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helgamharb 's review for:
Life & Times of Michael K
by J.M. Coetzee
War is the father of all and king of all.
Some he shows as gods, others as men.
Some he makes slaves, and others free.
-Heraclitus
A South Africa ravaged by civil war, a son who believes he has been brought into the world to look after his mother, a mother bent on returning to the countryside of her girlhood, to die there under blue skies.
Let me not lose my way.
They embark on their laborious journey, fleeing the burning Cape Town without a permit, Michael pushing the heavy makeshift cart carrying his ailing mother, panting under her weight and dodging armed authorities, only for her to die on the way in a hospital.
He did not know what was going to happen. The story of his life had never been an interesting one; there had usually been someone to tell him what to do next; now there was no one, and the best thing seemed to be to wait.
It is a nightmare; to be homeless, to be alone. To be like an ant that does not know where its hole is.
What is left for Michael is a fistful of his mother’s ashes and a determination to continue his journey; to reach the farm and scatter her remains where they belong.
There seemed nothing to do but live…. wanting nothing, looking forward to nothing.
Finally, he arrives at the farm finding it abandoned and dilapidated but also regarding it as a possible shelter; where he won’t feel homeless; where he would belong; where only he knows the way to.
Or so he thinks…
He lived by the rising and setting of the sun, in a pocket outside time. Cape Town and the war and his passage to the farm slipped further and further into forgetfulness.
But for how long this newfound bliss, this oneness with nature will last?
He thought of himself not as something heavy that left tracks behind it, but if anything as a speck upon the surface of an earth too deeply asleep to notice the scratch of ant-feet, the rasp of butterfly teeth, the tumbling of dust.
Some he shows as gods, others as men.
Some he makes slaves, and others free.
-Heraclitus
A South Africa ravaged by civil war, a son who believes he has been brought into the world to look after his mother, a mother bent on returning to the countryside of her girlhood, to die there under blue skies.
Let me not lose my way.
They embark on their laborious journey, fleeing the burning Cape Town without a permit, Michael pushing the heavy makeshift cart carrying his ailing mother, panting under her weight and dodging armed authorities, only for her to die on the way in a hospital.
He did not know what was going to happen. The story of his life had never been an interesting one; there had usually been someone to tell him what to do next; now there was no one, and the best thing seemed to be to wait.
It is a nightmare; to be homeless, to be alone. To be like an ant that does not know where its hole is.
What is left for Michael is a fistful of his mother’s ashes and a determination to continue his journey; to reach the farm and scatter her remains where they belong.
There seemed nothing to do but live…. wanting nothing, looking forward to nothing.
Finally, he arrives at the farm finding it abandoned and dilapidated but also regarding it as a possible shelter; where he won’t feel homeless; where he would belong; where only he knows the way to.
Or so he thinks…
He lived by the rising and setting of the sun, in a pocket outside time. Cape Town and the war and his passage to the farm slipped further and further into forgetfulness.
But for how long this newfound bliss, this oneness with nature will last?
He thought of himself not as something heavy that left tracks behind it, but if anything as a speck upon the surface of an earth too deeply asleep to notice the scratch of ant-feet, the rasp of butterfly teeth, the tumbling of dust.