Status
Available
Call number
Publication
Penguin (Non-Classics) (1988), Paperback, 160 pages
Description
Nobel Laureate and two-time Booker prize-winning author of Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K, J. M. Coetzee reimagines Daniel DeFoe's classic novel Robinson Crusoe in Foe. Published as a Penguin Essential for the first time. In an act of breathtaking imagination, J.M Coetzee radically reinvents the story of Robinson Crusoe. In the early eighteenth century, Susan Barton finds herself adrift from a mutinous ship and cast ashore on a remote desert island. There she finds shelter with its only other inhabitants: a man named Cruso and his tongueless slave, Friday. In time, she builds a life for herself as Cruso's companion and, eventually, his lover. At last they are rescued by a passing ship, but only she and Friday survive the journey back to London. Determined to have her story told, she pursues the eminent man of letters Daniel Foe in the hope that he will relate truthfully her memories to the world. But with Cruso dead, Friday incapable of speech and Foe himself intent on reshaping her narrative, Barton struggles to maintain her grip on the past, only to fall victim to the seduction of storytelling itself. Treacherous, elegant and unexpectedly moving, Foe remains one of the most exquisitely composed of this pre-eminent author's works. 'A small miracle of a book. . . of marvellous intricacy and overwhelming power' Washington Post 'A superb novel' The New York Times… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member blackhornet
Even in his best books, like 'Disgrace', there's something cold, difficult to like, in Coetzee's tone. The coldness comes across even more in a book like this, which appears more as a novelist's intellectual exercise than an attempt to narrate experience as it is lived or might be lived. He
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reimagines Daniel Defoe's writing of 'Robinson Crusoe'. His female narrator spent time on a desert island with 'Cruso' and his slave. Rescued, she approaches Defoe to write her story. What follows is a meditation on the art of writing: what is fiction and what is fact? What liberties is the writer entitled to take with the truth. Some interesting stuff, but not necessarity in a novel when it is dealt with in quite a heavy-handed fashion. Not a patch on other reimaginings of class novels, such as 'Wide Sargasso Sea'. Show Less
LibraryThing member Nialle
I sell books for a living. Some customers, staff, friends, and I have a joke about a way that I encourage people to try a book: I give them a sort of verbal book "trailer" or preview, slightly facetious sometimes, at other times quite seriously pointing up a theme I want a particular reader to find
CUSTOMER: Have you read Murakami's Dance Dance Dance? Is it good?
ME: How much do you like Kafka?
CUSTOMER: He's confusing, but I like his stuff.
ME: [pointing at the Murakami novel] Guy walks into a hotel. It looks different from last time. Last time, he was here with a lady. He wants to find the lady. This time, the hotel has a metaphysical floor with something strange going on. Madness ensues.
Or:
CUSTOMER: Should I really read Moby-Dick?
ME: You liked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, right? [Customer nods] And you like books with main characters who are really observant and introspective, right?
CUSTOMER: So Ahab is like Nemo and - Ishmael is introspective?
ME: Yeah. It's the introspection that matters. That's why you read that book. Otherwise, the plot is pretty simple. Guy and a whale get in a fight. Whale pwns him. Guy swears revenge. Observer observes how this parallels the broader human condition. Madness, and a lot of detail about whale blubber, ensues.
Or:
11-YEAR-OLD CUSTOMER: Are Goosebumps books really scary?
ME: I thought you liked stuff like Anne of Green Gables.
CUSTOMER: But I want a scary book.
ME: Goosebumps books aren't really scary. Every single chapter is like, So me and my friend notice this thing. Aaagh! It's scary! Chapter 2: It's just the dog's shadow. But then we notice something else. Aaaagh! Chapter 3: It's Uncle George. But then we notice... blah blah blah.
CUSTOMER: Whatever. What's a scary book then?
ME: I know one about this girl who lived in the 1800's in England, and she wasn't married and she wasn't rich, so she had to be a teacher. Because that was basically it for girls back then, that or being a servant. So she gets this teaching job at this big old dark house teaching just one kid. It's weird, but it's a job. Then she starts hearing the crazy laughter. Then a fire breaks out. [dramatic pause] Madness ensues.
After hours, conferring with staff in a silly mood:
STAFF PERSON: ...and I said [insert three-sentence leader]. Madness ensues!
ANOTHER STAFF PERSON: If you were going to recommend [book], what would you say?
STAFF PERSON: [even shorter, and sillier, leader]. Madness ensues?
ANOTHER STAFF PERSON: What about the Bible?
STAFF PERSON: God said, Let there be light. Madness ensues!
I explain this so that you know how we tell stories, stories that you already know, in our manner, for our purposes. So that you know how I convey stories, since it is my life's place to purvey them. And so that, once you have read this mirroring mirror of a story, in which the human condition - a state of constantly trying to select and state context to explain the whither-we-will or whither-we-fall movements of our deep selves, before and inside and through the words - shews itself in the "truer" story of Crusoe told by a hitherto unknown witness, herself an unreliable narrator, you will see the story I saw in the story, told as truly as I can tell, which is to say, not with exactitude but with fortitude and honesty and, I think, a genuine love.
YOU: What did you think of "Foe"?
ME: Three Prosperos and a Caliban walk into a book. Madness ensues.
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in that book. Viz.:CUSTOMER: Have you read Murakami's Dance Dance Dance? Is it good?
ME: How much do you like Kafka?
CUSTOMER: He's confusing, but I like his stuff.
ME: [pointing at the Murakami novel] Guy walks into a hotel. It looks different from last time. Last time, he was here with a lady. He wants to find the lady. This time, the hotel has a metaphysical floor with something strange going on. Madness ensues.
Or:
CUSTOMER: Should I really read Moby-Dick?
ME: You liked Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, right? [Customer nods] And you like books with main characters who are really observant and introspective, right?
CUSTOMER: So Ahab is like Nemo and - Ishmael is introspective?
ME: Yeah. It's the introspection that matters. That's why you read that book. Otherwise, the plot is pretty simple. Guy and a whale get in a fight. Whale pwns him. Guy swears revenge. Observer observes how this parallels the broader human condition. Madness, and a lot of detail about whale blubber, ensues.
Or:
11-YEAR-OLD CUSTOMER: Are Goosebumps books really scary?
ME: I thought you liked stuff like Anne of Green Gables.
CUSTOMER: But I want a scary book.
ME: Goosebumps books aren't really scary. Every single chapter is like, So me and my friend notice this thing. Aaagh! It's scary! Chapter 2: It's just the dog's shadow. But then we notice something else. Aaaagh! Chapter 3: It's Uncle George. But then we notice... blah blah blah.
CUSTOMER: Whatever. What's a scary book then?
ME: I know one about this girl who lived in the 1800's in England, and she wasn't married and she wasn't rich, so she had to be a teacher. Because that was basically it for girls back then, that or being a servant. So she gets this teaching job at this big old dark house teaching just one kid. It's weird, but it's a job. Then she starts hearing the crazy laughter. Then a fire breaks out. [dramatic pause] Madness ensues.
After hours, conferring with staff in a silly mood:
STAFF PERSON: ...and I said [insert three-sentence leader]. Madness ensues!
ANOTHER STAFF PERSON: If you were going to recommend [book], what would you say?
STAFF PERSON: [even shorter, and sillier, leader]. Madness ensues?
ANOTHER STAFF PERSON: What about the Bible?
STAFF PERSON: God said, Let there be light. Madness ensues!
I explain this so that you know how we tell stories, stories that you already know, in our manner, for our purposes. So that you know how I convey stories, since it is my life's place to purvey them. And so that, once you have read this mirroring mirror of a story, in which the human condition - a state of constantly trying to select and state context to explain the whither-we-will or whither-we-fall movements of our deep selves, before and inside and through the words - shews itself in the "truer" story of Crusoe told by a hitherto unknown witness, herself an unreliable narrator, you will see the story I saw in the story, told as truly as I can tell, which is to say, not with exactitude but with fortitude and honesty and, I think, a genuine love.
YOU: What did you think of "Foe"?
ME: Three Prosperos and a Caliban walk into a book. Madness ensues.
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LibraryThing member gwendolyndawson
A novella told from the perspective of a shipwrecked woman. This is a complex story that acts as a metaphor for the writing process. In the end, we are unsure whether the female protagonist even exited outside of the author's imagination. Difficult to understand but a fairly compelling work
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nonetheless. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheAmpersand
J.M. Coetzee's "Foe" is, in many ways, the sort of modern literature that many readers love to hate. The novel has a plot – Susan Barton, the novel's narrator, gets shipwrecked on an island with a mysterious man named Cruso and his slave, Friday, and struggles to tell her story – but if you
This review's in danger of becoming nothing more than reportage of "Foe's" themes and major conflicts, but that wouldn't really do the book justice. I was surprised at how pretty, and how human, Coetzee's novel could be, unusual in a genre that many readers consider unpleasantly dry and didactic. Susan Barton's not exactly a likable character, but she's still more than an empty vessel for the author's ideas. Her desire for independence, her loneliness, and her confusion all seemed genuine and were, at times, genuinely affecting. "Foe's" written in consciously antiquated language, but you never get the impression that Coetzee's showing off, and his descriptions of Cruso's island have a certain somber, windswept grandeur. This novel's a supremely economical piece of work, lending it a sense of honesty and directness that's sometimes absent in similarly high-flown literary endeavors. This was my second time through "Foe," but there's enough here to merit further rereading. I can honestly say that I look forward to picking it up again a few years from now to see what else it yields.
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were feeling uncharitable you could argue that all of this is just a vehicle for Coetzee to investigate the nature of storytelling. For what it's worth, this little book a formidable intellectual exercise, maybe one of the densest, most intricately constructed novels I've ever read. Cruso's island becomes an analogue for colonialism, capitalism, and maybe a few other isms. As another reviewer has noted, Friday's silence hangs over the book like a puzzle and a curse, and the narrator's attempts to ascertain the nature of his consciousness becomes the book's central quest. Later in the book, Susan also fights to present her experience accurately to both Cotzee's readers and Mr. Foe, or rather, Daniel Defoe, as he struggles to make it fit to narrative convention. This book is highly recommended to grad school students looking to struggle with postmoden ideas who just don't have the time to go through all seven hundred or so pages of Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow." This review's in danger of becoming nothing more than reportage of "Foe's" themes and major conflicts, but that wouldn't really do the book justice. I was surprised at how pretty, and how human, Coetzee's novel could be, unusual in a genre that many readers consider unpleasantly dry and didactic. Susan Barton's not exactly a likable character, but she's still more than an empty vessel for the author's ideas. Her desire for independence, her loneliness, and her confusion all seemed genuine and were, at times, genuinely affecting. "Foe's" written in consciously antiquated language, but you never get the impression that Coetzee's showing off, and his descriptions of Cruso's island have a certain somber, windswept grandeur. This novel's a supremely economical piece of work, lending it a sense of honesty and directness that's sometimes absent in similarly high-flown literary endeavors. This was my second time through "Foe," but there's enough here to merit further rereading. I can honestly say that I look forward to picking it up again a few years from now to see what else it yields.
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LibraryThing member OscarWilde87
At only 157 pages, Foe is a rather short novel that reinvents Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. While the novel is still set in the eighteenth century, a new character is introduced in the form of Susan Barton, a woman stranded on the same island as Robinson Crusoe, who is just 'Cruso' in this novel.
Since I liked the original Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe a lot, I definitely wanted to give this novel a try. After finishing the novel, I still have not decided which reading of it I like most. Actually, the ending left me a little confused, which I find is a good quality in a book. The novel lends itself to several kinds of reading, the most prominent one probably placing a focus on words and language. As Friday had his tongue cut out by slavers, he is not able to speak and communication with him is only possible on a very low level. This theme is prevalent throughout the book. A second theme that I find quite intriguing is the different kinds of relationship between Susan Barton and the male characters in the book. Coetzee's choice to introduce a female character and thereby rewrite the story of Robinson Crusoe with a woman on the island provides a fresh and interesting perspective. To my mind, this almost begs for a gender reading of Foe.
What I especially liked about the novel is the perspective and the themes mentioned above. This novel is moving, interesting, different, thought-provoking, and beautifully composed. On the whole, 4 stars for this reading experience.
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Foe is divided into several parts. It starts by relating the life of Susan Barton, Cruso and Friday on the island. After the death of Cruso and the rescue of Friday and Barton, the female protagonist returns to England and wants Cruso's story to be told. As she does not consider herself creative enough to tell the story herself, she turns to the author Foe for help. This makes for the second part of the novel, which for the main part consists of letters of Barton to Foe. Throughout the whole novel, a strong focus is placed on the relationships between Susan Barton and the respective male characters, namely Cruso, Foe and Friday. This is especially true for the third and fourth part of the novel, which focus on the relationship between Susan Barton and Foe, on the one hand, and the protagonist's relationship to Friday on the other hand. Towards the ending, there is a twist in the story and it ends on a somewhat strange note.Since I liked the original Robinson Crusoe by Daniel Defoe a lot, I definitely wanted to give this novel a try. After finishing the novel, I still have not decided which reading of it I like most. Actually, the ending left me a little confused, which I find is a good quality in a book. The novel lends itself to several kinds of reading, the most prominent one probably placing a focus on words and language. As Friday had his tongue cut out by slavers, he is not able to speak and communication with him is only possible on a very low level. This theme is prevalent throughout the book. A second theme that I find quite intriguing is the different kinds of relationship between Susan Barton and the male characters in the book. Coetzee's choice to introduce a female character and thereby rewrite the story of Robinson Crusoe with a woman on the island provides a fresh and interesting perspective. To my mind, this almost begs for a gender reading of Foe.
What I especially liked about the novel is the perspective and the themes mentioned above. This novel is moving, interesting, different, thought-provoking, and beautifully composed. On the whole, 4 stars for this reading experience.
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LibraryThing member hockeycrew
Susan Barton is shipwrecked on an island with Robinsoe Crusoe and his servant Friday. They are rescued and brought back to England. Susan finds Mr. Foe and asks him to write her story as Mr. Crusoe died on the passage. The book starts with a narrative of how Susan lived on the island, is followed
I found most of the story very entertaining and interesting, although I have not read Daniel Defoe's Robinsoe Crusoe, of which this story is a retelling. I did however find the last chapter confusing and did not quite get the meaning of it.
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by letters she send to Mr. Foe while in England, becomes a narrative of her time with Mr. Defoe and is followed by a brief chapter that seems like a dream.I found most of the story very entertaining and interesting, although I have not read Daniel Defoe's Robinsoe Crusoe, of which this story is a retelling. I did however find the last chapter confusing and did not quite get the meaning of it.
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LibraryThing member CharlesSwann
The apparent main theme of this book is about how to think about outsiders and whether we can accept them. Some people may think that this is a rewritten book of Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe, and one of the many reinterpretations of the same book.
But, from another aspect, this is a book about
After having read this book, people will be confused and become understanding nothing at all about writing and storytelling, which they thought they knew vaguely before reading the book. That is the most fascinating point about this book.
But, from another aspect, this is a book about
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writing business. Writing is a really strange thing to do. When we are writing something, who is writing? Referring to this book, who is Susan Barton? Who is Daniel Foe? And, above all, who is John Coetzee, who is behind all of this writing? After having read this book, people will be confused and become understanding nothing at all about writing and storytelling, which they thought they knew vaguely before reading the book. That is the most fascinating point about this book.
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LibraryThing member ramrouma
a very interesting work that sets the notions of race,gender, colonialism..it also sheds light on the art of storytelling..it seeks the substance of truth.that is to say to speak the truth and nothing but truth.
coetzee through his work Foe wants to separate between fiction and non-fiction and to
coetzee through his work Foe wants to separate between fiction and non-fiction and to
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unveil the hidden through a strong female character Susan Barton. she struggles against foe's desire to destroy the truth of her story. Show Less
LibraryThing member Sean191
This is my second shot at reading Coetzee. The first, Lives of Animals, wasn't enjoyable. Foe wasn't either. It's not the talent - he's definitely talented. It's more the tone. There was no warmth to the writing, no sense of welcome from the author to the reader. I'm used to that in other writers,
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but normally they'll write that way as almost a challenge to the reader. With Coetzee, I feel like it might be a total indifference and that's just unpleasant. Maybe I'm wrong though. I'm going to give him three strikes, so I'll have to ask around to get a suggestion on the book I should try. Show Less
LibraryThing member mdreid
I have not read "Robinson Crusoe" but this did not prevent me from enjoying Coetzee's imagining of its creation. His writing is as impressive as ever and his careful rendering and interweaving of characters, themes, and symbols is complex and breathtaking. Susan, Cruso, Friday, Defoe, love, sex,
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motherhood, creative inspiration, loyalty, loss, and Africa are like tangram pieces, constantly shuffled and rearranged to explore the acts of writing and storytelling. Show Less
LibraryThing member siri51
I liked this story, must now read Robinson Crusoe!
LibraryThing member Dottiehaase
Susan Barton is on a quest to find her kidnapped daughter whom she knows has been taken to the New World. She is set adrift during a mutiny on a ship to Lisbon. When she comes ashore, she finds Friday and a Cruso who has grown complacent, content to forget his past and live his life on the island
I don't get the ending at all--the themes of blacks without a voice I get, and that Susan Barton does not have a voice of her own, only as a provider of a story to Foe--
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with Friday—tongueless by what Cruso claims to have been the act of former slave owners—in attendance. Arriving near the end of their residence, Barton is only on the island for a year before the trio is rescued, but the homesick Cruso does not survive the voyage to England. In England with Friday, Barton attempts to set her adventures on the island to paper, but she feels her efforts lack popular appeal. She tries to convince novelist Daniel Foe to help with her manuscript, but he does not agree on which of her adventures is interesting. Foe would prefer to write about her time in Bahia looking for her daughter, and when he does write on the story she wishes, fabulates about Cruso's adventures rather than relating her facts. Frustrating Barton's efforts further, Foe, who becomes her lover, is preoccupied with debt and has little time or energy to write about anything. Barton's story takes a twist with the return of someone claiming to be her missing daughter.I don't get the ending at all--the themes of blacks without a voice I get, and that Susan Barton does not have a voice of her own, only as a provider of a story to Foe--
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LibraryThing member Britt84
Great, yet confusing... I love Coetzee's style and I like the way he takes Defoe's Robinson Crusoe and turns it into something different altogether. The book keeps you guessing all along, and it never becomes clear what is actually going on. Is Susan Barton crazy, is the girl really her daughter,
More than being a 'story' in which you actually get to find out what's going on, Coetzee focusses more on underlying questions. He explores what it means to be a writer, to 'have a voice', to deal with other people's stories. Added to this are questions of colonialism and slavery vs freedom, making it a complex book, which contains a lot of issues.
Though in a way this style of writing makes books diffcult to follow and often confuses, I very much like the way in which it forces you to think more deeply about the issues that are introduced. Whereas most novels can be read simply as stories, without going into the deeper layers, Foe is a novel that forces you into these deeper layers and entices you to think more seriously about what the writer really wants you to get from the book.
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is Foe playing a trick on her? More than being a 'story' in which you actually get to find out what's going on, Coetzee focusses more on underlying questions. He explores what it means to be a writer, to 'have a voice', to deal with other people's stories. Added to this are questions of colonialism and slavery vs freedom, making it a complex book, which contains a lot of issues.
Though in a way this style of writing makes books diffcult to follow and often confuses, I very much like the way in which it forces you to think more deeply about the issues that are introduced. Whereas most novels can be read simply as stories, without going into the deeper layers, Foe is a novel that forces you into these deeper layers and entices you to think more seriously about what the writer really wants you to get from the book.
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LibraryThing member jmoncton
In general, I enjoy reading books which tell a well-known story from a different perspective. The Wide Sargasso Sea showed how using today's standards, Mr. Rochester from Jane Eyre is a sexist, overbearing boor. And Gregory Maguire's Wicked is a brilliant and complex retelling of the children's
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classic The Wizard of Oz. But I felt there were many problems with Coetzee's Foe. This is a retelling of the classic Robinson Crusoe through the eyes of Susan Barton, a woman who is castaway on Crusoe's deserted island many years after Friday's arrival. The 3 are rescued and returned to England. Susan retells her story to a man named Daniel Foe, only her story is bleak, oppressive and filled with endless days of emptiness and despair. Friday's history and background remains unknown because his story can't be told - he is mute when someone (Crusoe possibly) removed his tongue. The story on it's own paints an interesting view of England at that time from the view of someone who is barely surviving. But the book had little to do with the original Robinson Crusoe and what was kept of the original book, changed the plot so drastically that I didn't feel that it gave me a different view of the same story. Instead, it was it's own story (mediocre from my point of view) that had snippets from the original. Show Less
LibraryThing member Kplatypus
I had never heard of this until another LTer mentioned it during a discussion on the 1001 books thread, but he/she mentioned that it was a retelling of Robinson Crusoe and that it was better when read alongside RC, so, since I read Robinson Crusoe just a few months ago, I figured now was as good a
Overall I thought this was a pretty good book. I rather liked the idea behind it, that a story is modified by whoever is telling it and that each speaker (or non-speaker, as the case may be) has his or her own motivations and thus cannot be implicitly trusted. The ending was a bit odd- I read the last few pages a couple of times, to make sure I was clear on what was happening and still feel like they could be interpreted a few ways.
I'm not always a big fan of modern lit, or books that reinterpret the act of writing, but I felt that Foe did a good job of discussing what it means to put something into words by means of the story, rather than by means of a lecture or gimmick. I do agree that this would be a lot less interesting if not read in conjunction with Robinson Crusoe (which I found incredibly dull, by the way), though I suppose it could be done.
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time as any to pick this one up.Overall I thought this was a pretty good book. I rather liked the idea behind it, that a story is modified by whoever is telling it and that each speaker (or non-speaker, as the case may be) has his or her own motivations and thus cannot be implicitly trusted. The ending was a bit odd- I read the last few pages a couple of times, to make sure I was clear on what was happening and still feel like they could be interpreted a few ways.
I'm not always a big fan of modern lit, or books that reinterpret the act of writing, but I felt that Foe did a good job of discussing what it means to put something into words by means of the story, rather than by means of a lecture or gimmick. I do agree that this would be a lot less interesting if not read in conjunction with Robinson Crusoe (which I found incredibly dull, by the way), though I suppose it could be done.
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LibraryThing member thorold
Surprisingly subtle little book that manages to bring in all sorts of complicated ideas about freedom, individual identity, gender, and in particular about the way a written narrative constrains and shapes stories, and the ways writers mine memory, testimony and imagination. Coetzee presents us
More interesting than I expected.
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with plenty of questions to think about, but very few answers. Very nicely written: not pastiche 18th century English, but not intrusively anachronistic either. More interesting than I expected.
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LibraryThing member stillatim
An odd little book, which will make no sense to you whatsoever if you haven't read Robinson Crusoe, and not all that much sense if you haven't read Moll Flanders, and even having read them both, I'm not sure how much sense it makes to me, since I know very little about Defoe's life. It is, however,
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an interesting meditation on the writer's life, particularly when it comes to 'speaking for' other people and so forth. If you care about that sort of thing, I guess you'd get something out of this. If you find that all a bit tedious, but still want to read a book by Coetzee about another author... go with the Master of Petersburg. Show Less
LibraryThing member R3dH00d
Not my favorite Coetzee. The story didn't engage me the way other of his stories have. Perhaps I have a psychological block on the epistolary form--I don't care for the characters the way I should.
LibraryThing member Dreesie
A fascinating look at storytelling--approached through another author's story.
Coetzee introduces Susan Barton, lately a female castaway, as she approaches the author Foe to tell the story of herself and the late Cruso on their desert island before rescue. Friday, Crusoe's servant/slave and now
Fascinating and clever--and I am SO glad I read Robinson Crusoe first!
Coetzee introduces Susan Barton, lately a female castaway, as she approaches the author Foe to tell the story of herself and the late Cruso on their desert island before rescue. Friday, Crusoe's servant/slave and now
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hers (for whom she has forged a note stating he is freed), is a mute with no tongue. Just as Friday cannot tell his story, can Susan tell hers? Is it worth telling, or must Foe make it more interesting? Is it then her story? What was her real story?Fascinating and clever--and I am SO glad I read Robinson Crusoe first!
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LibraryThing member lamotamant
In the spirit of Foe, a story about this book... I bought this book at a recent $5 A Bag book sale at the library. Having walked away with 4 bags of books, it seemed like a pretty successful sale in and of itself. However, fate intervenes (dun dun DUN) and, picking it up to read tonight, I see a
The book itself was interesting, both as a reinvention of Crusoe and a stand-alone. I was almost expecting a The Yellow Wallpaper twist to come into play. Definitely worth the read.
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very familiar name scrawled in the front cover, a date/locale, and a seal imprinted on the title page. None other than the name of my favorite teacher back in high school and the date of my graduation. A favorite teacher that has since passed away but is sorely missed. Coincidence might be the invention of the storyteller here, but it's a coincidence I'm very happy about. The book itself was interesting, both as a reinvention of Crusoe and a stand-alone. I was almost expecting a The Yellow Wallpaper twist to come into play. Definitely worth the read.
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LibraryThing member jonfaith
This review will overflow with cliché. Such is the sum of my experience. Fox is a meditation on silence. Coetzee explores the natural aspects of such. The sea and wilderness yield no ready wisdom. Such doesn’t communicate in our jejune terms.
There is also an algebra of silence by design. It is a
There is also an algebra of silence by design. It is a
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poetry of omissions. It is the fruit of doubt and a coveted rank of humility. The narrative currents of our lives are larded with the silence, we adorn them with caprice and detail. Coetzee intervenes into what understand as a novelistic tradition, a landmark to judge our way. He ruminates and consider alternatives. This disorients and we may grow uneasy. As matters coalesce, he neglects close, only a hum and the whisper of the surf remain. Show Less
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
In Foe, J. M. Coetzee delivers a different spin on the Robinson Crusoe story. By adding some new characters and giving the original author, Daniel Defoe a major role, he reworks the story and raises the question of artistic license – where is the line between fiction and reality, imagination and
Susan Barton is a widow who is tossed overboard during a mutiny. Her tiny boat brings her to a desert island that is, in fact, Crusoe’s island. She joins with Crusoe and Friday in their quest for survival on this barren island. Crusoe has become comfortable in his solitude and has no wish to leave his island while Friday cannot say what he wants as his tongue has been cut out and so he cannot express himself. When they are rescued from the island, Barton and Friday return to England while Crusoe dies on the journey. Susan comes into contact with author Foe and she feels that since she was there and he was not, her version, although rather dull, should be the one told leaving no allowance for the author to use his imagination to liven up the story.
I found this a fascinating addition to the original story. I particularly found the character of Friday very interesting. His tongue was removed giving him no voice, very much like the black South Africans during apartheid. With it’s sharp observations and interesting angle on the art of storytelling I thoroughly enjoyed Foe.
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fact?Susan Barton is a widow who is tossed overboard during a mutiny. Her tiny boat brings her to a desert island that is, in fact, Crusoe’s island. She joins with Crusoe and Friday in their quest for survival on this barren island. Crusoe has become comfortable in his solitude and has no wish to leave his island while Friday cannot say what he wants as his tongue has been cut out and so he cannot express himself. When they are rescued from the island, Barton and Friday return to England while Crusoe dies on the journey. Susan comes into contact with author Foe and she feels that since she was there and he was not, her version, although rather dull, should be the one told leaving no allowance for the author to use his imagination to liven up the story.
I found this a fascinating addition to the original story. I particularly found the character of Friday very interesting. His tongue was removed giving him no voice, very much like the black South Africans during apartheid. With it’s sharp observations and interesting angle on the art of storytelling I thoroughly enjoyed Foe.
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LibraryThing member justine
a retelling of Robinson Crusoe, with a focus on the nature of truth and narrative
LibraryThing member vdt_melbourne
Could have done without reading this
Subjects
Language
Original publication date
1986
Physical description
160 p.; 7.79 inches
ISBN
842042496X / 9788420424965