Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee ISBN: 0-14-006110-X Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: April, 1982 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.95 (43 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Well meaning but derivative.
Comment: References are to Cavafy (for the title) and Dino Buzzati (The Tartar Steppe) for the concept. Good enough in its way, but the Nobel prize is not justified. Poor Kafka has a lot to answer for.
Rating: 4
Summary: Brutality and the brutalized
Comment: The setting of J.M. Coetzee's "Waiting for the Barbarians" would seem like a political dystopia if it weren't so similar, if not identical, to many real situations in world history up to today. The premise is that a relatively new civilization of settlers have colonized a land formerly inhabited by natives, whom they call barbarians, and have established garrisons and strongholds to protect themselves from imagined attacks by the barbarians. The settlers constitute a political entity which is referred to as the Empire, the implication being that they want and need to expand their borders continually to allow their civilization to thrive, pushing the barbarians further back into the hinterlands.
It certainly sounds realistic, but the novel has the edge of science fiction. It seems to be set in a fantasy world, since there is no indication of time or place with respect to real history and geography, except that the era seems no more modern than Victorian. Contributing to the novel's grimly impersonal tone is the fact that most of the characters are unnamed except for Joll and Mandel, two military officers who exemplify the Empire's hawkish stance. By contrast, the first-person narrator, a magistrate and reluctantly loyal servant of the Empire, possesses the novel's humanist conscience in that he secretly sympathizes with the barbarians, condemning the unnecessary brutality of the soldiers who raid the lands and seize barbarian prisoners.
Like the archetypal rebels in the dystopian novels "Brave New World," "Darkness at Noon," and "1984," the narrator is a symbol of nonconformist thought and action in the face of an oppressive political regime. Consequently, he is accused by his superiors of consorting with the enemy -- he had been sheltering (and seducing) a barbarian girl who had been captured and beaten by the Imperial soldiers -- and is punished. But the conflicts he experiences are internal as much as external; he is a firm pacifist but cannot imagine any other way to live than under the comfort and protection of the bellicose Empire.
Whether or not the novel is supposed to be allegorical, it doesn't have the tone of a political diatribe. It is as compassionate and as insightful as its narrator, understanding people's need for security, land, and freedom, carefully measuring different perspectives on imperial war. (Explaining his dovish opinion to a soldier, the narrator is conscious of his apparent weakness as a potential defender of the Empire.) Perhaps the novel merely intends to present an extreme scenario in which a mentality of tribalism has completely usurped humanity: Will a complex system of walls and gates continue to divide society, in the name of empire or other agenda, until we are huddling behind parapets, waiting for "barbarians" who may never come, who may not even exist outside of our imaginations?
Rating: 5
Summary: Essential conflict
Comment: Unlike 'Dusklands' where the two different stories didn't transcend the treated themes, this book is a magisterial evocation of an essential human problem: the conflict between personal conscience on the level of the human race in its totality ('the figure every father could be') and the conscience as a member of a clan (a specific unit of the human race).
In other words, it is the battle between the only Just (the Magistrate) and patriotic bloodthirstiness (colonel Joll).
The last one kills the fathers of other clans, while the first one cannot accept 'barbarism' against all kind of humans.
This theme is symbolized by the love of the Magistrate for the 'barbarian' tortured girl, while he finds within his clan only prostitution.
This book is also a variant on the conflict between the civil and the military authorities.
The main characters of this novel are in fact the same as in 'Dusklands', with colonel Joll as Jacobus Coetzee and the Magistrate as Euguene Dawn.
Everybody should read this brilliantly written, cool, detached, but implacable prose in order to know the outcome of the conflict.
This novel is a real masterpiece.
 |
Title: Life and Times of Michael K by J. M. Coetzee, Michael Coetzee ISBN: 0140074481 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: February, 1995 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0140296409 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 31 October, 2000 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
 |
Title: Elizabeth Costello by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0670031305 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: 09 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
 |
Title: Age of Iron by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0140275657 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 1998 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: In the Heart of the Country by J. M. Coetzee ISBN: 0140062289 Publisher: Viking Press Pub. Date: October, 1982 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
