716. Waiting for the Barbarians

Waiting for the Barbarians
J.M. Coetzee
1980

Around 160 pages

After Midnight's Children, we deserve a little treat. And I am enjoying J.M. Coetzee more and more, which is a good thing since he's a recurring cast member on this List. 

At a frontier outpost of an unnamed empire, a colonial magistrate suffers a crisis of conscience when Colonel Jell arrives looking to interrogate the locals about a supposed impending uprising. Coetzee always tells a simple story with a heavy dose of violence.

Man, I wish Coetzee would give some of these other List authors lessons in brevity. He only shares details that are absolutely essential to the story, and his themes are so universal that he really doesn't have to do a lot of world-building. All we need to know is an imperial power fears and abuses the natives, and he doesn't bog us down with unneccesary details.

This novel reminded me of The Opposing Shore, where soldiers wait poised for an attack that may never come. Coetzee's story is more action packed, but it does an excellent job of capturing that fear of the unknown, while emphasizing how imperialists capitalize on that fear to control and subjugate the masses.

Colonel Jell was one of the worst villains we've encountered on this List. Definitely worth a read.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

Coetzee is said to have taken the title as well as to have been heavily influenced by the 1904 poem "Waiting for the Barbarians" by the Greek poet Constantine P. Cavafy.

UP NEXT: Summer in the Baden-Baden by Leonid Tsypkin