As I was saying in an update, Shakespeare's bastards and Doestovesky married. They gave birth to J.M. Coetzee.

I got more out of Disgrace the second time that I read it, I have read this intense dark monologue only once and don't have much more to say about it than to note Dostoevsky's underground man (notes from the underground )and "hurrah for bastards" from King Lear as among the direct ancestors of this tale. There's a splash of Crime and Punishment and brothers Karamazov too.

Even leaving aside the long standing commercial alliance between de Beers and the Soviet Union over diamonds. It doesn't seem so far from Russia to the Cape. Serfdom, racism, apartheid, judging by literature at least, there are similar psychological mechanisms involved, or perhaps that is simply the result of the inevitable violence, threatened or applied, to enforce the system.

I was tempted to read this after having watched an interview of a Dutch Journalist with Coetzee. This was both awful and pregnant. The journalist asking questions, Coeztee maintaining his right to reticence. The closest that he came to speaking freely, and even then, he referred to notes, was in talking about the landscapes of Africa generally and of the Cape of Good Hope in particular.

Arid Veld  the landscape, not the person, may I say for purposes of clarity, on which somehow stands a farmhouse, is a powerful character in this story, it says nothing but it's voice is heard everywhere.

Moving Dostovesky's underground man from urban alienation to rural despair is oddly effective. Contact in either case is difficult. As in Disgrace there is a threat of sexual violence and of non-voluntary transfer of land ownership, but in this case the female voice is so self-hating that sexual violence is perceived as potentially liberating, at this time of day as I type with four fingers that strikes me as channelling the psychology of Dostoevsky's characters.

As a reader I am uncertain what, if anything, in the monologue was real in the confines of the novel, and that probably doesn't matter.

Đọc lại cảm giác thích hơn lần đầu. Bản dịch đọc hay quá, một nhà văn nam viết sách với lời thủ thỉ của người phụ nữ mà không hề thấy gượng gạo, khó chịu.

Una fattoria isolata nella polvere delle campagne del Sudafrica, una ragazza ormai trasformatasi in zitella, che intristisce nella solitudine, assistendo alle avventure erotiche vere o immaginarie del padre, una materia narrativa che oscilla tra la reminiscenza e la follia. Questo l’argomento di questo strano romanzo di John Maxwell Coetzee, autore sudafricano insignito del premio Nobel nel 2003. Il testo ha dato origine a un film altrettanto particolare, Dust, interpretato da Jane Birkin e Trevor Howard. Il libro ha naturalmente ben altro spessore. Magda, la zitella oscura e insignificante, che conduce la sua grigia esistenza tra le distese africane, è probabilmente nella realtà narrativa meno conturbante fisicamente della sua interprete cinematografica, ma è invece affascinante come personaggio. In lei ho visto, per un momento, riemergere una delle più interessanti figure letterarie della letteratura anglosassone, la fantasiosa istitutrice di Giro di vite di Henry James, che agisce ugualmente su un piano narrativo oscillante tra reale e fantastico.
Le scene raccontate da Magda seguono un principio di iterabilità, riflettono differenti rappresentazioni degli avvenimenti. Il parricidio è raccontato in due diverse versioni; nella terza il padre risulta ancora vivo, ma ormai affetto da una forma di paralisi. La donna in seguito asserisce di sentire voci provenienti da macchine che solcano il cielo e che emettono segnali in una lingua simile allo spagnolo.
Romanzo sperimentale, che riprende e sviluppa alcune modalità del procedere faulkneriano, il testo di Coetzee è quasi il diario di un personaggio narratore che rappresenta il progressivo avanzare della follia in una realtà alienante, priva di rapporti umani e affettivi. A questa tematica psicologica si collega quella sociologica, in cui si esprimono l’assurdità e la sostanziale iniquità dei rapporti di potere che si realizzavano in un contesto coloniale.

A strong and elegant writing, high class.

Selles raamatus igal juhul pettuma ei pidanud. Teose peategelane on noor naine Magda, kes on sündinud Lõuna-Aafrika poolkõrbelisel maastikul asuvasse farmi ning tunneb end (ise küll valgest rassist ja peremehe tütrena) ahistatuna nii maad laastanud kolonistlike suhete kui ka patriarhistliku ühiskonnakorralduse tõttu. Teos ongi päevikuvormis lugu Magda mõtetest, tunnetest, meeleoludest. Kohati unenäoline ning kohe ei pruugigi täpselt aru saada, mis on reaalsus ja mis lihtsalt ühe õnnetu naise uitmõtted. Samuti pole täpselt öeldud, kui vana Magda siis üldse õieti oli. Elades isoleeritud farmis koos isa, mustanahalise teenri Hendriku ja tema noore naise Annaga tekivad muidugi ka keelatud armusuhted ning neitsist naise mõtteid on kohati edasi antud küllatki erootiliselt. Kogu teosest kumab aga läbi õnnetus ja nukrus. "Mida loeb valu, armukadedus või üksildus Aafrika öös? ... Ma ei näe mingit võimalust, kuidas maailma pääseda. Ma ei näe ka mingit võimalus, kuidas maailma minusse tuua." Väga hea lugemine igal juhul.

Among the best novels I’ve read by Coetzee. A disturbing exploration of a deranged mind; a play with the trope of the first person character as an unreliable narrator; a subtle comment on the madness of Apartheid. From the first pages we are confronted with a mind in which the walls between imagination and reality has come crashing down. What follows is an account of life on a farm where idle day-dreaming together with dark hidden fantasies seamlessly drift into and seize control of the narrative. Tracking the sequence of events in any meaningful way becomes impossible as events keeps recurring and deceased characters reappear. Coetzee is not satisfied with only inviting us into the wretched mental state of the narrator, since between the lines it's clear this is also a delicate observation of the despicable patriarchal racism of the Apartheid era – about the only other humans on the farm is a strict, distant father, and a black farmworker couple. Craving affection from her father but being met only with indifference (albeit it appears the father is hardly aware of his daughter’s plight), she makes vain attempts to forge a more meaningful relationship with the couple working for her. But, like in Coetzee’s other novel Foe, she is incapable of relating to them as fellow human beings, a prisoner of her internalisation of an ideology where black people are cast as inferior others; she doesn’t realise how she keeps reinforcing the racist master-servant relationship, and instead laments the distance of the couple (this explored even better in Foe). Given topic and setting it’s tempting to compare the novel to Doris Lessing’s The Grass Is Singing, with its similar themes of rural desolation, master-servant relationships and madness. But where I felt like I was observing the mental deterioration of Mary Turner, the main character of the TGIS, from a respectful distance, Coetzee threw me violently right into the roller coaster state-of-mind of his narrator, leaving me in the end exhausted and oddly frightened.

This is the second novel I've read from South African author J.M. Coetzee. Readers follow the leading character and narrator of the story, Magda, born and raised by an authoritarian Afrikaneer father, a widow farmer in an isolate and desolate farm. Being a lone child all her life never leaving the house, obeying her father and surrounded only by a couple of African servants, she turns up insane and the situation gets out of hand violently.

Throughout the entire story, the tone is dark, bleak, and painful. The leading character goes insane, thus, the narrative moves back and forth from reality to imagination at any time, which makes it more difficult for readers to understand the real story. Due to the life of the narrator, readers both feel sorry for her and afraid of her and will go insane to try to determine what's the real reality.

The author never mentioned the time of the story nor the exact location. The story is very specific to isolated places and time with neither modern transportation nor communications modes. It will be difficult for anyone to connect with either the characters or the story.

This is the second book I've read by Coetzee and both have impressed me...the writing is vivid, and real..the description full.....
Our m as in character in this seems, to put it mildly,a little nuts....but it's not obvious from the beginning, because she sort of slips into a narrative that you only realize later isn't true when completely contradicted.
Made up of a small set of characters, it feels claustrophobic, and slightly menacing, but very very readable.

Случаются такие дни, когда хочется сбежать от всех своих родственников, друзей и знакомых с минимальным количеством вещей в неизвестный город N, спрятаться на кухне однокомнатной квартиры и, поддавшись слабости, несколько дней или даже недель подряд провести в изучении себя, работе и чтении. В такие минуты жизнь отшельника кажется идеальной – никто ничего не требует, никто тебя не дергает, ты никому ничего не должен и вообще свободен как птица. Никаких телевизоров, телефонов, максимум – час компьютера с интернетом в день исключительно для работы. Так вот к чему я: если у вас вдруг появится такое неутолимое желание и не будет уходить относительно долго, ни в коем случае не берите с собой книгу Джона Максвелла Кутзее «В сердце страны», иначе вы просто сойдете с ума и пострадаете от собственной тяги к временному одиночеству.


Не знаю, где находится такая страна и кто в ней мог бы жить, но если где-то на нашей Земле такое место существует, я бы присвоила ему название Ада. Никаким другим способом я не могу объяснить то, каким человек выросла здесь главная героиня. Собственно, ГГ невозможно описать. Сначала я дала ей лет 13, потом 25, и значительно позже я поняла, как ошибалась. Вы спросите: как такие сильные философские высказывания можно причислить юной 13-летней особе?? В наше время я уже ничему не удивляюсь.


Кстати, о высказываниях. Первое, чем книга очень зацепила, - это язык. Точнее, построение предложений и способ описания происходящего. Напоминает записи в дневнике с многочисленными флэшбеками и сюрреалистическими вставками. Мысли обрываются или, наоборот, раскрываются до излишней полноты, но это придает свой шарм. События наделяются очень специфической точкой зрения, от которой читатель просто не может отвязаться и отказаться. И вся эта сумасшедшая смесь вводит в состояние жуткой напряженности и психологической интроспекции. Мозг не перестает работать, он постоянно (даже во время чтения) анализирует события, схожие с событиями в книге, сравнивает чувства ГГ с чувствами читателя и приходит в ужас. Книгу так и хочется разобрать на цитаты. И пусть они будут на абсолютно разные темы( рабство, вражда, смысл жизни или любовь), они надолго засядут в сердце и памяти.

Это не книга. Это идеальный арт-хаусный фильм. После прочтения первых страниц сразу вспомнилась «Меланхолия» фон Триера. Если бы я была режиссером, я бы сняла фильм по Кутзее в такой же манере: холодные цвета, отсутствие сторонних саундтреков, много звуков природы, дергающаяся живая камера и съемка статических объектов. Только так, мне кажется, можно передать всю грусть и отчаяние, которыми пропитаны страницы книги. Именно грусть и отчаяние непрерывно сожительствуют в читательской душе на время прочтения, иногда уступая место страху. Не совсем могу объяснить, откуда появлялся страх. Может, страшно не хочется повторить судьбу ГГ. А может, страшно хочется пожить ее жизнью в какие-то моменты. Много вопросов – вот что оставляет роман после себя. И хоть вопросы эти рождены героиней, ответить на них придется читателю.

«Меланхолия» фон Триера с Ренатой Литвиновой в главной роли, где она ходит по дому и гладит холодные стены, а голос, ее голос, за кадром рассказывает нам о том, что творится в голове у женщины, которая живет в пустыне.

Ummm, no me llegó. Lo encontre denso. No empatía con el personaje principal. Es el libro que menos me ha gustado de coetzee.

Extremely dark book! And when I 'm saying dark i really mean dark. Don't get this wrong. Dark books can be great and it's not a bad feature for a book. It is all written in the first person in a kind of diary form where a woman called Magda is making some confessions for her life. Coetzee is diving really deep in human soul and his work is totally characterized by it's innerness. His language is beautiful and he's talking about loneliness, the human need to love and be loved. Also he underlines the relationship of master and slave, white and black people, man and woman. And all these in the very heart of a country (South Africa) where you feel sometimes that even God has forgotten it. It's one of the very first novels that he wrote, it's not really easy and comfortable for an average reader that seeks something light as a reading. The only sure is through it you can easily understand that this man has more to offer us literally and you should read him again. Overall I liked a lot this book, it's the second one I have read by Coetzee after "Disgrace" which was in my opinion one level higher than this. (Actual rating 3.5 stars, means something more than a just good read).

uhmmmmm....3...3.5....4...O Coetzee é brilhante e não existem muitos escritores capazes de escrever um livro destes: convincentemente perdido na mente de uma mulher só, infeliz e desequilibrada. Agora dizer que gostei e que me deu prazer ler, já é uma coisa diferente. Daí as 3 estrelas, essencialmente pelo talento.