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Viewing report
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The Silence of the Suffering Body. Edition No. 1
VDM Publishing House, Aug 2008, Pages: 92
J.M. Coetzee once said: The standard is the body.
Whatever else, the body is not 'that which is not',
and the proof that it is is the pain that it feels.
[...] it is not that one grants authority to the
suffering body: the suffering body takes this
authority: that is its power. Using this statement
as a departure point this book examines how the
suffering body functions as a deconstructive trope
in J.M. Coetzee’s novels Waiting for the Barbarians
and Age of Iron. It has been argued that it is
impossible to find a space outside discourse where
one can create a true counter-discursive narrative.
However, this reading claims that the trope of the
suffering body acts as counter-discourse regardless
of these issues because its efforts rest not on
language, but on silence. The study makes use of a
deconstructive theoretical basis and narrative
analysis to refute previous claims both within the
critical reception of J.M. Coetzee’s works and
within the field of post-colonial studies. The study
should be of interest to anyone who is
looking for an original approach to one of the most
complex and critically acclaimed authors of our time.
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