Book Review: Waiting For the Barbarians By J.M. Coetzee

 

This was a brutal book. It is so brutally honest, in fact, that somehow, it winds up being a beautiful, as well as very important, book.

In fact, I am not sure that I ever read anything that made the horrors of colonialism come alive as much as this. That includes historical accounts, which of course are based on facts. This book never mentions where the location is, other than some generalities that this outpost is on the edge of an unnamed Empire, and that it is basically in a harsh, desert landscape. 

Yet despite the lack of actual facts, or even specifics about any kind of real location, this book feels very real. In fact, the absence of any specifics, in this case, makes this book feel, if anything, even more relevant. It could be just some imaginary Empire in the fictional world that J.M. Coetzee creates for us. Or, it could be modeled on what happened somewhere in the British Empire. Or the French Empire. Or the Spanish Empire. Or the empires belonging to the Portuguese, or the Dutch, or the German, or even some other empire somewhere. 

At the start of the book, we are in the midst of an interview between two men. There is an old man, the Magistrate. who has long been in charge of this outpost, and he is talknig with Colonel Joll, the new guy in town who intends to root out the "barbarians," who pose a threat to the Empire. The presence of these revolting barbarians is news to the magistrate, but Colonel Joll is quite adamant that the threat is real, and that he fully intends to do whatever he has to do to smoke them out and extinguish the threat which he insists that they pose.

The Magistrate is paying attention, yet he is also quite taken by Colonel Joll's sunglasses. We get the sense that sunglasses are a new invention, and have not been widely seen. We definitely get a sense of symbolism here, that Joll sees a different world through these glasses than the magistrate does without any sunglasses. It skews how Joll sees the world, and makes him appear less human. Maybe it makes him act less human, as well.

Joll's tactics are brutal. He is in the business of hunting the "barbarians," whom he insists are fomenting an organized rebellion against the Empire. He intends to apply pressure, as he puts it, in order to squash it. But the Magistrate sees trouble. He knows only the old, traditional ways in which colonial affairs had been conducted prior to the arrival of Joll and his new forces. He suspects that this level of brutality is unnecessary and likely to be counterproductive. That far from stabilizing the situation, it will in fact only serve to antagonize the barbarians, and indeed make enemies of them, that they will suddenly have good reason to turn against the Empire. This difference of opinion eventually causes so much friction that, towards the end of the book, the Magistrate himself loses his official authority and suffers torture. At first, it is under the pretense of obtaining information concerning his knowledge of and links to the barbarians. Towards the end, however, it is simply out of anger and vindictiveness. 

Colonel Joll's suspicion that the Magistrate has some secretive links to the barbarians, and is possibly working in collusion with them to undermine the Empire (and Joll's efforts to suppress them) comes after the Magistrate makes a trip to return an unnamed barbarian girl whom the Magistrate had a very strange relationship with that underscored his own impotence. The desire is at times there, and at times absent. He has had plenty of local women at this outpost, but this girl is different. Indeed, some of his feelings towards her resembles love, yet it also resembles something else, something very different. But he decides it would be best to return this girl, who suffered terrible torture by Joll and his forces, back to her barbarian tribe. When the Magistrate gets back, he finds that Joll has taken over all authority at the outpost, and this is where the Magistrate is subjected to the torture.

Throughout the entire book, these new developments in this colonial outpost at the edge of the Empire turn it from a sleepy community to one that feels on the edge of becoming mere history. Now, the barbarians really do have a reason to organize and cast the outsiders away, to throw them out of their country and re-establish home rule. Apart from the demons of his own past, and recognizing that, to the barbarians, he is every bit as much of an abuser as Joll and his brutal forces, the Magistrate also recognizes and understands that he is now living at this outpost as almost assuredly the last Magistrate for the soon to be departed Empire.

This is not a pretty or even a pleasing read. In fact, it starts off grim, and just grows more and more depressing as you continue to read. There is a reason why I used the word "brutal" twice in just the first paragraph (which I only noticed later, but decided to keep in the description). 

Highly recommended!