Book review

Martine Baijanova

S1337076

Tutor: Ksenia Robbe

Elective: Censorship and Social Transformation

Word count: 1001

30-03-2015

Waiting for the Barbarians -  J.M Coetzee

Penguin, originally published in 1980, 156 pp

Waiting for the Barbarians is a novel by the South African John Maxwell Coetzee, which won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize and the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Coetzee himself was the second South African who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003. His other appraised works include Life and Times of Michael K. and Disgrace which both won the Booker prize. Nevertheless, with Waiting for the Barbarians Coetzee gained international notice. The book showcases his distinctive style of writing, which is often naturalistic, storytelling fiction (Meek 2009). Naturalistic meaning that people are shaped by their environment and that their future is determined. In Coetzee writings, there is often a maverick who has to stand up against a group. This can be clearly seen in Waiting for the Barbarians.

The novel is narrated by an unnamed magistrate in a colonial town, which is the territorial frontier of the Empire. This town is in peace and quiet until colonel Joll from The Empire arrives and stirs things up. He believes that The Empire is threatened by the Barbarians and that the Barbarians are planning an attack against them soon. This clearly depicts a state of paranoia since they see threats, which is the invasion of the barbarians, which aren’t there. Colonel Joll and his Third Bureau soldiers frequently capture barbarians during this period and torture them until they “confess” that they are preparing an attack. I put confess in between brackets since it is obvious that anyone, also in the real world, would confess to crimes they haven’t committed under tremendous torture. One can see censorship in this since the Third Bureau, or more particularly Colonel Joll, has the only say in the situation. The only role by the barbarians is to follow the role appointed by Joll. Furthermore, the soldiers are not allowed to tell the full story of the interrogations to the magistrate, again demonstrating  censorship.

The magistrate questions these raids by having internal monologues but does not explicitly discuss them with Colonel Joll or other soldiers of the Third Bureau. With this, it is clear that the magistrate is a maverick and stands alone. Even though we don’t know how other citizens or authoritarians of the town felt about the actions of the Third Bureau, it’s evident that the magistrate more and more doesn’t agree with the Third Bureau by the many internal monologues he has. Furthermore, no other people in the book are mentioned that stand up against the Third Bureau. However, this can also be out of fear, since the magistrate doesn’t really dare to take action himself. Meanwhile, he nurses a barbarian woman who was partially blinded by the interrogators and he has an intimate relationship with her. However, he eventually decides to bring her back to her people. Colonel Joll receives message about this and decides to lock the magistrate up because he believes that he was working with the barbarians. It seems clear that the magistrate could have known he would get in trouble for this, and in my opinion this clearly depicts his naivety. When reading the book, you can see it coming that Colonel Joll wouldn’t turn a blind eye on this incident, even though the magistrate’s intentions were good. Once a man treated with a lot of respect now has to fight and beg for basic needs.

Later, colonel Joll returns with more barbarians and makes a big spectacle of this. The crowd is encouraged to participate in the beatings. Appalled by this, the magistrate tries to stop this spectacle. This is the first time in the book that the magistrate knowingly takes action against the submission of the barbarians. However, the colonel doesn’t accept this and tortures him by hanging him up. Eventually the magistrate is released because the Third Bureau believes that he has nowhere to go and doesn’t possess a threat. Even though the villagers knew about the magistrate’s opinions, and didn’t necessarily share them, they were still friendly towards him when he was released. This could show that deep down they knew he was doing the right thing. The soldiers too, eventually, flee the town. By the end of the book, the barbarians still haven’t arrived, indicating that they probably will never come either.

Since the magistrate and place is unnamed it could be anyone, anywhere. Even though Waiting for the Barbarians is fiction, it is not only relevant in the period it was written, but also depicts current situations. When looking at Coetzee’s background and the period in which it was written, one can relate it to the situation in South Africa at that time, when racial discrimination was part of everyday life during apartheid. One can find censorship in this as the black people where subordinate to white people, and thus the former had the only say. Furthermore, a sphere of paranoia was created among the white people. However, as mentioned before, Waiting for the Barbarians is also relevant for nowadays. As Meek said in his article, “Substitute "terrorists" for "barbarians" and you have a history of Britain and America since 2001” (2009).

To conclude, the notion of censorship is not highly evident in Waiting for the Barbarians in my opinion. However, when looking for it, one can see hints of censorship in it. When one would read the book for pleasure, censorship would not necessarily cross their mind as being a theme of the book. However, I do not believe Coetzee intended it to be so obvious, especially looking at the period in which it was written. On a personal level, I could easily identify with the magistrate since it was written in the first person. At points I got frustrated because I feel that the treatment of the magistrate towards the end, and especially the barbarians throughout the book was outrageous. However, it gives an interesting image of society, and forces one to think outside one’s own reality. At the same time, Coetzee manages to draw his reader in, and create an emotional response.

Reference:

Meek, James. "The Many Faces of JM Coetzee." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media Limited, 5 Sept. 2009. Web. 29 Mar. 2015.