Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Diary of a Bad Year J.M. Coetzee

Though I had this book in my collection, I had not read it.  Last week someone had referred to this book and my interest grew.  I started reading this book.   It is a different kind of an essay cum novel, where opinions about many things in the world are expressed and intermittently  a story unfolds.  It is a record of a book being written by an author and its effect on the typist hired to make a copy. She tells her husband the contents of the book the way she has understood and the husband also expresses his opinions first to his wifeon the subjects dealt with by the author. He entirely disagrees with the views of the author.  Thus, three way reactions have been recorded.  I am not convinced that it could be called a novel or diary or a book of essays.  It combines elements of all the three.  I agree with most of the opinions of the author which question everything that are taken for granted in this world.  He has mentioned facts to support his opinions. 

                A different kind of novel, but I had to force myself to finish it.  The strange mix of style, narration because of the contents. It disturbed my understanding of separate genre of books such as essays, novels stories etc.  Still a fresh genre.   Can try one time. ***(Three star)

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