About The Pole
A psychologically probing, compulsively readable novel about dogged love and the unpredictability of human relationships―from the Nobel Prize–winning author of Disgrace . Exacting yet maddeningly unpredictable, J. M. Coetzee’s The Pole tells the story of Wittold Walccyzkiecz, a vigorous, “extravagantly white-haired” Polish pianist who becomes infatuated with Beatriz, a stylish patron of the arts, after she helps organize his Barcelona concert. Although Beatriz, a married woman, is initially unimpressed by Wittold, she soon finds herself pursued and ineluctably swept into the world of the journeyman performer. As he sends her letters, extends countless invitations to travel, and even visits her husband’s summer home in Mallorca, their unlikely relationship blossoms, though, it seems, only on her terms. The power struggle between them intensifies― Is it Beatriz who limits their passion by controlling her emotions? Or is it Wittold, trying to force into life his dream of love? Evocative of Joyce’s “The Dead,” The Pole is a haunting work, evoking the “inexhaustible palette of sensations, from blind love to compassion” ( El País ) typical of Coetzee’s finest novels.
Detail
Complete Title: The Pole
Format: Hardcover
Language: English
Number of Pages: 166
Publication Time: September 19, 2023
Publisher: Liveright
ISBN:
ISBN13:
About J.M. Coetzee
J.M. Coetzee
John Maxwell Coetzee is an author and academic from South Africa. He became an Australian citizen in 2006 after relocating there in 2002. A novelist and literary critic as well as a translator, Coetzee has won the Booker Prize twice and was awarded the 2003 Nobel Prize in Literature.
Reviews The Pole
Ilse
The yearning for what is beyond our reach
Is love a state of mind, a state of being, a phenomenon, a congeniality that disappears right before our eyes into the past, into the backwaters of history…
Candi
“You were in love with me—I have no doubt about that—and love is by nature extravagant.”Someone once told me that in a relationship one person is always going to love more than he or she recei…
Orsodimondo
LA VITA NOVAWitold è un pianista polacco famoso per le sue esecuzioni del compatriota Chopin. Beatriz è di Barcellona e si occupa di organizzare concerti di classica per il suo circolo. È così che…
Helga
4.5To understand, you must be silent and listen. Let the music speak…You pick up a book because you love its cover. You are not sure if you’ll like the story or not. You tell yourself, what is the…
Ruben
I once saw an extremely uncomfortable interview with Coetzee, where he was almost unable to respond for extreme fear of not finding exactly the right word. There is something of that fear in this nove…
Flo
Probably the closest thing to a love story that Coetzee wrote. Even if objectively, it isn’t one of his best, there is something so simple and sincere about this little book that I really enjoyed my t…
Lark Benobi
So simple, so complicated, so breathtakingly beautiful. I’m in awe of the humanity Coetzee conjured with these words…
Krista
He is a Pole, a man of seventy, a vigorous seventy, a concert pianist best known as an interpreter of Chopin, but a controversial interpreter: his Chopin is not at all Romantic but on the contrary…
Tony
An old man in love. Foolish. And a danger to himself.I can’t remember the last time I read a book in its entirety in a single day. But there was something compulsive about this.The Pole of the title i…