Masochism Tango

Take your cigarette from it's holder/ And burn your initials in my shoulder/ Fracture my spine/ And swear that you're mine/ As we dance to the masochism tango.

So, I just read two Coetzee's in a row. I don't mean to make him my punching bag or anything, but goodness, I just do not like these. At all. With some authors, after reading a few I start to understand and love their work. For example, I struggled with The Satanic Verses, and even Midnight's Children wasn't a favorite. Then, I read The Ground Beneath Her Feet and fell in love. With other authors, I may not like everything I had to read from them, but I have some favorites (Persuasion, Great Expectations, etc.). Maybe after a few more of Coetzee I'll start to enjoy them, but right now I am mostly excited to report that I have read half of the ones that I will have to read.

Let's start with Foe. It's fine, really. It's deliciously, blessedly short. Just 157 pages. Thank goodness. The story is sort of a re-imagining of Robinson Crusoe. I probably should have read Robinson Crusoe before reading this one. I have three main associations with DeFoe's novel:

1) Baby Island (again!), since the lovely ladies of that story reference Crusoe on occasion.
2) The Peabody and Sherman, where they split the island and make a horrible Friday the 13th pun.
3) A supremely trippy little animated show we watched in Germany where it was Robbins and Crusoe or something; it was really trippy (that may have been the language barrier, but man, we watched some fairly awesome TV there).

Now I can add this story. Apparently, the main point has something to do with the nature of reality and truth, and how literacy, language, and imagination shape that. Or something. I don't know. It's classic Coetzee, which is to say stark and bleak.

Of course, Foe has nothing on Disgrace for stark and bleak. Or grim and intense, for that matter. What a book. The plot essentially is, middle-aged divorcee may or may not rape young college student, loses job, goes to live with daughter out in rural South Africa, daughter is brutally raped, and then things sort of get worse. And meanwhile everyone is borderline depressed. Including me, the poor little reader.

The other thing about Coetzee is that I always feel like I am missing something, like the point or the resolution. Or else the books really do stop abruptly without any resolution.