Coetzee is a deep thinker and a forensic researcher. It shows in all his writing, and especially here in this collection of six stories, dating from 2004 to the present. The first, titular story is novella length; the others are brief and punchy. All the stories explore love in different forms, from familial to romantic and between species.

‘The Pole’ centres on the relationship between a concert pianist – the man referred to in the title – and his would-be lover, Beatriz. Witold Walczykiewicz is a devotee of fellow Pole, Chopin. His playing style is stiff and unemotional (pole-like). Beatriz invites him to Barcelona to perform. Neither speak the other’s language. They converse (inadequately) in English. He’s instantly in love with Beatriz. She doesn’t reciprocate that love but, despite her efforts to ignore him, they continue to meet. This is love … but perhaps not as you expect it.

The next four stories concern Elizabeth Costello, the eponymous character from Coetzee’s 2003 novel. She is an Australian novelist with a son in America and a daughter in France. As she ages, she’s visited by the son and visits the daughter. Both want her to live with them. She instead decides to live in a village in Spain. She has always been a contrarian. The dialogue between family members is stiltedly formal – Shakespeare meets Sartre’s existentialism. When she takes in the village’s feral cats, discussions turn to humanity’s treatment of animals – the above hybrid meets Peter Singer. The final story, ‘The Dog’, looks at the inverse of that issue, as a woman is threatened each day by a vicious dog.

Coetzee’s writing of The Pole and Other Stories manages to be both entertaining and a catalyst for philosophical introspection.

Reviewed by Bob Moore

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

His works of fiction include Dusklands; Waiting for the Barbarians, which won South Africa’s highest literary honor, the Central News Agency Literary Award; and the Life and Times of Michael K., for which Coetzee was awarded his first Booker Prize in 1983. He has also published a memoir, Boyhood: Scenes From a Provincial Life, and several essay collections.

Visit J M Coetzee’s website