It is difficult to describe. The quality of the writing is great, the characters are good and sometimes the book grips you.

There are even moments that reminded me of Animal Man by Grant Morrison, but when I finished the book it was.. And???

It could be a **, it could be a ****... Let's rate it with a ***.

Finally, I have to say that the character of Susan Barton is probably one of the most powerful female characters that I have met.

OK the bottom of page 117 sums it up.
In his words: "It is like a loaf of bread.It will keep us alive,certainly,if we are starved for reading; but who will prefer it when there are tastier confections to be had?"

Una nueva mirada al Robinson Crusoe de Daniel Defoe en la voz de la protagonista de esta historia Susan Barton, quien, arrojada por el destino a vivir su naufragio en la isla de Robinson y Viernes, nos convence de tener la versión oficial de los hechos.

Coetzee juega con la cronología de las obras: el 'antes' se confunde con el 'después' al punto de generar la ilusión de que Defoe hizo literatura, quizás a desgano, con lo que le contó Susan Barton.

El título sugiere muchísimo. Foe por Defoe. Foe, 'enemigo' en inglés. Y el vocablo francés 'faux' (falso) también condiciona esta aventura literaria.

Habiendo leído ambas obras, intento elegir si me quedo con la versión del naufragio de mi adolescencia o si me entrego a la madurez de esta nueva mirada. Desde la encrucijada, me quedo con ambas en este diálogo brillante planteado por Coetzee que me obliga a pensar en la asimetría de la relación entre el blanco y el nativo, en el intento de colonización del otro y en el poder de la narrativa.

Leí a Coetzee. Y es todo ganancia.

<3

Kucijev "Fo", koji je prvi put objavljen 1986. godine, nudi nam jedan novi pogled na dobro poznatu priču o Defou i Robinzonu Krusou. Ta se novina ogleda u uvođenju novih likova, kao i preplitanju tekstualnih i vantekstualnih svjetova. Šta to konkretno znači? Kuci u priču uvodi i lik Suzan Barton, koja, nakon što izbija pobuna na brodu na kojem se nalazi, biva ostavljena usred mora, a potom završava na pustom (ili ne baš tako pustom) ostrvu, gdje sreće Robinzona i Petka. Ne, ova knjiga nije zamišljena kao prepričavanje istih ili sličnih avantura i događaja sa nešto proširenom postavkom likova, što postaje jasno već u trenutku kada se priča, nedugo nakon samog početka, izmješta s ostrva u London, gdje Suzan dolazi do Danijela Foa, koji treba da zapravo uzme njenu priču i uobliči je u jedno valjano djelo. Još je dosta tu nekih sitnijih i krupnijih događaja koji se smjenjuju i više ili manje jasno usmjeravaju djelovanje junaka, ali jedna od glavnih tema koja je obrađena na stranicama ove knjige jeste pitanje moći riječi, tj. govora, odnosno pravo i sloboda da se osoba kao jedinka izražava, a shodno tome i gubitak istog prava. Odnos između Suzan, Foa, Petka i Robinzona, tako, postaje gusto isprepletena mreža odnosa povlašćenih i potčinjenih, privilegovanih i onih koji su lišeni svega, pa i mogućnosti da sopstvenim govorom posvjedoče o svojoj sudbini, a u slučaju da to na neki način i učine, onda da budu saslušani na odgovarajući način. Idejno, knjiga je fenomenalna, ali zaista. Pravi je primjer toga kako se dobro poznati književni predložak može uzeti kao obrazac za neke univerzalne priče ispričane na novi, a opet upečatljiv i specifičan način. S druge strane, ovo jeste roman o govoru i riječima i iskazivanju, ali je u njemu i mnogo toga fragmentarnog i neizgovorenog i konfuznog. I sve više i više što se priča bliži kraju. Da, mozak jasno govori da to ima i te kako smisla kad se uzme u obzir tema koja je u srži romana, ali užitak samog čitanja nekako ostaje u drugom planu zbog te konfuznosti koja se samo pojačava i pojačava.

How do I review this? How do I review a book of this magnitude? Anything I say here will not do this book justice, but I will try. Let me say this...Foe is my favourite book of 2015 so far.

First off, I don't know why I refused to read this book for so long. This was a school book, and I waited 9 months until I actually devoured it. I'm not a big fan of classics, but this was simply amazing.

This is a retelling of The Life and Strange Surprising Adventures of Robinson Cruso, written by Daniel Defoe in 1719. But in this novel, Defoe is a character, and the main protagonist Susan Barton-a castaway that found herself on an island with Cruso and his slave, Friday.

The first thing that struck me was the writing. I adored the writing. It flowed really well, and read like poetry. Around two thirds of the book was Susan retelling her story, and I found that quite a change from the format of usual books, but it wasn't jarring in any way.

I know that a lot of people found this book confusing, and it probably has something to do with the way the story was told. We only see the present in the last dozen pages, but I honestly loved it.

The underlying theme in this novel is storytelling and authorship. How is a story told, and why. The art of writing, and whether truth is necessary. Susan wants the truth of her tale-how they got off the island, how Cruso died, how she and Friday survived-told, even if the story is dull. However, Foe wants to change the story up, add embellishments, and write it in a way that is sellable. In the end, it is your story that survives. If you are misrepresented, or written out of history, did you even exist at all? How fitting is this tale, when we are all living, breathing mortals that could die at any moment. We die, and only our memory survives. But if that memory lives on, incorrect in it's prose, then only that version of you lives on. You are gone.

Susan is stuck in Cruso's world-in his reality-when she was on the island. He lived a lifestyle completely opposite to her own, and rejected her every suggestion. In a way, she became someone different, because your lifestyle, and the lenses that you view the world in shapes you and your perception.

What we never figure out is if Cruso did indeed cut out Friday's tongue. Was it the slavers as Cruso says, or did Cruso do it to silence Friday-to make him the perfect docile slave. In this way, we never see the truth of Cruso and Friday. What happens to them remains a mystery, and through Friday we see the importance of language and words. It is something we use everyday, that we tend to take it for granted. But to be deprived of speech, and to not have the ability to understand written or spoken words...what a lonely world he must live in.

I also want to draw attention to the dance scene when Susan danced in an attempt to communicate with Friday. Susan is trying to give a voice to Friday-a representation of the oppressed-and by doing so, she is trying to see how he thinks and communicates. This is important in the real world too. In order to understand a particular person/culture, you need to see the world from their eyes, and be willing to look over cultural differences and boundaries. And even if you don't fully understand them, and they you, at least you tried, and you come out wiser and less ignorant.

Favourite quotes:
"...their trade is in books, not in truth."

"I would rather be the author of my own story than have lies told about me." (And yet, because of Foe, this ends up happening.)

"We are all punished every day. This island is our punishment, this island and one another's company, to the death."

"You speak as if language were one of the banes of life, like money or the pox."

"What benefit is their in a life of silence?"

"Friday has no command of words and therefore no defence against being re-shaped day by day in conformity with the desires of others. I say he is a cannibal, and he becomes a cannibal."

"Friday is Friday. But that is not so. No matter what he is to himself, what he is to the world is what makes of him."

"The island is not a story in itself...we can bring it to life only by setting it within a larger story."

"A woman may bear a child she does not want, and rear it without loving it, yet be ready to defend it with her life."

"The tongue is like a heart, in that way, is it not?"

"Yet where would you be without the woman?"

"Nothing is forgotten...nothing I have forgotten is worth the remembering."

"There is no shame in forgetting: it is our nature to forget as it is our nature to grow old and pass away."

"For surely, with every day that passes, our memories grow less certain."

3.5 *

i can see why my professor fawns over this

This small book is pack with so many great things to discuss. A really good book for a book club.
So…it takes the story of Robinson Crusoe and ads a lady with a boring take of what happened in the island.
It is not just a book about writing books or the discussion between what is the truth and what is fiction. Its also about voice and who has it and who doesn’t. For me was also about giving people space and time for them to tell their story however they can. And that a voice is not just the sound that comes from your mouth. A voice can came in different shapes – we just need to learn how to hear. And how it can be problematic when we speak on behalf of others. We need to tell their truth or when its boring we can change and spice it up a little bit?
The book has a lot of dialogue. Has a big epistolary chapter. And has a lot (A LOT) of unanswered questions. It didn’t bother me that much because the book is not about the missing answers, its more about who is there to listen.
The first chapter is really, really boring. But it’s supposed to. Because sometimes life is just boring. Even though the average reader wants something more, a bit of boringness can be good. And it was.

FO-DŽ.M.KUCI.
✒"Isprva sam mislila da ću vam ispripivedati priču o ostrvu i,kad to obavim,vratiti se svom starom životu. Ali sada se čitav moj život pretvara u priču i ne preostaje mi ništa moje."

This book was pointless and boring. The End.

I don't think this is quite Coetzee's best book (I'd probably say Waiting for the Barbarians for that), but it's a stunningly good reimagining of the story of Robinson Crusoe through the eyes of a female castaway, Susan Barton, who ends up on the island with 'Cruso' and Friday and then tries to tell their (and her) story to the acclaimed writer Mr Daniel (De)Foe. Very little of this slender novel takes place on the island, and the events there show little promise of an exciting narrative (and little resemblance to the novel we know). Most of it consists of unanswered correspondence from Susan to Foe, who has disappeared in an attempt to escape his creditors. It's an examination of the (gendered) nature of storytelling and how we come to terms with the attempt to narrate our lives and turn them into stories. It's reminiscent of Jean Rhys's take on Jane Eyre in Wide Sargasso Sea and just as much a classic as that earlier postcolonial retelling.

Absolutely the biggest piece of wankery I've read in a very long time.

There was way too much going on in such a small book, and not enough of it making any sense. And then, Barton and Foe become lovers, because why not? Seriously, what the actual fuck? And if someone can please explain the end to me ... that would be great.