breadforsong's review against another edition
2.0
Most of this book I didn't understand, and what I did understand disturbed me.
kk0sanda's review against another edition
I don’t feel like reading a white man’s perspective of South Africa.
serrasa's review against another edition
dark
emotional
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? N/A
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.0
scostner's review against another edition
1.0
I read this and several other books in an "Intro to World Novels" class during my undergrad years. Of all the books on the required reading list, this was the one I disliked the most.
tsundoku281's review against another edition
4.0
Essentially 4.5 but Goodreads doesn't offer that like Letterboxd. Far more piercing on the soul/the eternal present versus the fantasy of being historicised and embedded in the past than any other Coetzee novel much more disturbing and complex.
edgeworth's review against another edition
1.0
For a 139-page novella this was a hell of a slog. I’ve always found Coetzee, for a Nobel Prize winner and a man very clearly smarter than the rest of us, to be a surprisingly accessible writer: his prose is crisp, clear and concise. In The Heart of the Country, his second novel, this is unfortunately not so. It tales place on an isolated farmstead on the South African veldt, the narrator a young woman whose father is having an affair with the wife of his black farmhand. The novel’s style has a dreamy, unreal aspect to it, often bordering on stream of consciousness, and it can be difficult to tell what’s real and what’s a daydream or a fantasy. I hugely admire Coetzee as a writer, but as I said, this one was a slog.
veranasi's review against another edition
4.0
If you like depressing and dark fiction about colonial South Africa, then read this. If you like quasi-experimental/poetic prose, then also read this. If you are not keen on either, then find something else. This novel is tense, and never ceases in its tautness.