Diary of a Bad Year by J. M. Coetzee

About a writer named Senor C, who writes his thoughts on various subjects for a book that will be published in German, of which he is one of six contributors.

This book very intriguingly dogmatizes about a range of subjects, including politics, music, and writing. A commentary on the modern world, it gives voice to those of us who feel frustrated at what has happened and what we have become in recent years.

I can't quite grasp specifically what to think about this book, however. My feeling about it seems just beyond my reach.

There is the dichotomy between the old world, represented by Senor C, and the modern world, embodied in Alan, which are at odds with each other. Alan is what is wrong today, and Senor C is the ideal of how things ought to be.

Certainly, the book is about the nature of writing. How a writer's perceptions change with age. That a writer does not write in isolation, but is influenced by the world, although perhaps writers and those who wish for change have been marginalized.

It is interesting that the work is supposed to be "fiction," yet Senor C's initials are JC, he is a writer who moved from South Africa to Australia, and he admits authoring Waiting for the Barbarians: obviously, Senor C could be Coetzee himself. I think Senor C is both Coetzee and fictional at the same time, as Coetzee plays with realism and the novel form. Still, it makes me wonder if the other parts of book are true too; maybe Coetzee has written a book about how this book was written.

The book tests the boundaries of the novel. Each page is divided into three parts: at the top is Senor C's commentary (called "Strong Opinions"), in the middle is Senor C's account of his writing and of his typist Anya, and at the bottom is Anya's thoughts about the book and her relationships with Senor C and Alan. Reading the book requires comprehending three storylines that also weave and merge together into a single story. I read that Coetzee has been experimenting with the form of the novel in his last few books. Elizabeth Costello is structured by a series of lectures delivered by the protagonist, many of which have been given by Coetzee. In Slow Man, a character named Elizabeth Costello appears, claiming that the protagonist is a character in a book she is working on.