Foe, J. M. Coetzee – Writing: History and/or Story “For this is the genesis story of the writer. It is the story that wrote her or him into being.” (Nadine Gordimer, “Writing and Being”) “For myself, I have said that nothing factual that I write or say will be as truthful as my fiction.” (Gordimer) “History is but the story of geopolitical upheavals – told from the perspective of the winner.” (Prof Greg O’Dea) “Speech is but a means though which the word may be uttered, it is not the word itself.” (Foe, 143) “I am not a story, Mr Foe” (Foe, 131) General Discussion: What makes a (good) story? How does Foe comment on writing (be it ‘truth’, history, fiction or story)? “To tell the truth in all its substance you must have quiet, and a comfortable chair away from all distraction, and a window to stare through; and then the knack of seeing waves when there are fields before your eyes, and of feeling the tropic sun when it is cold; and at your fingertips the words with which to capture the vision before it fades. I have none of these, while you have all” (51-­‐2) “I gather my strength and send out vision of the island to hang before you like a substantial body…: so that it will be there for you to draw on whenever you have need” (53) “was this his reply — that he and I were man and woman, that man and woman are beyond words?” (134) What’s the difference between ‘story’ and ‘history’? “‘I would gladly now count to you the history of this singular Cruso, as I heard it from his own lips.” (11) “Crusoe kept no journal, perhaps because he lacked paper and ink, but more likely, I now believe, because he lacked the inclination to keep one” (16) “But what we can accept in life we cannot accept in history. To tell my story and be silent on Friday’s tongue is no better than offering a book for sale with pages in it quietly left empty. Yet the only tongue that can tell Friday’s secret is the tongue he lost!” (67) “What you know of your parentage comes to you in the form of stories, and the stories have but a single source” (91) Robinson Crusoe, Foe’s predecessor The full title of Defoe’s 1719 text was The Life and Strange Surprizing Adventures of Robinson Crusoe, Of York, Mariner: Who lived Eight and Twenty Years, all alone in an un-­‐inhabited Island on the Coast of America, near the Mouth of the Great River of Oroonoque; Having been cast on Shore by Shipwreck, wherein all the Men perished but himself. With An Account how he was at last as strangely deliver'd by Pyrates. Written by Himself. It was originally taken as a true account, not a work of fiction. How might this be interesting in the light of Foe? Major differences between RC and F: • There is no Susan Barton • Friday is taught to speak (his tongue is in tact) -­‐ ‘he [Friday] was the aptest Scholar that ever was’ • CrusoE does keep a diary and documents his experiences • He plunders the wreck for everything useful he can get hold of • Crusoe rescues Friday from cannibals The list could go on… Coetzee knew Defoe’s text well and referred to Robinson Crusoe in his Nobel Prize speech in 2003… How much is Foe about (re)writing history – even if that history is fiction, or if it is (re) writing ‘history’ as fiction? “More is at stake in the history you write, I will admit, for it must not only tell the truth about us but please its readers too. Will you not bear it in mind, however, that my life is drearily suspended till your writing is done?” (63) “It is not dull so long as we remind ourselves it is true” (127) What is history – that is to say record – for Curso? How is it different from Barton’s view? How are both problematic/not? “But seen from too remote a vantage, life begins to lose its particularity. All shipwrecks become the same shipwreck, all castaways the same castaway...” (18) “I will leave behind my terraces and walls” (18) “Day by day the wind picks at the roof and the weeds creep across the terraces. In a year, in ten years, there will be nothing left standing but a circle of sticks to mark the place where the hut stood, and of the terraces only the walls. And of the walls they will say…” (54) “But the Patagonians, knowing no home but Patagonia, have no reason to doubt that the wind blows at all seasons without let in all quarters of the globe; whereas I know better” (15)