I finished reading "The Vietnam Project" today. The final third of the novella, while still dense, flowed much more quickly than the first two-thirds. I do not want to give anything away to potential readers, so I will not discuss the plot at any great length. I will, however, say that Eugene Dawn's narrative stands beside those of Bob Slocum, Humbert Humbert, and Ferdinand Clegg as one of the more disturbing confessional narratives in late-middle-twentieth century literature.

And yes, I did get some more transcription done.

For tomorrow: Begin reading "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee" and transcribe some more.

Labels: Bob Slocum, Dissertation, Dusklands, J.M. Coetzee, John Fowles, The Vietnam Project

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As much as I enjoy my job, I have to admit, I'd really like a snow day tomorrow. Granted, I got the chance to enjoy the winter wonderland beauty of a day-long snowfall today, but there's something particularly special about snow days. They're among the little bonuses in life; they free up time and give us a sense of having somehow beaten the system. Oh, and they mean I don't have to forgo eight hours of sleep.

In any case, besides chipping away at the bit of transcription I hope to finish this week, I started reading Dusklands today. I really can't say too, too much about the book because I only read the first section of "The Vietnam Project," the first of the two novellas which make up Coetzee's first book. So far, though, I find the book considerably denser than the author's later work. Eugene Dawn, the "creative" propagandist penning the report around which the eponymous novella is built, strikes me as an utterly unlikeable human being. He has more than a little bit of Dostoevsky's perverse Underground Man in him but none of that sad man's pitiable qualities. He's smug, paranoid, self-important, annoyingly obsequious, and writes in a style that is emotionally detached and uncomfortably frank (not to mention self-consciously erudite, calculated, and manipulative...he is, after all, a propagandist). In that regard, Dawn resembles no one literary character more than Bob Slocum, the protagonist of Joseph Heller's Something Happened, which is not a particularly flattering comparison.

The novella is interesting. Many of the recurring themes in Coetzee's fiction appear in "The Vietnam Project": the nature of writing, the struggle between the powerful and the powerless, the production of official history, and the unfulfilling, emotionally barren romances Coetzee's readers have come to expect.

I look forward to seeing where the book goes.

For tomorrow: Some more transcription and some more of Dusklands.

Labels: Bob Slocum, Dissertation, Dusklands, Eugene Dawn, J.M. Coetzee, Joseph Heller, Something Happened, The Vietnam Project

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