Book Review: Scenes from a Provincial Life by J M Coetzee

Reviewed by Berkelouw Newtown

“Scenes from a Provincial Life” is a collection of Coetzee’s three earlier works – Boyhood, Youth and Summer time. All are memoirs, though the later has been categorised as ‘fiction’ despite its no-less obvious references to the author himself.

It begins with ‘Boyhood’ – Coetzee’s memoir of life as a young boy, an Afrikaner, in post-war South Africa. We are introduced to an intelligent, yet selfish 13 year old – no-one is saved from his scathing tales, especially his smothering mum and drunken father; still, his criticism is never more severe than when it is about himself – his timidity, his demanding character and his betrayal of those closest to him.

A similar story continues in ‘Youth’, when we meet this boy again as a young man in his early twenties, moving from university in Cape Town to life as a computer programmer in London. This novel is an obvious portrait of the artist, who we first met ‘Boyhood’; yet, ‘Youth’ lacks the thin strands of tenderness that we were allowed in the first book, leaving us only the monotonous self-loathing of a rather unlikable twenty-something man.

Finally, in ‘Summer time’ we jump to a time when this detestable man has died. A biographer, known only as Vincent, interviews a series of characters who were somehow or other entangled in Coetzee’s life – some are lovers, some are colleagues, but all of them are astounded that this ‘wooden’ man, who seems to be completely detached from those around him – and indeed, from life itself – would hold anything of value for a biographer. There is certainly a relief, a sense of lightness that was not at all apparent in the previous two works.

There is something about Coetzee’s words that make his work not particularly easy to digest; an uncomfortable, rather unlikable way he has of detaching any real sort of emotion from his story, only for it to come back at you like a slap across the face. You may not like this reclusive, elusive man, but you are still curious to read his story.

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