Life and Times of Michael K

by J.M. Coetzee

            J.M. Coetzee has won Nobel prize for literature.  I have read his novels ‘Disgrace’, ‘Slow man’, and yet to finish reading ‘Foe’. His Nobel tag made me hesitant to approach his writings.  This has to do with my doubts about many authors who have won Nobel prize but whose works I found boring.   I recall one of the humorous comments of Mark Twain to the effect  that ‘Literary Classics are meant for book-shelfs for decoration and not for reading’.   

One anecdote that stirred my interest in J.M. Coetzee was made by Gabriel Garcia Marquez (from my memory – words are mine);

‘One day a group of visitors had come to meet me.  Many of the visitors spoke to me or asked questions about my work and life.  Only after the meeting was over and guests went away I recalled that one man sitting behind everyone was silent right from the beginning to the end.  After they went away, I asked my son, who was that man?  He told me it was J.M. Coetzee. I was surprised and told my son that I had desired to meet and speak to J.M.Coetzee for long.  There was no occasion for that. He came to me and I missed the opportunity. I felt guilty.  My son told me that he had  put a condition that he would not speak and he should not be introduced.  He wanted to silently observe you’.

This was how Coetzee paid his tribute to Marquez.  I was impressed by his humility.  I was fascinated by Marquez and if he likes a writer who is alive today, I thought I should read his works.  Then I searched for his books.  Strange are the ways readers find authors and their books.After going through the blurbs of his books.  I chose to read ‘Disgrace’.  Only after finished reading the book that I came to know that it has been made into a film. I have not watched the film.  I found it different and relevant.  Its style, its simplicity imprinted this story about crimes and retributions in a context that was new.  South Africa in the days of apartheid is a different universe altogether.

J.M.Coetzee writes in very simple English and his style is shorn of any unnecessary embellishments, either in words, style or metaphors.  All his embellishments are subterranean i.e. hidden in his narrative.  His narrative is so direct and unassuming that it appears almost pedestrian while reading.  Only when you finish reading you will realize that you have read an excellent book. You cannot separate style, narrative or metaphor from the story/book. These do not hit you directly.  These are inherent in the whole of the book and therefore invisible till you finish and think about it. It was a different experience for me. I will speak about ‘Disgrace’ on some other occasion. 

Now I will come to ‘Life and Times of Michael K’.  This also is a very simple and strait story.  The narrative is very linear and uncomplicated.  But the story is very realistic and it moves very slowly like its protagonist.  Michael K is a (Black} South African.  The house where he and his mother live is destroyed in riots.  You have to infer who has indulged in violence keeping the South African situation in 1980s in view.  He desires to move away from the City and encourages his sick mother to leave immediately to a place where she had lived in her childhood.  In South Africa, black citizens have to obtain permission for leaving the place where they are registered.  His mother tells him to apply for permission.  He applies.  But he is not given any reply in spite of his many visits to the offices where he gets rude replies to his queries.  He is told to wait for the reply in his house. It was also not their house.  He had occupied in after the riots.  The owners have gone and they may come any day. He also has doubts about getting the letter in his hand and it is not their address.  He never receives it.  He decides to move without permission, despite his mother’s objections.  His mother is so sick that she could not even sit.  He modifies a burrow into a hand pushed cart on his own after many repairs he carries out.  He has no money to buy anything new including dresses.  (We have to presume that they cannot travel in public transport either because of lack of money or because they are doing it illegally. - This is the kind of writing Coetzee practices.  You are expected to have some previous knowledge about the place).

His journey from the city to his mother’s native place forms the main story.  This is the period of apartheid.  His poverty, his determination to reach his mother’s place, his sufferings during the journey, the impact of apartheid has on the individual and the society – whites and blacks - forms the basics of the novel. His mother sits in the make-shift burrow with a broken wheel.  It is very hard to push the cart.  Michael is also very weak.  Their journey is illegal.  They have to hide when govt vehicles come on the highway.  Policemen can shoot them. Fortunately, they do not.  Everywhere they are asked about the permission.  They travel when the roads are empty or in the night.  Even then they have to hide often in the bushes and plants away from the highway.  It is a painful journey. The oppressive regime is portrayed in its actions.  Author does not speak on his own. (I read this novel during the corona lockdown.  – It was very depressing to read this kind of novel during such periods. But there are similarities.  I remembered those workers (along with their families) in India who walked hundreds of kilometers in hunger, just to reach their hometowns.  They are the Michaels in India, I need not mention about our governments).

Michael K’s mother dies during the journey, and the hospital gives him a vessel containing her ashes.  There are countless problems enroute.  He reaches a house (about which he is not sure- he imagines this only by his mother’s descriptions of the place) in his mother’s town.  She might have been brought up there as a worker’s daughter – there is no other way to presume. He has to hide in a nearby forest. He fears everyone who he comes across including the rebel fighters.  Others may be informers of the Government.  Coetzee’s direct and simple description helps us in understanding the situation in South America without emotionalizing the difficulties.  Michael does not care about anything.  He wants to feel free even from hunger even when he is hungry.  This is the kind of his strange obsession with freedom.  He seeks freedom from the oppressive state of affairs.  He tries and achieves it in his own way.   He does not cooperate with the organs of state or employees of the govt. He suffers hunger on many days, even when the food is made available.  He spends two terms in labour camps otherwise called jails for blacks, where they are underfed, are made to work without adequate compensation. They are worse than slaves.  If they fall sick or die the system does not bother.  It is a very depressing story (especially for reading during the period of lockdown for corona virus).

One or two whites in a hospital try to help him as he becomes so weak that they expect him to die sooner than later. He refuses to eat in the labour camps or in the hospital.  He is more used to hunger, he says (obviously in protest against his treatment by the brutal and savage system).  Coetzee writes so objectively that we suffer with Michael but also keep our distance from him and think subsequently about the system.  I cannot describe this kind of writing. Michael does not accept the help offered to him by the white doctors or the jail in charge, to enable his escape. He escapes on his own. (The white doctors sympathizes with him and wants to help him escape, but feels happy when he escapes on his own, because if he is caught doctor may be held responsible.  The doctor also thinks that Michael is so weak that he might die before reaching the city).  Only at the end I realized that Michael deliberately chooses hunger as a form of protest as well as a way of struggle against the system.  Strange are the ways of literature.  He was ready to die for his escape, but would not accept the magnanimity of either the system or the individuals, in keeping him at the subsistence level (it is actually survival level, they only feed to so that he survives for the time being which permanently damages his health).

Ultimately, he arrives back in the city and meets three blacks, one man and two women.  They offer him good food.  He refuses because his weak body would not take. Whatever little liquid he drinks he vomits.  One of the black women offers the solution on the suggestion of the black man, she offers sex.  He is reluctant.  He has no desire or energy. But her act somewhat revives his survival instincts.  And he slowly regains his strength.  This is the first time I came across sex as a tool for survival.  He had not experienced sex before. (Not to talk of love).

The novel was very measured, simple and the events of torturous nature are described naturally that we feel the impact in rational part of our brain.  This novel imprints the unethical regime in our mind. This novel is a metaphor for blacks' suffering during apartheid in 1980s and their obsession to obtain freedom at any cost. 

 

Most of J.M Coetzee’s novels are a class apart.  Though they are simple it would be very difficult to read.   You would appreciate the novels only when you finish them.