He does this by stepping aside and reimagining his life in the 1970s from the viewpoints of five people – a lover, a relative, a colleague, and so on – all interviewed by a prospective biographer named Vincent after Coetzee’s death. The joke is: ‘If this is the prime of his life…’, because Coetzee gives us a ruthless self-portrait. Summertime follows them as fictionalised memoirs of Coetzee’s life, and the title is a mordant joke from an author not famed for his wit. Summertime is subtitled Scenes from Provincial Life, which recalls Middlemarch and Madame Bovary, but also aligns it with Coetzee’s earlier books Boyhood and Youth. It’s all because of Summertime, a magnificent book which from the beginning places the reader in Coetzee’s expert care. … But for me, I think it goes far beyond that.” After a disastrous attempt to review Diary of a Bad Year when I was having a bad month, I have now – third time lucky – reached the stage where I know I will, eventually, have to read all his books. … I mean, I know that’s not profound or nothin’. Coetzee’s work on the basis that I liked Disgrace makes me feel a little like the gorilla in the Far Side cartoon, who says to his friend, “You know, Sid, I really like bananas.
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