WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS by J.M. Coetzee - torture, fear of intimacy, lies and truth of civilizations

We had a rousing Montrose Great Books discussion by twenty-five attendees of WAITING FOR THE BARBARIANS by J.M. Coetzee on Thursday, March 5th at Freed-Montrose Library.  As was revealed at the end of the discussion when we go around the room and ask for subjective comments from everyone, most did like the book.  

I led the discussion and started with a question about the central character and narrator who had no name but was called "the magistrate" and who governed a seeming frontier town on the outskirts of a fictitious large geographical entity called "the Empire".  I asked what was thought about the magistrate, was he likable? was he flawed? was he all good?

The first commenter indicated they didn't like the magistrate, one reason being that his poor decisions kept getting him into more and more trouble.  Everyone agreed that the magistrate was a flawed character but some thought he was the better for it, that he represented "everyman" and he illustrated how we often make decisions seeking the easier way out hoping for pleasure or comfort but that he still was a sympathetic and humanistic character.  

When I asked why the author chose to include so much about the sex life of the magistrate in the story, one of the female attendees said the passages about sex were a welcome change from the ones about torture which were quite painful to read for most of us.  Another attendee indicated that the magistrate's way of dealing with his sexual relationships analyzing them from a distance seemed to show particularly how he was unable to deal with connecting with the women on a intimate basis. It was also pointed out that he used the skills learned in his hobby of being an amateur archeologist in his relationship with the blind girl when he repeatedly attempted to decipher the details about how she was tortured as if she was an archeological ruin.  His examination of her was motivated by his lack of knowledge and experience with her culture referred to as "barbarian"  and representative of nomadic tribesman who lived nearby in the dessert in the winter and moved to the mountains in the summer.

Now that the discussion is over and this is the next day, I realize we didn't talk much about Colonel Joll, another main central character who was responsible for torturing the apparently innocent barbarians. Though only 150 pages (or so) in length, this book was very dense with events and symbols and philosophical thoughts making it impossible for me to cover most of these in my little attempt here to encapsulate our discussion.  Also, since I'm trying to start a new leaf and shorten my entries here hoping that this new strategy will encourage me to submit reviews of our discussions on a more regular basis (once again), I  will leave out further details about

-- the expedition planned by the magistrate to return the blind barbarian girl to her people.
-- the terrible hardships encountered on the expedition
-- the imprisonment and torture of the magistrate shortly after he returns from the expedition and after he is accused of colluding with the barbarians
-- the survival of the magistrate and his return to authority of the town
-- the preparations made by the town as they are "waiting for the barbarians"
-- the devastation of Colonel Joll's army when they return from their expedition after having tried to do battle with the barbarians   

This review would not be complete without a mention of a very important statement by the magistrate regarding Colonel Joll on page 133 (of my book published by Penguin) and one that I believe reveals the most important theme of the book:  "For I was not, as I liked to think, the indulgent pleasure-loving opposite of the cold rigid Colonel.  I was the lie that Empire tells itself when times are easy, he the truth that Empire tells when harsh winds blow.  Two sides of imperial rule."

Looking forward to our next discussion at 6pm at the Freed-Montrose Library on April 2nd of a play titled ROCK 'N ROLL written by Tom Stoppard, the same play that will be performed live by the Alley Theatre during the first part of May of this same year.