Slow Man by J.M. Coetzee

Slow Man Reviews

• 
  Ahmad Sharabiani

  (Book 4 from 1001 books) - Slow man, J.M. Coetzee
  ‭
  Slow Man is a 2005 novel by South African-born Nobel laureate J. M. Coetzee, and concerns a man who must learn to adapt after losing a leg in a road accident.
  
  The novel has many varied themes, including the nature of care, the relationship between an author and his characters, and man's drive to leave a legacy.
  
  Paul Rayment, a man of late middle-age, loses part of a leg after his bicycle is hit by a car driven by a reckless young man. He becomes reclusive and retreats to his flat where he is cared for by a succession of nurses. None suit him until Marijana, with whom he shares a European childhood (hers in Croatia, his in France), comes along.
  
  Paul's feelings for Marijana, and for her teenage son Drago, become more complex. When Paul offers to finance Drago's education, Marijana's husband becomes suspicious of Paul's relationship with Marijana, which causes trouble in their family and culminates in Drago fighting with his father and moving in with Paul.
  
  تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز هشتم ماه جولای سال2014میلادی
  
  عنوان: مرد آهسته؛ اثر: جان مکسول کوتسی؛ برگردان: محسن مینوخرد؛ مشخصات نشر تهران، چشمه، سال1387، در276صفحه، شابک9789643625214؛ موضوع داستانهای نویسندگان افریقای جنوبی - سده20م
  
  در داستان «مرد آهسته (تنبل)»، ماجرای مرد میان‌سالی بازگو می‌شود، که در یک پیشامد برخورد دوچرخه اش با یک اتومبیل، یکی از پاهای خود را از دست داده؛ وی به ناچار در آپارتمان خود زندانی است، و دنبال پرستاری می‌گردد، که در امور شخصی زندگی، به وی یاری رساند؛ این تغییرات ناگهانی، موجب دگرگونیهایی در زندگی این مرد میشود؛
  
  کوتسی، نویسنده ی «آفریقایی»، و برنده ی «جایزه ی نوبل ادبیات»، در سال1983میلادی، در روز نهم ماه فوریه سال1940میلادی، در «افریقای جنوبی»، دیده به جهان گشودند؛ پدرشان حقوقدان، و مادرشان آموزگار بودند؛ ایشان در سال1957میلادی، به دانشگاه «کیپ تاون» وارد شدند، و به تحصیل انگلیسی و ریاضی پرداختند؛ و در سال1960میلادی، مدرک کارشناسی ادبیات، و در سال1961میلادی، کارشناسی ریاضیات را، دریافت کردند؛ ایشان بین سالهای1962میلادی تا سال1965میلادی، در «لندن»، به عنوان «برنامه نویس کامپیوتر»، برای شرکت «آی بی ام» کار میکردند؛ و ...؛
  
  تاریخ بهنگام رسانی 09/11/1399هجری خورشیدی؛ 07/09/1400هجری خورشیدی؛ ا. شربیانی
• 
  Orsodimondo

  SU UNA GAMBA SOLA
  
  
  Foto di Tim Macpherson autore dello scatto usato sulla copertina.
  
  Paul è un fotografo francese che s’è trasferito a vivere ad Adelaide, città dell’Australia dove da un po’ di tempo s’è trasferito a vivere Coetzee. Paul ha una sessantina d’anni, non è sposato, è un solitario, piuttosto magro.
  Si sposta pedalando in biciletta, e un brutto giorno viene investito da una macchina. Nell’incidente perde una gamba, rimane con una gamba sola, proprio come quelli di cui racconta Oliver Sacks nel libro da questo titolo (Su una gamba sola).
  Paul è un solitario che l’incidente e la conseguente perdita di una gamba rendono ancora più solitario.
  A spezzare il circolo dell’isolamento arriva Marijana, la signora dei Balcani, infermiera croata, che con i modi spicci e pratici della gente di quella parte di mondo, gli cambia così tanto la vita che Paul potrebbe innamorarsi, e forse comincia a cadere nonostante Marijana sia sposata e suo marito sia gelosissimo, al punto che potrebbe spezzare l’unica gamba rimasta a Paul.
  
  
  
  Colpo di scena (se così si può dire): a pagina 77 in casa di Paul arriva una scrittrice che per Coetzee è una vecchia conoscenza – per me invece qui fu il primo incontro (poi ripetuto in La vita degli animali). Sto parlando della buona vecchia sferzante viperesca Elizabeth Costello.
  Che ci fa costei a casa di Paul? È Paul per caso un personaggio di cui lei deve riappropriarsi, come l’Icaro involato di Queneau?
  Niente di tutto ciò. Elizabeth è soltanto una rompiscatole che funziona da coscienza critica. Il classico grillo parlante. Ma come darle torto quando dice:
  Diventi protagonista, viva da eroe. È questo che ci insegnano i classici. Sia un personaggio principale. Altrimenti che senso ha la vita?
  Come darle torto?
  E quindi incita il nostro Paul a farsi esami di coscienza, bilanci, consuntivi a evidenziare come finora abbia sprecato il tempo e la vita in un solipsismo viziato ed egoista.
  
  
  Foto di Tim Macpherson.
  
  Paul conosce Elizabeth di fama, ha letto alcuni suoi libri, ma non ne ha gradito nessuno. E non vuole diventare l’oggetto di una nuova storia letteraria.
  Vorrebbe piuttosto mettere su famiglia con Marijana, o se non altro, occuparsi di quella che lei ha già. Costello lo mette in guardia, si sta cacciando in una brutta strada.
  Se non che Elizabeth non è del tutto trasparente: perché se è vero che vuole risvegliare la coscienza di Paul e mostrargli quanto sarebbe sbagliata una scelta di vita in direzione di Marijana, e anche vero che la stessa Costello nutre sentimenti simili proprio per Paul, non vuole più lasciarlo, non se ne vuole andare, s’è installata in casa, Paul le scalda quel cuoricione arido e secco.
  
  
  La spiaggia di Adelaide.
  
  Ma Paul può rinunciare a Marijana e allo stesso tempo non piegarsi al desiderio di Elizabeth. Meglio la solitudine.
  -L’oceano è pieno di pesci, così mi dicono. Ma quanto a me e quanto a ora: addio -. Si china e la bacia tre volte secondo il modo formale che gli è stato insegnato da bambino: sinistra, destra, sinistra.
  Bye bye.
  E qui si conclude il gioco di specchi e piani letterari.
  
  Coetzee è più ironico di altre volte. Ironia tagliente. Come la sua prosa. E quello che mi piacerebbe tanto capire è come fa questo scrittore che sembra la negazione dell’empatia e del calore umano, sia per forma che contenuto (altrettanto dicasi dell’uomo Coetzee, non solo dello scrittore), a scaldarmi il cuore, ad avvincermi e rapirmi.
  Boh.
  
  
  Dall’omonimo magnifico romanzo di Coetzee ”Waiting For the Barbarians” il film diretto da Ciro Guerra: qui Johnny Depp e Mark Rylance.
• 
  Guille

  “Tesis, antítesis y prótesis.”

  Paul es un hombre tranquilo, sereno, tibio, lejos de pasiones furibundas, que no ha hecho mal a nadie pero tampoco bien, ese tipo de hombre en el que, como él mismo nos dice, poder “acurrucarse en una noche fría”. A este hombre, a sus 60 años, le acaban de amputar una pierna a causa de un accidente que le arroja a una zona de humillaciones, de necesidad de ayuda para todo, de ser tratado por terapeutas, cuidadores y facultativos como un niño, incluso como un niño un poco tonto.
  
  Así las cosas, cede a la melancolía, a la autocompasión y al arrepentimiento de, como casi siempre ocurre, algo que no hizo cuando pudo: tener un hijo. Y, al ladito de esos sentimientos, la triste falta de una compañera y de fe en el futuro.

  “El hombre que era antes no es más que un recuerdo, y un recuerdo que se desvanece deprisa. Sigue conservando la sensación de ser un alma con una vida espiritual completa; en cuanto al resto, no es más que un saco de sangre y huesos con el que está obligado a cargar.”

  Así las cosas, aparece Marijana y su sonrisa hace desaparecer todas las nubes negras. Marijana es la persona que lo cuida, le hace las curas y atiende su casa. Marijana está casada y tiene tres hijos. Aun así, Paul quiere convertirse en su amante y cuidar de su prole.
  
  Así las cosas, piensa sobre el amor, su relación con la belleza, …

  “Si su amor por Marijana es realmente puro, ¿por qué esperó a aposentarse en su corazón hasta el momento en que vislumbró sus piernas?... ¿Existen cosas tales como las patas hermosas entre las arañas hembras…?”

  … si se puede sobrellevar un amor no correspondido…

  “…el amor no necesita ser recíproco, siempre y cuando haya suficiente amor en la habitación… Si se ama con la bastante intensidad, no es necesario ser correspondido.”

  … si a su edad puede aspirar a ser amado.

  “—¿Ya no puedo amar a quien yo elija?
  —Por supuesto que puede amar a quien elija. Pero tal vez de ahora en adelante debería reservarse ese amor para usted, al igual que uno soporta un resfriado a solas, o un ataque de herpes, por consideración hacia sus vecinos.”

  Así las cosas, aparece Elizabeth Costello… y ahora es el lector el que sufre un accidente del que sale conmocionado sin saber qué ha pasado ni dónde está. Cuando empezamos a recobrarnos del golpe, o eso creemos, empezamos a vislumbrar que Costello puede ser la escritora de la novela que leemos y en la que ella misma es un personaje, una escritora que reflexiona en voz alta sobre aquello de lo que escribe, que llega a discutir con su protagonista sus acciones y su destino, algo a lo que de ningún modo está dispuesto Paul, que, sin saber a qué atenerse, lucha por deshacerse de tan molesta visitante.
  
  Así las cosas, tampoco Elizabeth Costello está muy contenta con la novela y el personaje con el que le ha tocado lidiar, pero no parece tener alternativa e intenta sacar el mejor partido posible de ese personaje con el que parece haberse producido una inexplicable elección mutua: intenta “averiguar qué pasa cuando un hombre de sesenta años compromete su corazón de forma inapropiada”.

  “Somos quienes somos, Paul. Esta, por el momento, es la vida que nos ha tocado vivir y tenemos que vivirla. Cuando yo estoy con usted, estoy en casa; cuando no estoy con usted, no tengo casa. Así es como han caído los dados.”

  Así las cosas mejor no les cuento nada más, quizás ya lo he hecho en demasía, pero sí les aliento a leer esta gran, conmovedora y algo deprimente novela, para qué vamos a decir otra cosa, de un gran autor al que a cada libro que leo admiro más.

  “Los dos somos feos, Paul, viejos y feos. Y más que nunca nos gustaría llevar en nuestros brazos la belleza del mundo. Ese anhelo nunca muere en nosotros. Pero la belleza del mundo no nos quiere a ninguno de los dos. Así que tenemos que conformarnos con menos, con mucho menos. De hecho, tenemos que aceptar lo que se nos ofrece o pasar hambre.”
• 
  Sawsan

  رواية تتجمل بفكرة ترميم النفس الانسانية التي تنكسر بالعجز والخسارة
  وتُعيد ترتيب الأولويات والاهتمامات بحسب مراحل العمر المختلفة
  يكتب جون ماكسويل كوتزي عن الشيخوخة والشباب, الحب والاهتمام والرعاية
  الاحتياجات التي تتغير بتغيُر مراحل الحياة وإدراك أهمية العلاقات الانسانية
  حادث مفاجئ يؤثر بشدة على بول ريمنت المصور المتقاعد
  ومع الوحدة والألم يُعيد النظر لزمن ماضي لم يُحسن استغلاله
  بول ريمنت هو الرجل البطئ ليس لأنه مُسن وفقد ساقه بعد الحادث
  لكن لأنه طوال حياته كان بطئ في فهم الحياة والاستمتاع بها والعيش بعفوية
  بطئ في التعبير عن نفسه بوضوح والخروج من إطار حياة رتيبة غير مُرضية
  
  اختار كوتزي مدينة أدِليد الاسترالية لأحداث روايته
  وهي المدينة التي يعيش فيها بعد هجرته من جنوب أفريقيا
  ويفاجئ القارئ بظهور شخصية اليزابيث كستلو من رواية سابقة له
  كستلو الكاتبة العجوز غريبة الأطوار التي تفرض نفسها على ريمنت
  وتتدخل في كل تفاصيل حياته وعلاقاته حتى النهاية
• 
  Sean

  I can't deny that JM Coetzee is indeed a talented writer. Clear, concise, exacting prose. And duh, he did win the Nobel Prize after all. But I don't think this one is the one read. ("Disgrace" probably is.) What starts out as a quite conventional story soon morphs into something bordering on ludicrous. Is it magical realism? A darkly comedic satire on death vs. consciousness? Or just a novelist indulging in not having to adhere to any chosen path or structure? And not bothering to answer some key questions about certain characters? As a mediation on aging, intimacy and mortality, it excels. As a "novel", it fails to deliver a coherent narrative. And soon becomes tedious. If it weren't so short and a fast read, I probably would've tossed it aside.
• 
  Mohamed Bayomi

  الناس تموت حين لا تنتظر الغد ، و تموت أيضا حين لا تعيش اليوم ، سيكتشف يوما انه لم يعيش لانه كان بطيء جدا في الفهم ، لن يترك أثرا في الارض ، اضاع كل الفرص ، استنفد وقته في التفكير ولم يفعل ، لم يقل الكلمة في وقتها ، لم ينظر في عيني الرجل خلف زجاج المرآة ، لم يندفع خلف قلبه ، لم يعيش كبطل ، كدون كيخوتة ، انها المصالحة يا كوتسي ، واي مصالحة تلك ، لقد غفرت لك معاناتي مع رواية عصر مايكل ك ، سنبدأ مع الرجل البطيء تعارفنا الحقيقي
• 
  Fabian

  4th Coetzee book I've read: what makes this possible, not getting bored by the same author's voice while reading Coetzee all summer long, is his outstanding talent for making the novel readable. All four novels I've read ("Disgrace," "Elizabeth Costello," "Life and Times of Michael K.," this, & currently a fifth classic: "Waiting for the Barbarians") are distinctly different from each other, and this being his most current (perhaps there is a newer?) it has the figure of the lonely fallen man ("Disgrace") making sense of a new way of life; in this instance it is a grown man, newly amputated, slow and immobile, who takes center stage. More so than "Elizabeth Costello" (that Nobel-prize-worthy novel, and my favorite of Coetzee's), the taking over of the protagonist's psyche is so complete that growing paranoid was never before perceived to be this much fun. The reader's sensibilities are likewise Paul's, & they both go mad together. Also taking contemporary issues (the social boiling pot that is South Africa; the differences in cultures, customs and lives) he does yet another masterful genre-splice: the tricky postmodern Murakami-meets-Saramago turn: Elizabeth Costello's (the writer's) strange presence in this (his next) novel...! Is it me or was the question set forth "What happens when the character in a plot meets it's writer/creator?" (Plenty of modern masters have tried to set a foot in Borges's metafictional terrain.)
  
  "Slow Man"'s awkward but shocking finale sets the record straight: This novelist can do it all...!
• 
  Edita

  ‘I have always found it a very English concept, home. Hearth and home, say the English. To them, home is the place where the fire burns in the hearth, where you come to warm yourself. The one place where you will not be left out in the cold. No, I am not warm here.’ He waves a hand in a gesture that imitates hers, parodies it. ‘I seem to be cold wherever I go.
• 
  Megan Baxter

  This is my first Coetzee, and for the first sixty pages, it seemed to be an interesting but not arresting book about an older man coping with losing a leg, and his mobility and freedom, and the after effects of such a loss, including falling in love with his nurse. Nothing earthshattering.
  
  And then the author showed up.
  
  Note: The rest of this review has been withdrawn due to the changes in Goodreads policy and enforcement. You can read why I came to this decision
  here.
  
  In the meantime, you can read the entire review at
  Smorgasbook
• 
  Tommy

  What I love about Coetzee is that he isn’t afraid of fitting a tire over the goat’s torso. As I’m reading the reviews of this book from my other Goodreads buddies, many seem disturbed by the character Elizabeth Costello, who truly breaks with logic and knows impossible details of characters. In other words she is a meta-character who speechifies some of the arguments and questions I’m sure Coetzee had in writing this book, and in the hands of a post-modernist dilettante, this character would have simply been self-indulgence, an intellectual exercise that proves how smart and well-read the writer is. But Coetzee uses this character in a much more dazzling and unsettling way, the same way Beckett uses his characters to inch closer to the terrors of black nothing. EC can’t be dismissed as a “meta-character” because she materializes with the same fullness as any other character in the book. Coetzee puts in work to give her the same physical gestures and sensory life of Paul Rayment. You don't quite know how to receive this woman. You empathize with her, you hear her rattling cough, but you also know she’s mannered, overly handled by The Author. This makes you examine the idea of “character,” and you realize there are only slight differences, at least in theory, between EC and the rest of the gang. I felt wonderfully weird reading this book.
  
  In The Life and Times of Michael K, Coetzee pulls a similar move in breaking the symmetry of the book, using a 1st person narrative that recounts the first ¾’s of the book told in 3rd person. This move itself wasn’t what disturbed the reader. It was the position of this move, about 3/4's into the book. Huh? Cynthia Ozik considered this the only flaw in the book, but maybe I just see flaws as artistic necessities. What are we trying to do, make the perfect reproduction of the world? Or are we trying to bend light and distort so that the world can experience what the artist sees? I loved this book.
  
• 
  Vladislav Radak

  Kuci još jednom zakucava, držeći se svojih teritorija (on je pasionirani biciklista koji bicikl koristi kao glavno prevozno sredstvo) te svi oni koji sate provode na dvotočkašu znaju da čoveku svakakve budalaštine padnu na pamet pa otud i ideje za ovaj roman, pretpostavljam. Kuci istražuje misterioznu, urođenu potrebu čoveka za porodicom, protekcijom iste, držeći se koloseka koji su njemu kao piscu svojstveni, usamljenost, požuda, istraživanje granica sramote i poniženja, sukob različitih kultura su samo neki od poteza četkicom kojima slika ovu kompleksnu društvenu minijaturu.
  Neki od likova su isiljeni i redundantni, kao lik Elizabet Kostelo koju je pozajmio iz sopstvenog romana istog naziva. Njena psihologija cupka u mestu, njeni stavovi su protivurečni stavovima iz njenog romana (njen feminizam dobija notu agresivnosti koja koketira sa bizarnim). Vredno čitanja, ali još više diskusije i razmišljanja o prolaznosti života…
  
• 
  Mevsim Yenice

  Bisiklet kazası sonucu bakıma muhtaç kalan bir adamın dönüşümünü çarpıcı şekilde anlatmış Coetzee. Zorunluluklar, körelen duyguların yerini alan başka duygular, göçmen olmak, adandığımız şeyler, sahip olduklarımız, yitirdiklerimiz, hiç sahip olamadıklarımız ve hatta olamayacaklarımız, dil meselesi ve daha bir çok konuyu katmanlı bir roman.
  
  Bunlar da kitapta beğenip altını çizdiğim birkaç yer:
  
  "Çocuklar bizler sevmeyi ve hizmet etmeyi öğrenelim diye vardır. Çocuklarımız sayesinde zamanın hizmetkarlarına dönüşürüz. Yüreğinin içine bak. Kendine bu yolculuk için gerekli azme ve dayanıklılığa sahip olup olmadığını sor. Bunlara sahip değilsen belki de geri adım atmalısın."
  
  
  "Bir insan en kötü yönlerimizi, en kötü ve incitici yönlerimizi biliyorsa ve bunları söylemeyip gizliyor, bize gülümsemeyi ve şakalar yapmayı sürdürüyorsa buna ne deriz? Sevgi deriz. Hayatının bu son döneminde, başka kimden sevgi görebilirsin ki seni çirkin ihtiyar? Evet, çirkin ne demektir ben de bilirim. İkimiz de çirkiniz Paul, yaşlı ve çirkiniz. Dünyanın tüm güzelliklerini kucaklamak istesek de. İçimizdeki bu arzu asla sönmez. Ama dünyanın tüm güzellikleri ikimizi de istemiyor. Hatta bize sunulan neyse kabul etmek durumundayız, yoksa aç kalırız."
  
• 
  Charles Matthews

  This review originally appeared in the San Jose Mercury News:
  
  When you've won every possible literary award, including the Nobel Prize, you're entitled to indulge yourself a little. That, at least, is my explanation for how J.M. Coetzee came up with this fascinating flop of a novel.
  
  ''Slow Man'' begins with Paul Rayment, a photographer who lives in Australia, losing a leg in a bicycle accident. The 60-year-old Rayment, who lives alone and has no close family, descends into bitterness. He refuses to have a prosthesis fitted and crankily dismisses a series of visiting nurses until he finally finds one, a Croatian woman named Marijana, with whom he can get along. Then gradually he realizes that he's falling in love with her, which is something of a problem because she's married and has three children.
  
  At this point, about a third of the way into the book, we have few hints that this will be anything other than a conventional novel, albeit one animated by Coetzee's superb ability to make us feel the pain, rage and frustration that a Paul Rayment must feel.
  
  Then into Paul's life (if we can call it that) walks the novelist Elizabeth Costello, who informs him, ''You occurred to me -- a man with a bad leg and no future and an unsuitable passion. That was where it started. Where we go from there I have no idea.''
  
  Both the reader and Paul are perplexed as to why this aging woman has suddenly shown up at his flat and announced that she's moving in. (''I will be a model guest, I promise. I won't hang my undies in your bathroom. . . . Most of the time you won't notice I am here. Just a touch on the shoulder, now and then, to keep you on the path?'') All he knows is that she's a famous writer: ''He tried once to read a book by her, a novel, but gave up on it, it did not hold his attention.''
  
  We know -- or probably should, anyway -- that Elizabeth Costello was the title character of Coetzee's immediately previous book, published in 2003. And when she quotes to Paul the opening sentences of ''Slow Man,'' we begin to get the idea: He's a character in a novel that she's writing. And both of them are characters in a novel that Coetzee's writing. And once you've stuck your head into that metafictional and metaphysical maze, there's no turning back.
  
  Elizabeth Costello turns out to be an amusingly irritating and didactic busybody. She dominates the middle part of the novel, as she tries to get Paul to resolve the impasse in his life -- and her novel. She's mostly passive-aggressive, but occasionally she interferes directly, as when she sets up a liaison between Paul and a mysterious woman whom she brings to his flat. Paul and the woman make love, though neither can see the other: She's blind, and he's blindfolded.
  
  This odd incident is a narrative dead end. It has no effect on Paul other than to make him reflect on how he's become the author's puppet: ''Or might the Costello woman be writing two stories at once, stories about characters who suffer a loss (sight in the one case, ambulation in the other) which they must learn to live with; and, as an experiment or even as a kind of professional joke, might she have arranged for their two life-lines to intersect? He has no experience of novelists and how they go about their business, but it sounds not implausible.''
  
  As Paul's exasperation with Elizabeth Costello grows, we get a kind of reverse spin on Pirandello: not six characters in search of an author, but one character trying to escape from an author. But there's only one way Paul can escape from Elizabeth Costello, as she explains to him: ''The sooner you settle on a course of action and commit yourself to it, the sooner you and I, to our mutual relief, will be able to part.'' In other words, if a writer creates a character, it's up to the character -- not the author -- to work out his or her destiny. ''For me alone Paul Rayment was born and I for him,'' she says. ''His is the power of leading, mine of following; his of acting, mine of writing.''
  
  But for all the hall-of-mirrors cleverness of making an author and her character interact as characters in a novel, Coetzee has simply rung a change on an age-old novelistic convention: the omniscient narrator. No, George Eliot didn't wander around Middlemarch nudging Dorothea and Ladislaw into action, but the effect of having an author who knows what's going on in her characters' heads isn't very different from what Coetzee winds up doing here. Once you've accepted the premise that fiction is something that somebody makes up, and that it has a complex relationship with what we call real life, you haven't gone much further than most of us do when we take our first college lit courses.
  
  ''Slow Man'' finally rises out of the muddle of metaphysics to become a story again, working out Paul's increasingly complicated relationship with Marijana and her family, especially her teenage son, Drago, for whom Paul mistakenly tries to become a surrogate father.
  
  And Elizabeth Costello becomes more than just a meddlesome authorial fairy godmother: She has her own story, a set of personal problems to work out in tandem with the ones that she has imposed on Paul -- or from her point of view, allowed Paul to impose on himself.
  
  But by the time the novel's ending arrives, it feels tired and anticlimactic, as if too much thinking about fiction has sapped the life out of it. ''Slow Man'' is undeniably perceptive about many things, and throughout it there is the pleasure of watching a brilliant mind at work and play. But when a novelist gets too self-conscious about writing a novel, he or she probably can't give us what we really want a novel to do: feel like life -- unmediated life.
  
• 
  Jon

  This is a complicated book to write about in a few words. On one level it is a story of a sad, isolated man who suffers the loss of a leg in an accident and who becomes hopelessly and inappropriately infatuated with the woman taking care of him. On another level it is the a mediation about the craft of fiction writing and the mysterious relationship between the writer (Coetzee aka Elizabeth Costello) and the character he/she is creating. At the half-way point of the story, the protagonist says something that is a so disastrous that the author must come on stage to try to rescue the story. The two levels are intricately woven together in the second half of the book, which ends with an unexpected act of simple kindness that deeply touches the central character. I came away with a real sense of compassion for the shut-down humanity of the slow man -- because, of course, some part of me is a slow man too. Coetzee deserves his Nobel.
• 
  M. Sarki

  I read far more than was necessary to finally determine this book was not worth reading. Upon the entrance of Elizabeth Costello I knew pretty much that I was in for a weighty disappointment. The main character and his stubborn life-style refusals and insistence on furthering an ill-fated and inappropriate love affair left me feeling basically disgusted with the pitiful old gent. I was embarrassed for all aging men and what they might become if served heaped on a plate filled with leftover mediocrities. I have no idea what possessed a man of such talent as Coetzee's to write this drivel and why he allowed it to even be published. The text is nothing short of despicable and I doubt the experience will wash completely off me. But I will rub and scrub with the harshest of detergents and hope the cleansing chemicals will somehow save me instead of causing a more deadly cancer to grow. But after reading two-thirds of this I cannot imagine what that could be.
• 
  Patricija || book.duo

  Viskas labai gražu, tai nepasitikėkit mano vertinimu aklai. Tiesiog knyga tiek pat lėta, kiek jos pavadinimas, o vietomis skausmingai nelogiška, todėl tas jos gyvenimiškumas to neatsveria. Atrodo, kad Coetzee su manimi santykis toks į kraštutinumus linkęs: arba myliu, arba nesuprantu iki pasipiktinimo. Kita vertus, suprantu tuos, kuriems būtų knyga iš didžiosios K.
• 
  Edgar Trevizo

  Cada vez que lo vuelvo a leer, termino leyendo las últimas dos páginas con un velo de lágrimas en los ojos. La pregunta de Costello es la mía, cada vez, y quizás por eso no dejo de releerlo con el mismo inmenso placer: "Pero, Paul, ¿ahora que voy a hacer sin usted?"
• 
  iva°

  iako coetzee piše vješto i tečno, čini mi se kao da ni njemu nije bilo posve jasno što je s ovim djelom htio. nešto što je moglo biti interesantna studija o šezdesetogodišnjaku koji, nakon biciklističke nesreće, ostaje invalidom i razgranati uvid u njegov unutarnji svijet, u njegovu samoću i ljubavne/emocionalne aspiracije, s vremenom gubi napetost, a likovi postaju neuvjerljivi i nestvarni - do te mjere da se pitaš je li sve ono što se nakon nesreće i amputacije noge događa stvarno ili je to sve paulov narkotični san ili možda čak i život poslije smrti. svemu tome pridonosi i lik elizabeth costello - jedno realno imaginarno biće.
  ipak... čita se. nije jedna od onih knjiga od kojih odustaješ, coetzee zna pisati i tjera te prema kraju, samo što, na koncu, ostavi priličan nered u glavi.
  
• 
  EpidermaS

  Rewelacyjna powieść. W dość krótkim tekście autorowi udało się zawrzeć niesamowity ładunek emocjonalny i omówić kilka istotnych wątków.
  
  Choć książka wydawać się może nudna i statyczna, w moim odczuciu wcale taka nie jest. Coetzee bierze się za bary z problemem samotności, kalectwa, odrzucenia... Pozwala swoim bohaterom przeżywać niespełnione miłości, pozwala im manipulować sobą wzajemnie. Pokazuje, jak względnym pojęciem jest piękno, a jednocześnie - jak ważna jest jego rola w relacjach międzyludzkich. Nie boi się brzydoty, niedołężnych bohaterów, ich niesamodzielności.
  
  Stylistycznie powieść kojarzyła mi się nieco z twórczością Schultza (a to za sprawą dość nieoczywistej, onirycznej postaci Costello), a nieco ze "Zbrodnią i karą". Autor stawia mocno na opis przeżyć wewnętrznych i wychodzi mu to bardzo zgrabnie.
• 
  Connie G

  "The blow catches him from the right, sharp and surprising and painful, like a bolt of electricity, lifting him up off the bicycle." Paul Rayment, a photographer in Adelaide, finds himself in a hospital recovering from a bicycle accident, with one leg amputated above the knee. He refuses a prosthesis and opts for nursing care. After going through a succession of nurses, he develops feelings for a Croatian nurse, Marijana, a married woman with three children. In addition to his loss of independence and the problems of aging, Paul is coping with loneliness and regrets over never having children. He attempts to have Marijana and her children play a major part of his life.
  
  The first third of the novel seems realistic. Then the novelist Elizabeth Costello shows up at Paul's door, an annoying woman who he has never met. (She is a character from J.M. Coetzee's previous novel.) She starts reciting the passage at the top of this review, "The blow catches him..." When she first heard those words, she had asked herself, "Why do I need this man?" Elizabeth Costello seems to be a stand-in for the author Coetzee since she knows all about Paul and the other characters. She uses her knowledge to try to prod Paul into action. At the same time, Paul is feeling that she is using his reactions to create a character for a book that she is writing. She's a persistent woman, constantly visiting, although he keeps trying to get rid of her. Paul, who immigrated from France to Australia as a child, is working through his feelings about home, about belonging, and about love. After a career as a portrait photographer, Paul seems to be thinking about who the man in his own mirror is as a person.
  
  The reader is watching Elizabeth Costello interact with Paul as she gets material for the story that Coetzee has written and we are reading. While it's a creative idea, it also moves the story from a realistic plane to a position where the reader no longer knows what is real and what is unreal. But that's Coetzee--an author who has fun playing around with the readers' minds.
• 
  notgettingenough

  Having been alienated by the end of Foe, I nonetheless plugged on with another Coetzee, bought at Antiquariaat Klikspaan in Leiden. It's a shop with an excellent range of interesting literature, I picked up lots of books on spec.
  
  Some complain of the tedious nature of the Costello woman but I think that Coetzee is being ruthlessly honest. Writers are self-centered bores with their own ends at heart. Dispensing bits of wisdom to their captive audience at will - and who is more captive than one's own invention? The writing process not going smoothly today? She drama queens it - she's going to die, her heart, sleeping in the rough, all that. She doesn't give a rats about Paul. She wants her story to work, but Paul is not prepared to help her out as she would wish to be. Isn't this the writer's life? Characters not behaving themselves. Doing things that the writer disapproves of, or is uneasy about, or can't see the path of, pages crossed out, files erased, paragraphs blocked and deleted. And in this case in the end, realising that it isn't possible to change the character. He is what he is.
  
  I love the way his stubbornness is up to hers. Presumably Coetzee himself is both of them.
  
  I did find his portrayal of Paul as being 'old' rather odd, given that he is only sixty. The book itself isn't old enough for that to make sense. That is to say, in 2005, when the book was published, 'sixty' was not old. Probably not 'seventy' either. My father (also 'Paul') was having cancer treatment in 2009 when he was seventy. We all told him he was old because he wanted to be that, he wanted to die 'old' and he explicitly corrected us when we called him otherwise.
  
  Rest is here:
  https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre...
  
  
• 
  Daphna

  What a beautiful novel this is. Coetzee is an artist of the novel, and in Slow Man he lets us in on how he practices his art.
  The story begins with a traumatic accident that ends in the amputation of Paul Rayment's leg (not a spoiler, it's on the back cover of the book), and his adjustment, or rather lack thereof, to his new condition. And then, with no seeming connection to the story we have been reading so far, Elizabeth Costello, a novelist known to us from a previous Coetzee novel, aggressively enters Paul's life (or did she create it in the first place) and takes it over, generating the story line as the novel proceeds despite the main character's resistance.
  I think that some of the negative reviews are due to a resistance to the elements of the meta-fiction that are imposed on Paul Rayment, and on the reader, whether they like it or not. The climax of this window to the creative process is Chapter 28 of the book that I have read several times, just for the beauty of it.
  Paul resists the intrusion of the creative process into his life and fights to maintain his somewhat apathetic continuum. But as Costello explains, he is as much her bane, as she is his. He occupies her mind and until she has concluded her "business" with him, they will remain tied to each other even though they both seek release.
  Readers who will resist Elizabeth Costello's intrusion, will miss out on this novel. I chose to be a non-resistant reader, accepting the world created by Coetzee, and then also accepting the world being created by Elizabeth Costello, and it was a great read. Frivolous is the word used by Paul as he regains consciousness in the hospital, and that is the vein of this novel. And yet, it is so much more.
• 
  Quân Khuê

  Có thể nói mối quan hệ giữa tôi với cuốn sách này là một mối quan hệ yêu-ghét. Tôi thích một vài phần, ghét một vài phần, và rốt cuộc thì không rõ mình yêu hay ghét cuốn sách. Văn của Coetzee vẫn thế, tinh, gọn, sắc sảo; tuy nhiên, sự xuất hiện của nhân vật nhà văn Elizabeth Costello có vẻ làm cho cuốn tiểu thuyết kém thành thực. Vẫn biết nhân vật này là một trò chơi tiểu thuyết của nhà văn, nhưng có vẻ đây là một trò chơi chưa thuyết phục. Nếu đọc Coetzee, thì Disgrace, Michael K, Waiting for Barbarians, cả Summertime, là những cuốn xuất sắc hơn Slow Man.
  
  Phần nào cuốn sách này gợi nhớ đến Paul Auster, người cũng hay giở chiêu metafiction trong các tiểu thuyết của mình. Ắt vì có điểm chung mà Auster với Coetzee mới thư từ với nhau trong nhiều năm liền để rồi tập sách tập hợp thư từ của hai ông "Here and There" đã có thể ra mắt cách đây vài tháng.
• 
  Ahmed

  الرجل البطئ ….. ج.م.كوتسى
  
  عندما تنقذ القراءة حياة إنسان من الضياع وتنسج له حياة يقبلها ويعيشها،ويرتبط بشخصياتها لتعوضه تلك الشخصيات عن الوحدة الحقيقية التي يعيشها،وتمثل له حبل الإنقاذ من الدمار.
  
  عجوز يتعرض لحادث مرير يفقد على إثره ساقه،فيكره جسده وحياته ويفقد مع ما فقد شغفه بأي شئ،لتهاجمه خيباته المتعددة ووحدته القاتلة،ليستسلم ويبدأ مرحلة جديدة في حياته المتأخرة ويسلك نفسه لممرضات العناية،لتدخل حياته ممرضة منهن بعد عدة تجارب،تملئ عليه حياته ويتيم بها ويندمج مع محيط حياتها،ويرجع للقراءة ليستوحي شخصية روائية أخرى تشا��كه ما بقي من تلك الحياة، وهنا يتجلى الكاتب كما ينبغي التجلي، فيُخرج لنا من رواية سابقة له ويدمج بين الإثنين ليصنع عالم روائي جديد.
  
  الرواية عظيمة ككل رواية تتحدث عن المعاناة الإنسانية وكيف نتخلص منها ، وكيف يبدع الكاتب في توصيف المعاناة لدرجة إيلامنا.
  
• 
  Kathy

  This is my first reading of author J.M. Coetzee, multiple winner of the Booker Prize as well as a Nobel Prize winner. This South African author relocated to Australia in 2002, and I am trying to figure out why I had never heard of him. I have another one of his books on my Kindle I should get to before long.
  This book is interesting, moving, thought provoking, sometimes frustrating but also has much to amuse the reader. Our "Slow Man" Paul would seem to be a physically fit, self-contained man living in Australia but not born there. The immigrant theme rings its bell in several instances.
  
  Paul, a man of 60, is happily riding his bicycle when a young man listening to music and not driving carefully crashes into him. While he is lucky to have not been killed in this road accident the injuries dramatically change his life. Doctors amputate above the knee, encouraging him to believe he can return to regular life, including biking, if he goes with prosthetic...something he refuses.
  Detail of life in the hospital, then the difficult transition to his flat and the home care providers evokes sympathy and then wariness as he develops what he thinks of as love for a Croatian woman who has a family of her own to take care of in addition to other patients.
  
  This might sound maudlin, but it has true revelatory honesty at its core. Adding to his physical challenges a woman appears, authoress Elizabeth, and she literally invades his life. It is so very peculiar the reader is struggling to understand her role in this drama - angel? prophetess? writer searching for her next leading character? Or did Paul actually die, something he eventually asks.
  
  I look forward to reading more works by this highly original author.
• 
  Inese Okonova

  Viena no nejaušām grāmatu izvēlēm, kāda man laiku pa laikam gadās. Man klēpī bija ieritinājies, īsti neatceros, vai nu kaķis, vai bērns, un šī grāmata pagadījās rokas stiepiena attālumā :D
  
  Jau drīz sapratu, ka nekādā lielā sajūsmā neesmu, bet jau biju pieķērusies galvenajam varonim pietiekami, lai zinātu, ka būs vien jāizlasa līdz beigām. Nav jau tik viegli lasītājiem ignorēt grāmatu varoņus. Gluži kā autoriem. Par to arī šī grāmata.
  
  P.S. Droši vien izlasīšu vēl kādu Kutzē. Kad atkal gadīsies rokas stiepiena attālumā.
• 
  Irmak Zileli

  Coetzee yine döktürmüş. Erkeklik gururu, orta sınıf kibri, önyargılar, yaşama sevincini baltalayan “ciddi takılmalar” üzerine enfes bir roman. Üstelik “Romancının Romanı”ndan bir misafirimiz de var. Kurmaca-gerçeklik sorgulaması yapan metinleri seven okurun da hoşuna gidecek. #okudumbitti #okumaönerisi #roman #bookstagram #kitapönerisi #booklover
• 
  Anna

  At the outset, I thought I was going to love this book, as I liked the author's writing style. Being 61 myself however, I got a little tired of his emphasis on how old a man he was. Please, 60 is not that old. Likely though, with the character being suddenly disabled, he likely felt that way, and that was probably the point. I found that as the book went on(and on and on) I got a bit tired of his whining and self absorption, and was just wanting the book to be finished.
  Elizabeth was an odd addition to the book, I couldn't quite figure out whether she was an angel of sorts or what; it was all a bit confusing. In real life it would be very disconcerting, of course, to encounter a person who could read your very mind. In this book, perhaps she served to make him more aware of things, as mirror as it were, to make him face himself and his attitudes. Interesting that he covers his bathroom mirror, so as not to see the reflection of his physicality.
  Also, I was not fond of the sexual encounter with the blind girl. Perhaps I am not sophisticated enough, in the world of literature, to understand the function of that little tryst. It did not seem to serve any purpose in the story, it was brief and there certainly wasn't even a hint of eroticism to the account of the act itself. It could have been cut from the book and never even missed, in my opinion.
  Then it ended, abruptly and in my opinion, unsatisfactorily. I am not sure what I expected, but I thought, "What, that's it?" Generally, I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone. All in all, I found it depressing and that it did not have any redeeming features.
• 
  Thanh

  Lần đầu tiên mua sách vì tên truyện, chứ không phải vì đã quen biết với tác giả trước. “ Người chậm” nghe có vẻ giống mình
  Lúc nào, tôi cũng là người chậm, lúc nào cũng thấy cả nhân loại lao đi vèo vèo trước mắt, đến nỗi tôi không kịp nhận ra hình hài của nhân loại chứ đừng nói bản chất của nó, cho đến lúc Covid đến, như 1 cái phanh khổng lồ kéo nhân loại chậm loại, thì tôi mới bắt đầu nhìn rõ gương mặt nhân loại hơn. Chậm lại một chút có khi cũng hay.
  
  Ông già trong truyện sau tai nạn bị mất 1 chân, có lẽ tai nạn cũng là cái phanh kéo đời ông chậm lại hẳn. Và ông bắt đầu nhìn kỹ hơn vào lòng mình. Ngày này qua ngày khác, ông loanh quanh với những ý nghĩ tủn mủn trong đầu, giả thiết, nghi ngờ, ham muốn tẹp nhẹp với chị giúp việc
  
  Tôi đã nghĩ truyện của tác giả được Nobel gì mà nhạt nhẽo thế, cốt truyện mãi cứ quanh quẩn. Tiết tấu chậm y như buổi tập thể dục dưỡng sinh của người già. Nhưng rồi mới nhận ra, cả nhân loại cũng đang đi rất chậm như thế sao. Và khi đi chậm, ta nhận ra nhiều thứ nhỏ nhặt, cũng rất quan trọng mà trước đó ta đã không nhận ra. Cuộc sống gia đình, tổ ấm, văn chương, sự sắp đặt, tinh thần lạc qua … nó có giá trị gì với con người nhỉ…
  
  Tự nhiên thấy cuộc sống rất chậm của mình với những điều vặt vãnh, tầm thường và nhạt nhẽo cũng xứng đáng được trao gải Nobel 😁
• 
  rachel

  I found Paul's character quite well developed, particularly his self-absorption (e.g., others seem to exist only his limited perception of them). I found myself thinking about the psychological theory of the tasks of middle-to-advanced age. Namely, a sense of accomplishment is key to navigating the final stages of life. This seems to be Paul's problem; when he reflects on his life, he feels he has accomplished little and is particularly bothered by the fact that he is childless.
  
  Despite my appreciation of the main character, I agree with many of the other reviewers, in that I found the addition of the magical author character rather incongruous with the first half of the novel. She was distracting. I found myself wondering whether she was real/magical, whether she was necessary to the story, and whether the main character suffered some sort of closed head injury in the accident. These thoughts made it difficult to concentrate on what should have been the central themes of the novel: aging, intimacy, meaningful engagement with others, accomplishment.