![]() But, unable to return the intensity of her love, he also resents it, as he later comes to resent the affections of the various mistresses he suffers in the second instalment. He despises his irresponsible and oppressive father, a disgraced lawyer, and relies on the unwavering love of his mother. Young John worries endlessly about being "normal". (1997), tracks Coetzee's school days in Worcester and Cape Town, South Africa. That one word does wonders to distance Coetzee from his own narrative the reader is liberated to appreciate his work as literature. ![]() The most effective tool in this process is the third-person: he. Instead of shielding his protagonist - his alter ego, John - from criticism with a dulling hum of rote self-critique, Coetzee splays him open, preserving the pain of each emotion experienced. In his trilogy of "fictionalised memoirs", JM Coetzee largely pushes beyond self-deprecation with flashes of self-loathing and egoism. ![]() Memoirists who do rid their work of implicit pleas for sympathy often do so by way of equally tedious self-deprecation. ![]() Empathy isn't burdensome, but obligations are, particularly when it's implied that letting them go unfulfilled might constitute a moral failing. It costs to realise that a protagonist is a real person with an ego like an egg readers feel an obligation to coddle the author with empathy. Perhaps the most taxing aspect of personal narrative is the very thing that gives it value: the truth. ![]()
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