Although I have only just barely cracked the spine of J. M. Coetzee's second book, 1977's
In the Heart of the Country, I find myself more than a little intrigued by this slender novel. The narrator of the book breaks her story up into tiny fragments of prose, presumably set away in a locked diary. At turns lucid and obscure, the protagonist's stream-of-consciousness narrative almost has the feel of a Faulkner novel set in rural South Africa. While I have obviously not yet read enough of the book to determine whether it will figure into my dissertation, I have the suspicion, having read several bits of criticism discussing the
In the Heart of the Country, that it may well prove to be a central text in some of my discussions. Here's to hoping! The book was also made into a film called
Dust (1985), which I am trying to track down.
Other than beginning
In the Heart of the Country, I reread another critical article on
The Master of Petersburg, continuing my regimen of pre-writing review. Also, for anyone interested in such things, I added a
brief review of Husker Du's (I know that there's an umlaut over each "u," by the way, but for some reason the character is unreadable when processed by my blogging software)
New Day Rising to my
little music side project.
For tomorrow: Reread another essay and continue reading
In the Heart of the Country.
Comments