J.M. Coetzee
1994
Around 260 pages
I had a sense of deja vu as I started this novel, and then I realized that I was thinking about Summer in Baden-Baden. Authors love to obsess over Dostoyevsky. But it's kind of a weird choice when they delineate from the authors' real life so much. If you're going to change so much, why can't they be original characters?
The novel begins with Dostoyevsky arriving in Saint Petersburg to collect the belongings of his recently deceased stepson Pavel. Pavel actually outlived Dostoyevsky, but Coetzee's son died young, so he's pulling from his own life there. Dostoyevsky investigates his stepson's death and has an affair with stepson's mistress, which totally seems like something he would do.
I appreciate that Coetzee always keeps it short and keeps everything moving, but this was an odd one. Coetzee has 10 entries on this List, which is a hefty percentage. If I were to cut that number in half, this would be in the unnecessary half. I do like that he tried a more Kafkaesque approach with this story but it was still a pretty strange form of fanfiction.
Over a hundred years after his death, Dostoyevsky is still popping on this List. That's stage presence my friends.
RATING: ***--
Interesting Facts:
Won the 1995 Irish Times International Fiction Prize.
UP NEXT: Land by Kyŏng-ni Park
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