The Slow Philosophy of J. M. Coetzee

Wilm uniquely argues that philosophical character is not merely inherent in Coetzee’s work in an explicit sense, but that it emerges in the reading. Central to his aesthetic is slowness, which makes his works to Wilm a philosophical oeuvre. He describes writing as a slow, steady back and forth, a throwing oneself into the writing and then a stepping back. This study explores how Coetzee’s highly elusive as well as highly allusive works create two antipodes in the act of reading, between familiarizing and defamiliarizing, and how this fluctuation gives rise to a productive slowness in reading. Annotation ©2016 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)