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Graham Huggan and Stephen Watson, eds. Preface by Nadine Gordimer. New York: St. Martin's, 1996; London: Macmillan, 1996. kvi + 246 pp. ISBN 0-312-12312-4.
The importance of J. M. Coetzee to the direction of the 20th-century novel, which can scarcely be overstated, is signalled by the weighty questions that recur in discussions of his work: How does his writing make us reconsider our definitions of postmodernism and postcolonialism? How shall "history" be imagined in novels? What does it mean for an author to pledge allegiance to the discourse of fiction (rather than the discourse of politics)? Is there a function for a literary canon? What role can literary theory play in these evaluations? And what kind of ethical stance might emerge from these intensely serious and significant investigations?
Most of these questions receive some attention in this collection of essays, at times (and this is to the book's advantage) from competing perspectives. In addition to this sense of intellectual diversity, the editors have assembled a fine series of essays that offer different kinds of coverage: important names in the field of Coetzee studies are represented; there is a good mixture of old and new essays (the emphasis is on the new); and an appropriate balance has been struck between general discussions and essays specific to the individual novels. This is the main organizational strength of the festschrift: four pieces on general themes are succeeded by a section containing an essay on each of the first six novels--all of which scrupulous planning lends the book much authority. One disappointment is that Coetzee's latest novel, The Master of Petersburg (1994), was apparently published too late to be examined here; another--and this is my main concern--is an emphasis on Coetzee as a "colonial" rather than a "postcolonial" writer (though, admittedly, in discussions of this matter one term necessarily invokes the other).
In addition to the 10 essays, there is an introductory survey by the editors, and a preface and an afterword, and in the latter two pieces a framing (and productive) area of contention emerges. Nadine Gordimer has been invited to contribute the preface, but there is a sense that she has attended in order to spoil the party. In this "anti-preface" (vii), as she calls it, Gordimer...