The twenty-three essays included in this collection are wonderful examples of clear, concise, erudite but accessible writing. The majority appeared originally in the New York Review of Books; the remainder had disparate first outings. Their subjects are all literary, ranging from Daniel Defoe and Robert Walser to Tolstoy, Beckett, Les Murray, and Patrick White. Coetzee writes with as much assurance about Friedrich Hölderlin as he does about Gustave Flaubert, or Nathaniel Hawthorne. One constantly has the impression of being in the presence of someone vastly knowledgeable, even about arcane matters, who yet patiently sets down his learning without flourish or presumption. This makes them both a pleasure to read and to recall. It also draws the reader on, sparking a natural desire to read the authors of whom Coetzee writes with such care. But also to read more of Coetzee’s literate but non-academic writing.

Recommended. ( )