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Laddar... Life and Times of Michael K: A Novel (urspr publ 1983; utgåvan 1985)av J. M. Coetzee (Författare)
VerksinformationHistorien om Michael K : roman av J. M. Coetzee (1983)
![]() Booker Prize (108) Best African Books (21) » 16 till 1,001 BYMRBYD Concensus (252) Books Read in 2023 (2,999) hopes (12) Books Set In Africa (12) My TBR (83) Det finns inga diskussioner på LibraryThing om den här boken. ![]() ![]() I think Coetzee sabotaged himself and took a drastically wrong turn about 2/3 of the way into the book, but I found the first part of the book quite moving. Michael K tries to take his dying mother back to her home in the countryside but she dies on the way, leaving him caught in a nightmare landscape. Ostensibly taking place during a civil war—the time is never specified—Coetzee so overdoes the police state world that it seemed nearly unbelievable to me. So long as Coetzee focuses on Michael’s struggle to survive from day to day, it’s excellent and the first 2/3 of the book are about his efforts to avoid detection. Then, inexplicably (to my mind) Michael gets captured and the book loses all its power and intensity. Coetzee switches narrators to a doctor in the rehabilitation/labor where Michael is being held. I found this narrator and his inflexible, unyielding determination to “understand” Michael ruined an otherwise wonderful book. He is constantly badgering Michael and constantly pondering to himself why things might be as they are. I found it a terribly disappointing end to an otherwise powerful story. But maybe you’ll disagree. En plena guerra civil sudafricana, el jardinero Michael K acaba en un hospital, lejos de su casa, desamparado. Michael no tiene más remedio que buscar un trozo de tierra, empezar de cero y recuperar su dignidad. Otra obra maestra de J.M. Coetzee, donde el autor reflexiona sobre la necesidad de llegar a la esencia de la experiencia humana, en un mundo donde impera la sinrazón y la soledad, que Coetzee retrata con un estilo luminoso y desconcertante. Michael K thinks his life and his mother’s will be better if they can leave their unnamed South African city for the rural town that was his mother’s childhood home. He was wrong, as his situation goes from bad to worse. Michael K wants only to be left alone to live off the land, but he can’t escape notice from warring factions. It doesn’t seem to matter which side will come out on top, as neither side has anything to offer Michael. This novel explores questions of social marginality and human existence in a way that reminded me somewhat of The Grapes of Wrath. Both novels left me with a similar feeling of desolation.
But in spite of such pleasures, I have serious doubts. My main concern is Michael K himself. He's more of a plot device than a real man, and we are constantly reminded how simple Michael is, and how little he understands . And so J.M. Coetzee has written a marvelous work that leaves nothing unsaid—and could not be better said—about what human beings do to fellow human beings in South Africa; but he does not recognize what the victims, seeing themselves as victims no longer, have done, are doing, and believe they must do for themselves. Does this prevent his from being a great novel? My instinct is to say a vehement "No." But the organicism that George Lukács defines as the integral relation between private and social destiny is distorted here more than is allowed for by the subjectivity that is in every writer. The exclusion is a central one that may eat out the heart of the work's unity of art and life. Ingår i förlagsserienDebolsillo Contemporánea (342/11) Ingår iHar som instuderingsbokPriserPrestigefyllda urvalUppmärksammade listor
Michael K lm̃nar sitt arbete som trd̃gr̄dsms̃tare i Kapstaden fr̲ att ta sin svr̄t sjuka mor till hennes barndoms farm p ̄landsbygden. Men modern dr̲ p ̄vg̃en och han tar sig ensam fram. Trots att omrd̄et r̃ fullt med soldater och trupptransporter lyckas han finna en fristad p ̄en v̲ergiven gr̄d och dr̃ leva helt med och fr̲ naturen, ln̄gt bortom tiden och historien. Omvr̃lden misstror dock hans brist p ̄engagemang och hans likgiltighet infr̲ det stñdigt pḡēnde kriget, och han anklagas fr̲ samarbete med gerillan. Han spr̃ras in i ett rehabiliteringslg̃er± dr̃ han inleder en matstrejk som gr̲ hans fn̄gvaktare fr̲virrade och handfallna ... Historien om Michael K r̃ en gripande bert̃telse om mñniskans frihetsbehov och kr̃lekens ofrihet. Boken beln̲ades med Bookerpriset nr̃ den kom ut 1983. [Publit] Inga biblioteksbeskrivningar kunde hittas. |
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