Usually when I sit down to read a J. M. Coetzee book, I clear a few hours because I know I’m not going to be able to get up out of the chair until I’m completely finished. After reading Mark Sarvas’ review, which trumpeted, “easily Coetzee’s most affecting and fully wrought work since Disgrace,” I knew this would be the case.

But … Diary of a Bad Year was actually nothing like I expected. Was it disturbingly well written? Yes. Compelling and thought provoking? Absolutely. But a grab-you-by-the-stomach, heart-wrenching, can’t-get-out-of-the-chair read? No.

Diary of a Bad Year brilliantly interweaves three different story lines side-by side on the page. The basic premise is that an aging novelist is asked by a German publishing house to write a series of “strong opinions” on anything he chooses. After meeting a hot, young Filipino woman who lives in the penthouse with a big, fat investment banker, the writer decides to try getting close to her in his old man way by asking her to transcribe his essays. The top of each page features a strong opinion, below it narration from the author, and below that narration from the typist. Because this is difficult to explain, I’ve included a diagram here to help.

The brilliance is, of course, that the structure makes you try out reading the book in a million different ways. At first I began reading each page straight down: opinion, narration 1, narration 2, opinion, narration 1, narration 2 … but soon found myself getting a bit confused and forgetting what the opinion was about and getting too wrapped up in the narration. Then one night I found myself reading the author narration voraciously straight through the entire book without stopping. I finally settled on reading the strong opinion in each section first, then reading the narrations in the hope that this reading style would allow me to better absorb the connections between the philosophy and the story.

This is definitely a book that deserves a second read through to fully absorb all the connections and thought lines. But the essays are often brilliant; the author’s insights into civil society in the first sections are particular gems. And the story line that accompanies them is intriguing–particularly when you’re given insights into the typists past. Although I’d by lying if I didn’t say that I wondered “is that it?” when the story of the author and the typist finally came to the end.

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