Book Review: Summertime by J.M. Coetzee

Summertime is set after Coetzee's own death. Now that he is gone, someone has decided to write his biography by talking to former lovers, family members, and friends. The novel is also has excerpts from Coetzee's own journals that serve as bookends to the interviews.

I have trouble, however, separating the interviewer and interviewees from Coetzee himself. I feel as though he does not give them their own voice. They use his language, referring constantly to matters of the heart, a recurring theme in Coetzee's fiction. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, though I feel that Coetzee is very hard on himself. Each of the interviewees discusses their personal opinion of John Coetzee at one time in his life, and they say some pretty honest things about him. Nearly all of the interviewees agree that John Coetzee is a man who never understood love and matters of the heart. I feel that this is a harsh comment because all of his novels that I have read (11 at this point) have touched my heart in one way or another. He may feel he has not mastered matters of the heart in his own love life, but he is certainly a good faker. Also, I found it odd that the novel makes no mention of his own family. He was married (and divorced) and had two children (one of which I believe was killed in his 20s). This omission may be due to the fact that this is still a novel and not an autobiography, however, on the cover of the UK edition of this novel it suggests it is autobiographical, noting it as Summertime: Scenes from a Provincial Life III (scenes one and two being Boyhood and Youth).

I'm not sure that I have said everything I want to about this novel, I still need it to sink in a bit, regardless 4/5