03/01/2018
…Coetzee is as perspicacious and erudite a guide as one could hope for. His biographical sketches of the life and times of the authors he addresses are excellent, concretely informative while also marbled with interesting tidbits…But the meat of Coetzee's overviews can be found in other good introductions by other critics. What can't be found anywhere else, where Coetzee is unparalleled, is his ability to capture the psychology of individual characters, to lay bare the inner working of their minds, and in so doing bring to light the source of their enduring interest to readers…Late Essays is filled with many moments of…perfect insight, moments when the reader is left enthralled by Coetzee's powers of perception…In these essays, Coetzee is doing for the writers who came before him what I imagine he hopes will be done for him by the writers who will follow. He is gravedigging, with probity, with the greatest reverence for the craft they share, and in this way is saying thank you in the only way one writer can really say it to another, which is by writing about them well.
The New York Times Book Review - Benjamin Ogden
10/30/2017
Coetzee is as perspicacious and erudite a guide as on could hope for. His biographical sketches of the life and times of the authors he addresses are excellent, concretely informative while also marbled with interesting tidbits . . . What can’t be found anywhere else, where Coetzee is unparalleled, is his ability to capture the psychology of individual characters, to lay bare the inner working of their minds, and in doing so bring to light the source of their enduring interest to readers.”—New York Times Book Review Publishers Weekly Booklist (starred)BookPage “With wondering intelligence and a deep understanding of history, Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee (Disgrace ) tackles literary classics and lesser-known works in Late Essays . . . By focusing the mysterious inspirations of so many luminary authors, Coetzee has made his Late Essays into a vibrant and inquisitive work of literary criticism.”—Shelf Awareness —The Weekly Standard Library Journal The Schooldays of Jesus , 2017, etc.) offers another collection of reflective and erudite essays on a variety of poets and novelists . . . Thought-provoking essays that offer more than mere opinion, as the author plumbs the writers' philosophical and psychological depths.”—Kirkus Review The New York Times Book Review ‟[Coetzee] is probably the only Nobel laureate to write so extensively about his peers . . . and he is happily unrestrained by mere collegiality.” —New York Sun
2017-10-17
