Stunning prose and remarkable comment on Colonialism and its ills. I don't always understand Coetzee (see Elizabeth Costello) but I do respect and admire his intellect and heart. ( )

A riveting, delicately written allegory on the injustices of empire and the callous cruelties of war. I started reading the novel, believing it would make some obvious, even trite, comments about imperialism - and indeed in the first 10 pages this is how it appears. However, the complexities and doubts soon pervaded the writing, and I was left feeling most impressed by the sheer brilliance of the ageing narrative character, in all his confusion and rather nuanced and polluted displays of dignity and morality. To me, this was the meat of the novel, with the fontier, the war and injustices somehow secondary to that. The style is taut, yet lyrical in places and feels effortless. The novel isn't very long, but nevetheless it feels like an epic, with considerable plot, and many horrifically vivid scenes. Superlative stuff. ( )

Coetzee writes for academics. He writes to teach lessons, to have his themes discussed and perhaps to be chuckled at. I find his books rather deliberate, hardened and inevitable. Now, he’s a fine writer, can turn a passable phrase and get conceptual without becoming a total bore; but, he has a tendency to interpret his books for you and the mannerisms and hobbies of the characters in “Waiting for the Barbarians” slot them too neatly into representative categories, which makes this more of an allegory or morality tale than a novel.

Set against the (necessary) paranoia and deafness of empire, “Waiting for the Barbarians” inhabits the balanced and reflective perspective of an amicable boondocks magistrate who finds his duties growing morally questionable just when they should be at their automatic, pre-retirement best. He’s the nice-guy-who-didn’t-really-want-to-have-to-accept-his-complicity-with-the-atrocities-committed-on-the-periphery-of-empire, the guy who is almost remorseful that he can’t quite turn a blind eye to torture and arbitrary imprisonment . . . oh wait . . . that’s right, unless you are currently some sort of progressive activist or a waterboarding cog, he is supposed to represent you! And what do you need to know? Well, unless you are a television-fed collision monkey, nothing, probably, and Cotezee doesn’t motivate with his writings; he just sort of lays it out there, where you knew it was.

His treatment of permanence, of marking, of spoiling and claiming, losing and being forgotten, is multi-layered and well integrated into the love relationships of the book. However, the interplay of these themes would have been more rewarding if the narrator did not signpost and dissect each area of overlap.

A few examples of the endearing narrative deadpan: addressing his cock, “Why do I have to carry you about from woman to woman, I asked: simply because you were born without legs? Would it make any difference to you if you were rotted in a cat or a dog instead of in me?”

“They are tearing down the houses built against the south wall of the barracks, he tells me: they are going to extend the barracks and build proper cells. ‘Ah yes,’ I say; ‘time for the black flower of civilization to bloom.’ He does not understand.”

And then an example of the more pedantic and obvious, “Empire dooms itself to live in history and plot against history. One thought alone preoccupies the submerged mind of Empire: how not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era. By day it pursues its enemies. It is cunning and ruthless, it sends it bloodhounds everywhere. By night it feeds on images of disaster: the sack of cities, the rape of populations, pyramids of bones, acres of desolation. A mad vision yet a virulent one.”

The novel operates capably along this spectrum. ( )

Not a book to recommend to a jaded or depressed friend, Coetzee writes an allegorical tale of power, human cruelty, love and ultimately redemption. It is powerful, subtle, elegant and deceptively simple in the telling. The premise is quite quickly obvious, that of an allegorical tale of the rise, fall and failings of an Empire – an Empire that has no fixed place in time or period.

The positives:
My thought while reading this book was that it was a modern masterpiece. Now finished, I can reflect back on the tremendously satisfying prose - crystal clear and spare in style. Wonderful to read, every line of it. The first person narrative made the reader feel an immediate and personal connection to the narrator. Coetzee transmitted the horror and fears that we all face on the blackness of human nature. It was almost too overpowering to read at times. There was much to think about and the book lingers long after it is finished.

The negatives:
The relationship of the narrator and the barbarian girl was presumably an allegorical one, as much of the book is, but I found the foot washing and the emotional distancing of these two characters somewhat unbelievable. I wondered why Coetzee had taken this stance, the allegorical element overshadowing believability.

The cruelty and knife-edged tension of the book was elegantly told – I just wish that there had been some lighter relief or a whiff of humour to give some balance. It was grim in the extreme.

Overall, this book will rank as one of the most powerful and masterful that I have had the privilege to read. ( )

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