The Life and Times of Michael K

Paperback, 192 pages

English language

Published March 28, 2005 by Vintage Books.

ISBN:
978-0-09-947915-4
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3 stars (7 reviews)

In a South Africa torn by civil war, Michael K sets out to take his mother back to her rural home. On the way there she dies, leaving him alone in an anarchic world of brutal roving armies. Imprisoned, Michael is unable to bear confinement and escapes, determined to live with dignity. Life and Times of Michael K goes to the centre of human experience -- the need for an interior, spiritual life, for some connections to the world in which we live, and for purity of vision.

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Review of 'The Life and Times of Michael K' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

I read J.M. Coetzee’s Life and Times of Michael K in one go. It has been a disturbing, beautiful and emotional experience. It has made a deep impression on me.

The story takes place in an unreal South Africa which is torn by civil war. Michael K works as a gardener in the De Waal Park in Cape Town. One day his mother, who is suffered from edema, calls him to collect her from the hospital. Moving with difficulty, she asks Michael to return her to the farmland of her girlhood, in Prince Albert. Facing a real possibility of being made redundant, Michael quits his job and decides to made the trip, convincing himself that ''he had been brought into the world to look after his mother.”

After the death, on route, of his mother, Michael decides to go anyway in Prince Albert. He finds the farmland, or one that …

Review of 'The Life and Times of Michael K' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

Denne fant jeg totalt forvirrende, og den litt merkelige halvmagiske realismen passet ikke inn i min begrepsverden akkurat da jeg leste den. Det er mange år siden, og det er derfor godt mulig jeg ville opplevd den annerledes nå. Skal huske at de litterære referanserammene mine til Sør-Afrika da jeg leste denne boken var André Brink og Wilbur Smith. Disgrace var en mer fantastisk leseopplevelse, så det er ikke at jeg ikke har tro på forfatteren.

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