Stephen P(who no longer can participate due to illness)'s Reviews > Diary of a Bad Year

A week ago I woke up and had no interest in reading. Over all these years this never happened. It wasn't that I had no interest in reading in that moment or that day but that interest in reading as a whole, as a part of me was gone. I felt the loss. The next day the same and the next.

Recently I bought a few books. All supposedly very good but dipping into them I drew a blank. It soon dawned on me that what these new books did not provide was a, PLACE TO RESIDE. Looking back over my GR list of books read, scanning my shelves at home, I realized that who did provide this in the past was J.M. Coetzee, his, Diary of a Bad Year and Carole Maso's, astonishing Ava. The particular genious of Maso's poetry in prose and prose in poetry bring the past to be experienced in the most vivd and difficult present. Don't get me started that will be for the next review.

What Coetzee so generously lent me was an atmosphere, a quality of tone, a voice inviting me into a literary consciousness that intoned a quality of perspective that I took with me in my daily life. I resided there.

Interestingly I did not like the book itself as much this time around. At the end I felt according to other literary criteria that it was slight leaving little impact; no scarring or burrowed creases of wisdom rising. But I am so grateful for having residence in that literary world which felt much like home.