A review by mimooo
Foe by J.M. Coetzee

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.