Slow Man

J.M. Coetzee's first novel since he won the Nobel prize starts off straightforwardly enough. Paul Rayment is knocked off his bicycle by a young hotrodder named Blight. His injuries necessitate the amputation of his leg. This accident forces what Coetzee calls an old man (I later learned Paul was only 60, hardly ancient these days) to confront his waning sexuality and his own mortality. He chooses, I think, to become more embittered, helpless and dependent than his medical condition requires. He refuses a prosthesis and can barely walk or perform self-care. This sets the stage for his infatuation with his competent, kind and attractive Croatian caregiver, Marijana and his emotional entanglement with her family. Suddenly Elizabeth Costello arrives, feisty and meddlesome. She is a character from a previous Coetzee novel and there is no explanation for her appearance. '"You came to me, that is all I can say", is Costello's only comment on the matter. This is where the novel goes off the rails. Rayment doesn't know her, doesn't want her around but nonetheless allows Costello to manipulate his life. Coetzee uses her character as a device to move the story along. At one point she arranges a ridiculously contrived sexual encounter between Rayment and a blind woman. I found this experiment to be clumsy but Coetzee is such a good writer that I enjoyed the novel in spite of it.