Waiting for the Barbarians

It's difficult to know what Coetzee thinks of his narrators. I find them all so terribly sympathetic that it's difficult to know how one should judge their characters and actions. Waiting for the Barbarians was my introduction to yet another ageing male protagonist whose relationships with women are decidedly problematic and certainly abusive under modern codes of behaviour.

The nameless magistrate whose tale unfolds through the course of the novel is stationed on the outskirts of the Empire. Comfortable marooned on the periphery of civilization, the magistrate spends him time collecting buried artifacts from long-forgotten peoples which are scattered through the desert sands which surround the outpose and occasionally and indiscretely taking advantage of the young maids who are under his command. The arrival of the sinister Colonel Joll - a respresentative of the Empires secret police, the deliciously-named "Third Bureau" - with his queer manners and affectations (see the sunglasses excerpt I have included below) destroys the little idyll the magistrate has established. Rumours are growing that the Barbarians that surround the Empire are banding together, conspiring to attack the Empire. Oblivious to the social and cultural particulars of the peoples who surround the outpost Joll captures and tortures a boy and his father (who are quite obviously innocent) and forces the boy to lead them into the desert to reveal the hiding places of his 'co-conspirators'. Joll leads a party of men out into the desert and returns with a string of bound barbarians who who viciously and cruelly restrained by thin wires which have been woven through their hands and cheeks. Joll proceeds to torture the barbarians while the magistrate seeks to distance himself as much as possible from the abuses which take place. Having extracted the information he desires, despite its highly questionable veracity, the Colonel returns to the capital to make his report. Horrified by the torture, by the blind and needless pain inflicted on Joll's victims, the magistrate releases the Barbarians who return to the desert. Only later does the magistrate discover that they have left on of their own behind - an impassive barbarian girl who has been partially crippled and blinded, forced to beg and prostitute herself to survive. The magistrate is moved by vague and yet powerful desires, taking in the girl and subjecting(?) her to ritualistic washings of her broken body. Confused by his own motives, and potentially seeking to atone for his complicity in the torture, the magistrate decides to return the girl to her people. The gruelling journey through icy wastes which follows nearly kills the magistrate and the men who have escourted them, and is the novels most sustained piece of brilliant writing. Releasing the girl to her people and surviving the return journey, the magistrate is soon subjected to much much worse than the pain and anguish of ice, wind, snow and hunger.

Arriving back at the outpost the magistrate discovers the Empire have send troops to deal with the impending Barbarian invasion. Under suspicion of colluding with the Barbarians, and accused of various failings and abuses of power, the magistrate is jailed and tortured, subjected to countless humiliations, "I wondered how much pain a plump comfortable old man would be able to endure in the name of his eccentric notions of how the Empire should conduct itself. But my torturers were not interested in degrees of pain. They were interested only in demonstrating to me what it meant to live in a body, as a body, a body which can entertain notions of justice only as long as it is whole and well, which very soon forgets them when its head is gripped and a pipe is pushed down its gullet and pints of salt water are poured into it. ... They came to my cell to show me the meaning of humanity, and in the space of an hour they showed me a great deal.'' . Finally, the Empire's forces are expended, defeated by the unforgiving wastes which surround the outpost and the magistrate finds himself free once more, virtually taking up the position of magistrate as the Empire abandons the outpost to the wilderness and the barbarians. The End.

Here's a helpful excerpts from the New York Times review of the book: "And at the outset we also realize that this is to be a novel not about nuances of character but about a clash of moral styles, a drama of representative ways of governing." There are many instances in which the novel sketches out the dangers of a centralized and isolated government: the way people can be brutalised and abused, the way the peripheries in particular are vulnerable to exploitation and violence, the way a lack of local knowledge and sympathy leads to cruelty and, ultimately, defeat. It's a political parable, but also a story about desire really. What it's trying to say about desire, however, is much more difficult to decipher than the obvious politcal insights into certain modes of government. Also, I'm not sure I agree with the quote associated with the book that describes it as "an analogue of all men living in complicity with regimes that ignore justice and decency" mmmm. Finally, here's the bit about sunglasses that I like, it's actually the opening of the novel and very effective one at that, "I have not seen anythign like it: two little discs of glass suspended in front of his eyes in loops of wire. Is he blind?...The discs are dark, they look opaque from the outside, but he can see through them. He tells me they are a new invention..." Hmm, it isn't as impressive on a second reading, but the way the sunglasses are described in later passages, the way they figure in the narrative as the "affectation" spreads, is very well done, even if sunglasses = bad guy, is a bit of cliché.