I just cross-posted my review of Life and Times of Michael K by Nobel laureate J.M. Coetzee on Rose City Reader and The Complete Booker:Despite the credentials, I did not like this book and I do not see the point of it. Near the end, the main character, Michael K, questions whether the moral of the story is that there is time for everything. But if that is the moral of this story, then it was not clear at all. Michael K has nothing but time, but he does not do anything. He seems incapable of doing anything. He cannot cope with living in any kind of society; nor does he succeed in living on his own in the wilderness.
Read literally, the book is horribly depressing, because Michael seems to be mentally ill or mentally deficient (because he cannot provide for himself and he has no will to survive), but no one is able to help him. Read symbolically, I just do not get it. If Michael is supposed to represent some greater meaning, as the doctor/narrator suggests in the second part of the book, what is that meaning? The book does not answer that question and I am at a loss to understand how Michael's numbing, endless suffering has meaning.
2 comments
I think that I accidentally posted this at the wrong book. I also read The Life and Times of Michael K and you can see my comments on my blog at: http://intergalacticbookworm.blogspot.com/2008/06/life-and-times-of-michael-k-by-j-m.html#links
Judy-Intergalactic Bookworm
I found your link to the Nobel Prize authors, but I cannot find the list of books. Do I just read any book by the author? Thanks, Judy
Post a Comment