Democracy

Democracy means simply the bludgeoning of the people by the people for the people.

That sounds like a paradox, but I think it's actually the strenght of democracy. That's what makes the system survive.

Paradox

Maybe a paradox ; another option would be that it is blatanly untrue. As far as I know, democracy is the only system with holds within it the promise to extinguish itself. See what happens these days in Venezuela - a democratic possibility to leave democracy. Argueable it is easy without opposition, on the other was that not a democratic decision as well...

In a democracy the people are given what they want by the government., because the people choose.
But isn't a good leader supposed to give his people what they need instead of what they want.
That unfortunately creates a new dillema; who is to decide what people need?

I am interested in what you think of the book (without spoilers, please. Looking forward to reading it myself.) How do your perceptions differ from those of the reviewers? (Or rather, why do the reviews seem more puzzling now? I haven't read any reviews so I don't know exactly what you mean.)

A-ha, so this is where the male blogpees have been hiding. In the shadows of democracy. Now women, please, say something, anything. We too have more to say than merely comment on Bavarian dishes, explain what smash is, flirt with Arnon and have all gone skinny-dipping.
I'll say this - Arnon, I did not understand that book at all. And the Dutch literary commentators weren't of any help. This was their chance to step up to the plate, but they didn't. They're probably waiting for a NY Times book reviewer to tell them what to think. My opinion? Stick to associative/emotional writing Arnon, to me as a reader, it has much more impact than all this cerebral stuff. Ps; how about you do the opposite? First release your new novel in German or English or Spanish before you release it in Dutch?

Noa

I happen to disagree with you – I didn’t find anything cerebral in Diary of Bad Year. (I guess you consider cerebral a negative adjective.)
In my opinion it was a pretty good book, and very interesting, maybe the third storyline was the weakest, if you want to be critical – what exactly did you not understand?

The choice of set-up, perhaps I'm missing his point.

I'm reading it at the moment- just taking a break- and as always I feel privileged having a work of that master in my hands.

I haven't read anything by Coetzee. But I am reading another master: V.S. Naipaul.
I didn't like his (sudden) change of perspectives but I love(d) his naive narrative on his findings. I'm reading 'Beyond Believe" if someone's interested.

Today I met the first person to be reading A. Grunberg in my hotel. She, a Belgian, is reading Tirza. When I asked which detail she can't stop thinking about she said: "The one where the girl in the little gardenshed asks for tomatoe-juice."

I think Coetzee is splitting hairs. The fact that you CAN put yourself forward, seems to me very non-totalitarian. As far as "subjecting yourself to..." , well, those are just the rules of the game. A game he feels uncomfortable with, as much as someone else might feel uncomfortable with the rules of tennis.
Or that you have to use a key to open the door to your house. If someone has an extreme dislike to keys, does that make the door a totalitarian system?

More to the point, Arnon, how are things in Lima at the moment?

Antony

In a democracy the people are given what they want by the government., because the people choose.-That´s an illusion.

Today before showtime I got shot. A collegue of mine was playing with a gun and he thought it was unloaded. He aimed at me and fired. I got hit in the stomach. At first it felt like a sting of a bug, afterwards It hurt really badly. It didn't stop bleeding as wel. It's still in me, tomorrow I'm going to get it taken out.

Bullet was 4.5mm, not too big, but big enough.

Therapy

No I don't have any other friends to tell.

@ Dens

Dens, I'm hoping you're not saying you're waiting untill tomorrow to go to a hospital, because that's just being plain stupid. You have to take care of it right now.

The health service in Turkey is not really optimized. At night it is way more expensive than it is during the day. During the day a doctors visit can lead up to 200 euro. I don't want to know what night does.
And I'm not off until tomorrow. It'll be fine. I used waterperoxide.

@ Dens

Ouch! Wish you well. I hope you'll be okay soon.

Dens

Could you explain what exactly happened?

Lutek

I have left Lima, cannot tell you anything about the earthquake – Coetzee is worth reading, don’t rush to judgments based about this quotation.

Leopold B

It surprised me that two reviewers ignored certain, in my opinion important, aspects of the book.

Well, it all started half an hour before the shooting. I was asked for a meeting where they would smoke some dope. I didn't attend. The others did, so they were 'in the mood'. While I was getting ready for the show of this night, I undressed. I was doing my make-up when Diesel, my collegue called me and fired instantly. They laughed, but I noticed the bleeding instantly and my girl-collegues started screaming. Diesel came back (he was having a victory laugh) and saw the bleeding as well. They tried to scratch the bullet out, but that didn't work. Since showmusic was already on Bettül, a collegue, put some waterperoxide on it to desinfect it. It didn't hurt. It was only on stage when the pain hit me. I finished it off and went backstage to try and scratch the bullet out myself. Didn't work. So we put some iodine on it, some more waterperoxide and some cotton to stop the bleeding.
Diesel kissed me lots of times to appologize but somewhere I felt happy. Just a few days ago I was discussing this with a Serbian soldier. I told him I wanted to know how it felt to shoot somebody and to be shot. He let me shoot him with a nailgun (which felt really bad doing so, but I wanted to know) but I couldn't take the pain to be shot myself, so today Allah gave it to me. It is strange how I always get what I want.

If you want more details, e-mail me.

Arnon

I wasn't judging the person Coetzee, or his work. In fact I never read him, so I couldn't.
My comments were only about the quote. Apologies for not being clear on that.

Hotels and guns

Dens I hope you are all right. I didn't know there were guns in hotels for beach holidays. There is something else I don't understand. You have a contract, haven't you? Then you have insurance, haven't you? Some doctor should look at your wound very soon.

I bought Coetzee today. I can't wait to start reading but I have to finish Emma first. Democracy is a totalitarian system but a nice totalitarian system. At least government changes every X years. But you can't live outside the system. You're always part of it. If you want or not.

Yes, I do have a contract. But I would've had to pay on arrival, and I don't have that kind of cash at night. And I have to wait to my return to Belgium to claim my insurance money, So I'm temporarily poorer.

Why guns at Beach Resorts? I provide a daily rifle shooting activity for all adult guests. But in the night we put the guns backstage. Guns are freely available in Turkey as well.

It is easy to agree with Karel van het Reve who said that books are written to be read without an explanation. It is also easy to agree with the corollary that secondary literature should be read with distrust (i'm quoting you now)

But what to do if you read a book and come to the conclusion that you didn't understand it at all? Is there a solution other than just sticking to Donald Duck magazine?

Unfortunately it's not like physics or maths where you don't need to understand how a theory was proved to be able to use it. I never read the original work of Gödel or Turing, but I know the consequences of their theories because others have explained it in a way I understand. That's enough.

If you depend on others to explain what a book is really about, then you're treating it as science. Literature is not science.

(Dens: I'm glad to hear that you're ok)

I won't pretend I know what this book is about. I 've just finished it, but somehow I am under the impression he is becoming the memory (by his old age) and the conscience of the western world.

Tjitze

But you would agree that reasonable people might disagree about what exactly happened in a story, whether the story is fiction or not does not matter, wouldn’t you?

@ Dens
You are shot by an air gun pellet, I assume. See a doctor asap, the lead of the pellet can cause blood poisoning.
Never aim with guns is the first law of a shooter.

I'll be fine, really. Thank you all for caring. Led causes insanity, doens't it?