Please choose whether or not you want other users to be able to see on your profile that this library is a favorite of yours. Finding libraries that hold this item Praise for Waiting for the Barbarians:"J. Coetzee's vison goes to the nerve-center of being. What he finds there is more than most people will ever know about themselves, and he conveys it with a brilliant writer's mastery of tension and elegance.
Coetzee knows the elusive terror of Kafka. You may have already requested this item. Please select Ok if you would like to proceed with this request anyway. WorldCat is the world's largest library catalog, helping you find library materials online. Don't have an account? You can easily create a free account. Your Web browser is not enabled for JavaScript. Some features of WorldCat will not be available. Create lists, bibliographies and reviews: or.
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Kuiper, and Andy F. Mccall , Catherine. Aldershot: Avebury, Nashef , Hania A. The Politics of Humiliation in the Novels of J. The author wishes to thank Professor Zimmermann for his inspiration and hospitality on that occasion. As belonging to a nomadic people, the girl could even be a type of the wandering Jew, confronted with a totalitarian state of which the Magistrate himself is willy-nilly a representative. As the Magistrate quite sees, strangers are by definition strangers to each other.
The girl is a stranger to him just as he, as the coloniser, is a stranger to her in her land. There are also some inconclusive allusions to prayer. He teaches a degree course on so-called postcolonial literature with particular reference to J. Coetzee and Jhumpa Lahiri. Site map — Contact — Website credits — Syndication.
Privacy Policy — About Cookies. OpenEdition member — Published with Lodel — Administration only. Skip to navigation — Site map. Commonwealth Essays and Studies. Contents - Previous document - Next document. Adrian Grafe. Outline Mask and Identity. Full text PDF k Send by e-mail. As belonging Bibliography Blay , Michel, ed. Notes 1 An early version of this article was delivered as a seminar paper at Michael F.
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View more editions. Buy from. Read more. Share at. Lawrence's ''Seven Pillars of Wisdom. The wind beats at us across the lake bringing tears to our eyes. In single file, four men and a woman, four pack-animals, the horses persistently backing to the wind and having to be sawed around, we wind away from the walled town into the bare fields….
The wind never lets up. It howls at us across the ice, blowing from nowhere to nowhere, veiling the sky in a cloud of red dust. From the dust there is no hiding: it penetrates our clothing, cakes our skin, sifts into the baggage. We eat with coated tongues, spitting often, our teeth grating. Dust rather than air becomes the medium in which we live. We swim through dust like fish through water.
It is still miles away but visibly devouring the earth in its approach. Its crest is lost in the murky clouds. I have never seen anything so frightening…. The storm-wall is not black any more but a chaos of whirling sand and snow and dust. Then all at once the wind rises to a scream, my cap is whirled from my head, and the storm hits us. I am knocked flat on my back.
Meanwhile, Joll and his men had chased the barbarians beyond the frontiers of the Empire and were led out far into the desert where the nomads vanished. After this exercise in futility, the troops return dispirited. The Magistrate is released from jail. The imperial forces leave. I confess that I find the dominant elements of irascibility and selfishness in his main charactersDavid Lurie in "Disgrace" and the Magistrate in this bookvery irritating.
Coetzee is famously reclusive and does not give interviews, but I suspect professional reviewers may be correct in seeing much of the author in these characters, including their opinions. There is no other way to describe what I felt, page after page, digging deeper into his psyche filled with pretentious nothingness and arrogance. This makes me wonder what the character meant to the author. If so, there is a huge amount of prejudice and misogyny in his world view, almost painfully evident in every sentence.
Nov 02, Numidica rated it really liked it. Written in , Coetzee's meditation on the power of the state, and how it uses fear of the other to maintain power, is a reflection of his experience of apartheid government in his native South Africa, but it is also a timeless story.
It is set in a fictional Empire at an outpost where the Barbarians are nearby, but are rarely seen; this could be the 19th Century American West, or similar periods in Mexico, or the steppes of Russia. My personal candidate location is the area around the Caspian Written in , Coetzee's meditation on the power of the state, and how it uses fear of the other to maintain power, is a reflection of his experience of apartheid government in his native South Africa, but it is also a timeless story.
My personal candidate location is the area around the Caspian Sea, based on a few clues in the text, but it really doesn't matter; the story is a parable. As in Disgrace, Coetzee's protagonist is an aging man, fifty-something; in Disgrace the protagonist was a womanizing professor whose philandering with students is his downfall; in Waiting for the Barbarians he is the magistrate of an outpost town on the fringes of the Empire who falls from grace because of his infatuation with a younger woman.
But in this story, the woman is a left-behind barbarian, permanently damaged by torture. The "security forces" have come to the outpost to investigate reports of nascent unrest and anti-Empire organizing by the barbarians, and they seek "evidence" by capturing and torturing a group of wandering nomads.
Coetzee looks deeply into how power, or at least a certain kind of power, requires enemies, and how torture is rarely about seeking information, but about demonstrating a government's power to intimidate. The book is also about how aging men need younger women to re-affirm their masculinity, and how that pairing often makes them ridiculous, and sometimes destroys them.
This is a short book with a powerful message that resonates with me. It is impossible as an American to read this book, which was written in by a South African author, and not think of what the forces of the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan. Torture was sanctioned by the Bush Administration, and it is a source of shame that the CIA put us in the same league as the authoritarian nations of the world in embracing torture.
Coetzee makes a moral case against torture, but also explores how all of us are made complicit in our government's acts. I have given this four stars instead of five, only because Coetzee pontificates a little bit past the necessary point in some cases, but generally the story is told in compelling tones, and it moves forward briskly.
View all 10 comments. If you like your Kafka with a large dose of morality in it, step this way. I wonder if there has ever been a period in human history in which this little work would not have its place however particularly apt it may seem right now. This is the third Coetzee I've read now and all of them are economic in terms of paper spe "I should never have allowed the gates of the town to be opened to people who assert that there are higher considerations than those of decency.
This is the third Coetzee I've read now and all of them are economic in terms of paper spent, this one a mere pages. And yet there is nothing in the prose to indicate a miserly attitude to words or to story line. Indeed, there is much wonderment in the book. Nor could I always see why one part of my body, with its unreasonable cravings and false promises, should be heeded over any other as a channel of desire.
Sometimes my sex seemed to me another being entirely, a stupid animal living parasitically upon me, swelling and dwindling according to autonomous appetites, anchored to my flesh with claws I could not detach. 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 rooted in a cat or dog instead of in me? Jun 10, D. Pow rated it it was amazing. It is the tale of The Magistrate, a mid-level bureaucrat who presides over a small settlement on the edge of a pre-industrial Empire. The Empire is not named, the Barbarians are not specified, and though the particulars of the settings are echoed by historical counterparts, Coetzee leaves out enough details to make the place timeless, universal, fabulis J.
The Empire is not named, the Barbarians are not specified, and though the particulars of the settings are echoed by historical counterparts, Coetzee leaves out enough details to make the place timeless, universal, fabulistic.
At the time the book was released, , Coetzee was thought primarily to be commenting on the grim events in his native South Africa, then still firmly in the malignant grip of government sponsored apartheid. The book is rife with the heavy-handed gestures, myopic double-talk, torture and brutality that black South Africans were subject to at that time.
But by creating a nameless kingdom in a non-specific time Coetzee has escaped the fate of having this book being viewed only through the historical prism of South African apartheid. Other real world parallels some to mind now, other phrases flit to the forefront of consciousness: Abu Ghraib, The War on Terror, extraordinary rendition, torture flights. The brutality depicted in Waiting for the Barbarians never goes out of style, the confused attempts at moral action that The Magistrate undertakes that get him labeled as a man of unsound mind and a collaborator are being made every day by real people.
But Coetzee also brings a compelling style and a precise use of language to the table, packing into the pages of a very short novel, what many other writers could not achieve in a work ten times its size.
His style is understated but beautiful, the book comes constantly alive with wonderfully crystalline descriptive passages and exact attention to the interior journey of The Magistrate, revealed in his thoughts and his dreams. The book is very much also talking about our own interior Barbarians, the parts of us not wholly assimilated, the parts of us we like to wall off from our every day conception of self, the parts we are most likely to hide to loved ones and strangers the parts of us, ironically, that are often most vital and hale.
It also is a strange, aborted love story between a torture victim The Magistrate takes into his bed and the weird dance of guilt, sensuality and thwarted desire that plays out between them. Coetzee is true master, this book hit me hard and on as many levels as possible, something while reading I was completely immersed in and upon finishing was utterly moved, disturbed and maybe even subtly changed by.
A great book by an author whose other works I will now eagerly devour. A Magistrate presides over a small frontier town at the edge of the desert, living in a peaceful coexistence with the indigenous population, until the arrival of Colonel Joll of the Third Bureau, the military arm of the ruling Empire.
The Colonel and his troops have been sent to put down an uprising of Barbarians; however, no such uprising is actually occurring. The A Magistrate presides over a small frontier town at the edge of the desert, living in a peaceful coexistence with the indigenous population, until the arrival of Colonel Joll of the Third Bureau, the military arm of the ruling Empire.
The Magistrate at first distracts himself to avoid confronting the fact that the detainees are being tortured, but eventually his conscience will not allow him to remain a passive observer and he takes action that puts him at odds with the Empire.
The story is told in first-person by the Magistrate, so the reader is privy to his thoughts as he muses philosophically on this moral crisis, while not letting himself off the hook for his own involvement as a bureaucrat doing the bidding of the Empire. His thoughts stray into his sexual liaisons, and he develops an unusual relationship with one of the brutalized women.
This slim volume may be read as an allegory condemning imperialism. It is narrated by an unnamed Magistrate in an unspecified country by an unidentified Empire. It shows exploitation and control through incitement of fear, violence against the native populace, and sexual dominance over women. It is graphic in its descriptions of torture, sexual practices, and other bodily functions. The prose is masterful and contains a good amount of Biblical symbolism.
The final chapter is not quite as strong as the previous sections. This book provides food for thought on the decision to act in the face of injustice, while recognizing the personal risks.
What a powerful piece of prose! The main character is an anti-hero, a magistrate in an outpost of an Empire; he's been there for twenty years and has elapsed into a kind of routine. But then suddenly an army-kolonel turns up who wants to combat the barbarians at the other side of the frontier. The magistrate registers the sudden indications of torture and injustice, does not understand why simple nomads are declared enemies; his fascination focusses especially on a blind and cripple nomad-girl.
Of course it doesn't end well, but the end is kept open. In this novel Coetzee immediately dives very deep into the human soul; putting the struggle for humanity and civilisation against the "barbaric" attitude of the military; but it is not a black-and-white-picture although Coetzee flirts with the theme of the noble savage ; even the magistrate knows very well he too personifies some dark aspects of civilization.
Looking at the year of publication there's a temptation to think of this novel as a work of resistance against the South African apartheidsregime; this kind of reading certainly is relevant, but Coetzee has superseded this specific context and brings a broader humanistic story: how thin is the line between civilization and barbarism!
Also from a stylistic point of view, this is great literature. Captivating reading and a ever so relevant warning! Jun 30, Janelle rated it it was amazing Shelves: library , A magistrate in a garrison on the frontier of an unnamed empire narrates this shortish novel about p and Coetzee packs so much in to think about. Isolation and loneliness. The treatment of native peoples, colonialism in general, what is justice.
The narrator comes to wonder which side the barbarians are actually on. Skilfully written, the message is powerful. I decided to read this after watching a trailer for a film based on this book the other day. Apr 15, Janie C. An unnamed empire exists at the edge of nowhere, fabricating itself with its own laws and truths, fearing the unknown threat of oncoming Barbarians. Sadness, loneliness and lack of true connections lie within the walls of the community.
Sparse prisoners are brought before the masses to be tortured and slaughtered. Who are the Barbarians? They are us. It is our own disgrace and our future that we must learn to confront. While writing this review the commemoration of the assassination attempt on Hitler is held in Berlin. On this day, 70 years ago, world's history could have taken a turn for the better, but unfortunately the assassination failed. The people involved were executed on that same evening.
Needless to say this took place without a charge or trial. But today we remember not only the group of Graf von Stauffenberg, but all resisters and dissidents of the Nazi terror, be they individuals of culture, chur While writing this review the commemoration of the assassination attempt on Hitler is held in Berlin. What has all this have to do with this book?
The main character in this story also becomes a resistance fighter. In his capacity as a magistrate of a border-line settlement, he is confronted with the alleged impending attack by the so-called barbarians. When he witnesses how the henchmen of Empire [sic; throughout the book this word is used without article] mistreat their prisoners, a strong resentment grows in him against this rogue regime.
After he helped a "barbarian" woman to return to her people, he is declared "enemy of the state" and must learn the hard way what it means to fall from grace. This was my second novel by J. Coetzee Disgrace was the first and again I am impressed by the prose of this author. Despite the scarce descriptions in many parts of this story, he managed to create vivid characters.
Their sufferings put tears in my eyes, and their actions let my jugulars swell. Neither the place, nor the time is mentioned and the people remain nameless with three exceptions. In parts I would compare the book with , although I liked the ending of Orwell's masterpiece better. Here the ending is one of several possible, but also not the worst.
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