MixedThe Hindu (IND)... the narrative sinks into an abyss of metaphysical speculations on life, death, and the continuity of life after death ... apparent and occasionally far-fetched religious parallelisms ... Coetzee raises fundamental questions of existence: the perennial conflict between romantic entrapment and harsh reality; the call of the individual self and the pressure of societal conformity; the various incompatible systems of morality; the problematic notion of sanity; and, finally, the universal relevance of great literature in human civilisation. In all this, one cannot get rid of the uncomfortable feeling that Coetzee is playing with the gullible reader. If the post-modernist reality is a ‘game’, then Coetzee proves himself to be the star gamer.
