The Pole and Other Stories

On the face of it, one might have imagined that Coetzee's publishers thought that 'The Pole' might be too slight as the sole offering and so looked around for other material to pad out the volume to a respectable length. I'm pleased to say that reading proves my cynical self wrong. This is an important addition to Coetzee's body of work for a number of reasons and actually (and appropriately given the subject matter of 'The Pole') the overall impression is of having attended an especially well planned recital where the pieces within illuminate each other. I might add a better recital than the one offered by the titular 'Pole' in the book where the combination of Haydn, Lutoslawski and the complete Chopin Preludes sounds somewhat show more indigestible.

'The Pole' itself is an interestingly structured (each chapter contains numbered paragraphs which move the story on a gradient but also creates an effective testamentary backdrop) story about an episode in the life of Beatriz., who after a recital 'becomes' the muse of Witold (the eponymous Pole). It is typical Coetzee in that from fairly minimal narrative ingredients a very honest moral fable is constructed. Overall we are offered a model of thoughtfulness and generosity in Beatriz and a lesson in showing that what is there in a relationship however apparently deficient can still be a cause for optimism, a reason for living. I found it touching - its deliberately fragmentary nature adding to the wistfulness that is ever present in a lot of late Coetzee.

The rest of the book contains four short episodes featuring Coetzee's key character Elizabeth Costello and a final apparently unconnected story, which I will come to. The Elizabeth Costello material in a way bridges a gap between some of the episodes in the novel of that name - which ends with Elizabeth in a truly Kafkaesque version of the afterlife. The earliest of the stories dates from 2003 and the creative time span then runs for approximately another ten years, all after the publication of the novel (so we don't seem to be dealing with unused fragments from the book). In broad terms they show Elizabeth's slow decline whilst stressing again her stubbornness, individuality and intellect. The final story in the book, 'The Dog', apparently unconnected, appears to offer a sort of dream of Elizabeth's where a refraction of her is concerned with her asserting her rights over that of the dog of the title, whereas animal rights themselves are a major concern of Elizabeth's (in the novel and the stories in this book) and of course Coetzee himself. It's extremely clever. show less

4 stars for the titular novella, not for the short stories.

It is ages since I read anything new by J M Coetzee, winner of the Nobel Prize in 2003, and yet I have four books on the TBR: The Master of Petersburg (1994); Diary of a Bad Year (2007); Summertime (2009), and The Childhood of Jesus (2013). I bought them all between 2009 and 2013 because I thought Disgrace (1999); Life and Times of Michael K (1983) and Slow Man (2005) were brilliant, but my interest faded with The Lives of Animals (1999); and Elizabeth Costello (2001). Only two of all these are reviewed here: Life and Times of Michael K (1983) published in my 'Reviews from the Archive' series, and Foe (1986) which I re-read for Novellas in November in 2021 and realised how much show more I'd missed when I read it the first time.

Which is why I feel confident that I've missed some aspects of 'The Pole' which is the titular novella of this new book. After all in the very next story 'As a Woman Grows Older', Elizabeth Costello muses on how she has made a living out of ambivalence, and she asks herself: Where would the art of fiction be if there were no double meanings?

Narrated by a rather wry observer interpreting only the woman's perspective, The Pole is a tale of unrequited love, first his for her, and then hers for him, half-hearted though it be. The Pole and the woman he desires are poles apart at the beginning, and in a way that I should have predicted but didn't, also at the end.

Helpfully, Coetzee's Pole, the pianist Witold Walczykiewicz makes the allusion to Beatrice from Dante's Divine Comedy explicit but his Spanish Beatriz will have none of it. While he has, inexplicably, developed a huge crush on her, she is not the least little bit interested. The wife of a banker with the sort of social responsibilities that banker's wives have, Beatriz had been roped into escorting Witold around Barcelona when he came to the city on tour. She had tried not to be predictable, and had found it easy not to gush or flirt, (which is what is expected of middle-aged rich ladies doing cultural duties with artistes.) She had not been 'transported' by his music...

So she had been quite startled by his attempt at renewed contact afterwards because his courtly behaviour had not given even a hint that he was keen. ('Courtly' because he's channelling Dante falling in love with Beatrice, but equally, just distant in his manner, and not just because they are using his not-great English as a lingua franca because she doesn't speak Polish and he doesn't speak Spanish or French.)

Indeed, Witold withholds (ha!) his feelings and has an austere persona. Beatriz's first impressions do not bode well for any passion.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2024/01/14/the-pole-other-stories-2023-by-j-m-coetzee/ show less