Barbarians
"In private I observed that once in every generation, without fail, there is an episode of hysteria about the barbarians. There is no woman living along the frontier who has not dreamed of a dark barbarian hand coming from under the bed to grip her ankle, no man who has not frightened himself with visions of the barbarians carousing in his home, breaking the plates, setting fire to the curtains, raping his daughters. These dreams are the consequence of too much ease. Show me a barbarian army and I will believe."
"My occasional hunting and hawking, my desultory womanizing, exercises of manhood, have concealed how soft my body has grown."
From Waiting For The Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
"My occasional hunting and hawking, my desultory womanizing, exercises of manhood, have concealed how soft my body has grown."
From Waiting For The Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
posted by chuckdaddy2000 at 10:22 am
5 Comments:
I love, love, loved this book. It's such a timely, compelling story. I saw a lot of parrallels to the war in Iraq--the senseless torture, the lack of humanity and understanding.
Coetzee is fantastic. Thanks for sharing this quote. I have thoroughly enjoyed the books of his that I have read. Sounds like I'll need to read WFB soon.
I've read Disgrace and (finished last night) WFB. Both great great books. Thank you Melissa (AKA:reader #2) for your great book recommendations. I really like Coetzee's style- he manages to be deep and interesting while still moving the plot and not over-writing. I always feel like he writes just enough.
His characters are always deep and interesting, but also entirely human and flawed. I admittedly have an unsual affinity for books about middle aged white men with sex issues..If you do too, read the Elementary Particles.
That's what I was already planning on reading next.
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