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mimooo's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
a cursed, grim, and demented novel where a karen has done to her what she and all members of the colonial apparatus do to colonized and subjugated peoples…. eg rob them of their ability to speak and make meaning and then make up a story into that gap made by violence. may you sink to the silent depths and rot there evermore robinson crusoe and daniel defoe and even you susan barton. the way that friday is dragged around by the will of the “benevolent” cruso and then the woman barton, occasionally engaging in autonomous acts that the reader and white people cannot decipher….. is not natural or okay, you have to understand the history that created those acts of violence and you have to understand there is nothing a barton or foe could do to understand that hell without facing the necessity of their own obliteration. a novel that is profoundly pessimistic about the act of writing as an act of violence perpetrated along the same
old grain of colonialism and empire.
sloatsj's review against another edition
3.0
Coetzee is a superior writer but the first 2/3s of this were surprisingly dull. As always, interesting concept and promise. Recommended for true Coetzee fans.
nawis's review against another edition
5.0
Coetzee deftly uses his "retelling" of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe to address themes such as power/freedom/oppression/voicelessness, but the truly compelling story here is one of metafiction. Avoiding major spoilers, the characters here are symbolic of the creation process itself: from inspiration/conception, to plot and readability, and to the indistinct line between truth and fiction. Coetzee once again proves his mastery of allegory.
c_rewie6's review against another edition
challenging
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
3.75
akross's review against another edition
3.0
I really enjoyed the first two sections of the book- it made an elegant shift from Robinson Crusoe to more post modern discussions of storytelling and language. But the final section had lots of good, but fragmented, thoughts that never really made a cohesive message. I wanted a solid philosophy to stand on, but no luck. Compelling writing though.
saff24's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
mysterious
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
_christinadevin's review against another edition
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
I didn’t like it as a story all that much. I’m reading it for a university course, so I can appreciate the critiques and versions themes involved but this was so boring. The pacing was awful, it didn’t always make sense, and I didn’t care for any of the characters. No questions ever seemed to get answered, and it’s honestly just rough.
ALSO, this is absolutely one of those ‘woman written by a man’ novels. The amount of times she thinks about how strange it is that no one tried to have sex with her is weird. She also just lets Cruso have his way with her because he has been away from civilisation so long? That made me actually LOL because what ???
At least it’s short.
ALSO, this is absolutely one of those ‘woman written by a man’ novels.
At least it’s short.