Diary: J. M. Coetzee, (1) Mother Tongue

https://books.substack.com/p/diary-j-m-coetzee-1-mother-tongue

by Caiero • 1 year ago

22 7 1 year ago

books.substack.com

JSR_FDED• 1 year ago

It’s weird how people let themselves be defined by their mother tongue. I consider it a plus that I grew up speaking one language at home and then had to learn English. Each gives you a different perspective.

noduerme• 1 year ago

Coetzee is an amazing writer, and it's fascinating to read his dissection of how he views languages and his own mixed / outside background. Notably, here, he is quite clear that he identifies as living outside all established English canon, but he specifies that he also does not embrace the term "global south" (nor should he, being published in SA, Australia and Argentina).

This article embodies the sense of a person who is in many ways a passenger of his century and who has done great work trying to explain how one works it out as an individual. Explaining a sense of alienation to people on the level of his literature is a lot more valuable than possessing social media worthy opinions about it. The great among us are the people who spend their lives juggling unfixed and uncertain identities. The quickest way to be lazy is to be sure that you know who you are based on where or how or what you were born as.

nroets• 1 year ago

"suddenly powerless Anglo minority". That's just factually incorrect when you look at who controlled the businesses in South African at that stage: Many prominent blue blooded Englishmen. And also Oppenheimers and Ackersmans who were of Jewish decent but identified as Anglo.

Anglo schools and universities thrived.

Englishmen could vote etc.

SideburnsOfDoom2• 1 year ago

Political power was tightly held by the Afrikaners in the era of Apartheid South Africa, 1948 to 1990s.

But as you say, that did not mean that English speakers were "powerless". They were merely half a rung down on the apartheid social ladder. And still near the top.

Biologist123• 1 year ago

Afrikaners held political power, English-descendents economic power.

smitty1e• 1 year ago

What excellent prose. While enjoying this, one was an reminded of another master of English who was not a native speaker, Joseph Conrad: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Conrad

The other thing that comes to mind is how English relates to its cousin, German. The overlap remains, if you squint.

Diary: J. M. Coetzee, (1) Mother Tongue

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