Slow Man

Slow Man

By: J.M. Coetzee

2005

It is fitting that this novel begins with a collision. A physical, devastating collision that leads to the amputation of a limb which (obviously) impacts the protagonist's life. I refer to the first dramatic car on bike collision because it shapes how the rest of the novel is organized. The dramatic structure of a novel follows a conventional story telling arc which when utilized functions to evoke change or transformation in a character. Coetzee begins his novel by consciously skipping over exposition to give his readers a punchy climax right at the opening. This arguably unsettles or excites a reader based on their experience of reading because they do not have prior knowledge of the character or opportunity to connect with the character. A storytelling arc provides continuity to a story to facilitate flow while naturally allowing for character development or transformation. Coetzee has taken the elements of a story telling arc with Slow Man, and instead of using them in a straight forward manner, has collided them together so they operate simultaneously during pivotal moments in the novel.

But hey, starting a novel with a climax can be a liberating literary experience. Lots of Goodreaders have remarked that they were hooked by the opening chapter. Although, with such playful dramatic liberties being taken early on in the novel, readers should not have been surprised when the novel took some equally odd (though arguably behaved) turns. 

One might look squarely at the introduction of Elizabeth Costello as the awkward second (and partially redundant) climax of the story. Yes, she shows up and her attendance seeks to further propel our protagonist toward transformation. But the issue with Elizabeth is that she acts as the second collision. Is it/she necessary? Symbolically she represents an agent of conscientiousness and awareness. She is privileged with our protagonist's inner feelings and motivations and seeks to nudge him toward change and revelation. Although, her presence juxtaposes our protagonist to the point of almost complete separation.  

So, how can Coetzee arrange these characters together in a theoretical way that draws the reader back to the initial frolic of the opening paragraph? Well it never quite materializes. Although, I could not stop thinking about how all the characters in this novel never really communicate with each other, various language and philosophical barriers that are set up so they persistently collide with each other. This got me thinking about Soviet Montage, where directors would create symbolic meaning by editing seemingly disparate images together. These images usually were spliced together to discuss issues surrounding culture and politics. Montage has since been appropriated by western national cinema, and has been redefined as a process that showcases the passage of time and or progress by creating a short segment of short cuts. Slow Man takes the Soviet film convention and uses it to flesh out the characters of its story. But, the issue is that Soviet Montage is a modernist convention, where the reader/viewer expects a coherent meaning to be created by the collision of images. 

Slow Man is a post-modernist novel, with characters that are benefited with dramatic irony. Elizabeth knows things only the reader knows. In addition, as noted above Coetzee is using the conventions of the storytelling arc liberally which is also part of how post-modern stories are told. Finally, post-modernist novels seek to pose more questions then they answer. I found this infuriating, how can an authour adopt both modernism and post-modernism conventions in a novel? Well it can be done, and quite well. But not here Slow Man certainly succeeds in the fact that it poses more questions than it answers. But the rest is a jumble. Its identity is confused by theoretical anachronisms.   

Grade:

C+

That They May Face The Rising Sun

That They May Face the Rising Sun

By: John McGahern

2002

"All through the evening the pendulum clocks struck. There were seven or eight in the house, most of them on the walls of the upper room. The clocks struck the hours and half-hours irregularly, one or other of them chiming every few minutes.

Are any of those clocks telling the right time? Ruttledge asked, looking up, when he felt it was time to leave.

What hurry's on you? Jamesie countered quickly. Isn't the evening long? It's ages since ye were over."

John McGahern - That They May Face the Rising Sun


It seems like quite some time has passed since I started my academic career. Twelve years ago, to be precise. Although, sometimes, it does seem like only a fortnight ago that my first professor gave us our first bit of advice in writing about film and narrative. He said, when writing, do not simply recount the narrative. As undergraduates, our intention was to analyze and provide evidence that we had engaged the film text in a critical way. This first bit of advice came to the forefront of my thinking when contemplating John McGahern's final novel. In that, if a reviewer were to paraphrase the narrative of this book, it would appear routine, bland, safe, and uninteresting. I mean the novel is the composite of the dealings of a few rural households, where they farm, raise sheds, feed cattle, and drink whiskey.

In the article Open to the World': A Reading of John McGahern's "That They May Face the Rising Sun" Denis Sampson argues that McGahern is ambivalently tossing aside the conventions of the novel by writing a plotless and chapterless novel without a rudimentary storytelling arc. The characters are not provided with a point of view and have no interior monologue or development. The novel is a poetic account of the lives of a number of people over the course of a year. The novel is not to be explained by intelligence or historical/ political musings. It is nature. The more we try and harness it and control it, the more it slips through our fingers.

So, as readers how do we examine and analyze a contemporary Waldenesque text that defies traditional conventions of the novel? I mean many modern novels seem to be reliant on cardinal events that shape a story. Ian McEwan (Booker Prize winner) and J.M. Coetzee (Booker prize and Nobel prize winner), two visible and highly regarded novelists, organize their books around a central moment that force their characters to reexamine their inner philosophies. McGahern's contemporaries seem to be leading the novel in a particular direction that he is ambivalent towards. McGahern is more concerned with the rudimentary foundations of the novel while simultaneously inviting a qualitative response from his readers.

To allow for a qualitative, anecdotal like, examination of the text, McGahern purposefully slows down his telling by employing a passive tone. Most sentences are relayed in the past tense which slows down the reading process. I became cognizant of this fact, and it may be frustrating to readers who have become conditioned to a particular way of storytelling that foregrounds activity. I felt that every deceptively simple word was pronounced and held considerable gravity. Readers, arguably, respond to the novel by reminiscing about their own rural experiences.

McGahern took twelve years to write this book, and I see now that he took considerable time to craft this novel. It reminds me of probably one of the most frustrating novels ever written by an Irish person, Finnegans Wake. It took Joyce seventeen years to write his novel, employing a complete deconstruction of the English language. I have not read (yet) the book but I do know that he intended to create an entirely singular book that would stand apart from contemporary storytelling. McGahern also succeeds by crafting an original novel which invites readers to rethink the conventions of how novels should be written.

I am dazzled by this novel's careful descriptions of a bucolic setting. It even reminds me of recurring dreams of my cottage. A place I value considerably above almost every place I have ever visited. But still this is a novel about the drudgery of rural life. Something I have never experience and I felt somewhat divorced from. Tonally and structurally this novel is a masterpiece.

Grade:

A-