape - 38 IRA prisoners escape in largest breakout in British history
Anti-Tamil riots mark start of Sri Lankan Civil War
First democratic elections in Argentina after seven years of military rule
Brunei gains independence from the UK
Ash Wednesday bushfires in Australia
Theft of the Jules Rimet (World Cup) trophy in Rio de Janeiro
Release of Nintendo's "Famicom" console in Japan (later released worldwide as NES)
Launch of Swatch watch brand
Michael Jackson moonwalks for the first time on TV, releases "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" and the Thriller video. Not a bad year.
David Bowie, Let's Dance
Return of the Jedi
Flashdance
Fraggle Rock launches
McDonalds launches the McNugget
Life Lessons
This is another deep one, which I’d hate to spoil with some silly jokey sign off.
Still, why don’t we all go and live in the mountains, and commune with nature while not eating pumpkins and thereby screwing the fascist bureaucracy, yeah?!
Sorry.
Score
9
Thusfar the early 80s are having quite a run. Another stunning read, and one I’d recommend to anyone, even if it doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.
Ranking to date:
Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie (1981) - 9.5
The Sea, The Sea - Iris Murdoch (1978) - 9
Life & Times of Michael K. - J. M. Coetzee (1983) - 9
Schindler’s Ark - Thomas Keneally (1982) - 9
Troubles - J.G. Farrell (1970, "Lost Booker") - 8.5
Saville - David Storey (1976) - 8
The Siege of Krishnapur - J.G. Farrell (1973) - 8
Rites of Passage - William Golding (1980) - 7.5
Offshore - Penelope Fitzgerald (1979) - 7.5
The Elected Member - Bernice Rubens (1970) - 7
The Conservationist - Nadine Gordimer (1974) - 7
Holiday - Stanley Middleton (1974) - 7 .
Heat & Dust - Ruth Prawer Jhabvala (1975) - 6.5
In a Free State* - V.S. Naipaul (1971) - 6.5
G. - John Berger (1972) - 6
Something to Answer For - P. H. Newby (1969) - 5.5
Staying On - Paul Scott (1977) - 5
*Read in later condensed edition.
Next up
Anita Brookner’s Hotel du Lac, which sounds somewhat more enticing than the last two winners… so the way things are going I’ll probably hate it.
