Agency and Disabled Bodies in Coetzee’s Slow Man
“Don’t take it personally, Margaret. You asked me a question, I am trying to give a truthful answer”
But Margaret does take it personally. “I’ll be on my way now”, she says. “Don’t get up, I’ll let myself out. Give me a call when you are ready to for human society again.
In this small instance, Paul Rayment, the protagonist of J.M. Coetzee’s Slow Man, has the unique opportunity to regain his sexual prowess and prove to Margaret that he is still the man she made love to when they were lovers in his post-amputee chapter of his life. What this represents for Paul is twofold- it can represent for Paul the possibility of assuring himself that while he is considered “disabled”, his sexual potency are very much what they were before the accident, assuring himself that he is still very much his hetero-normative self, while also giving him the agency to not have to prove it to himself or to Margaret, who represents his sex-life before the accident while also being a member of the able-bodied population, making his decision-making process, as oppose to what others expect from him, define his fate and how he will live.
The story of Slow Man reveals its ideas through both the construction of the text as well as the plot. It makes so much sense for the story to begin with the accident that debilitates Paul, making him lose his right leg. The whole narrative is not about an able-bodied man who loses an element of himself that soon makes him dis-abled, then regains his status as able-bodied, but more about its opposite; it’s about man who has his own convictions, flawed as they may be, and live by them, even though the identity that was placed one him by others in regards to his appearance has now changed from able-bodied, to non-able bodied. This is most evident when we see Paul not only embrace his authority as a man who possesses a body, regardless of its condition, but demands to be heard. This act of making his voice heard represents an agency that he possesses and is making that he does not lose since it now that he, according to everyone, is not the man he once was.
A big issue in the disabled community is the significance and value of the prosthesis- a term known as “Super-crip” is used to signify someone who is disabled but has been placed or paired with a type of extension of the body that allows him/her to not only have something to compensate for what is lacking according to the able-bodied physiology, but also gives a type of ability that does more than make up for it. Several examples include the cochlear implant, prosthetic legs designed for track and field athletes, and bicycles with pedals designed to be operated by the arms. When Paul is presented with the opportunity to have a prosthetic leg, his response is “I would prefer to take care of myself”. This type of phrasing allows Coetzee to open up the possibility of Paul either wishing to reject the notion of becoming what the doctor’s what him to be or embracing the new politic of his body; whichever the case, it is Paul making the decision.
We also see how the relationships between Paul and female characters explore where his agency is present regarding him new form. The process when finding a day-nurse becomes demeaning as it is exhausting. It is Marijana who not condescending, not belittling, and especially not disrespectful. Also, When Elizabeth Costello, yes, that wonderful character Coetzee like to use again and again, offers Paul to come live with her. His decline is not out of spite, out of bitterness, or anything of the sort. It is out of Paul’s dedication to himself and his understanding of what it is to live, even if it means not having two legs, just like everyone else. His admission to Elizabeth when he says, “No…this is not love. This is something else. Something less” signifies Paul’s embrace of what is ahead of him as who he is, instead of being supported by someone who feels prepared to be his metaphorical nurse.
With the lens of disabilities studies, it is not about what Paul sees when instances of dependence are placed on him, but his perspective as someone who will live with the decisions he will make; whether or not he has his new condition in mind is not relevant, nor should we expect it, since it is Paul who will decide to live with those decisions. Instead of seeing Paul recover, he must rehabilitate his new body so he can live with it, rather than in spite of it.
A Conversation between J.M. Coetzee and I
(disclaimer: this is entirely fiction. I am in not any way connected to J.M. Coetzee nor have I ever met him. This is a completely made up instance about my introduction and encounter with his novel, Disgrace.)
Me: You know, John, I got to be honest. I read Elizabeth Costello, and, you know what? I really didn’t like it. It was just so bland and pedantic. I felt like I got to know who Elizabeth was, but there really wasn’t a type of storytelling going on. It just kinda seemed like I was reading words on a page. It didn’t really feel like I was reading a novel.
Him: I see, so you want things like prose, drama, rising action, and the like, right? Is that what you’re saying.
Me: Well…um…yeah.
Him: Okay. (reaches into his satchel, and hands me a copy of Disgrace) Here you go, and you’re welcome in advance.
The End
Elizabeth Costello and the Passage that Shook My Bones
The first boat leaves after breakfast. The approach to the landing is difficult, through thick beds of kelp and across shelving rock. In the end, one of the sailors has to half help her ashore, half carry her, as if she were an old woman. The sailor has blue eyes, blonde hair. Through his waterproofs she feels his youthful strength. In his arms she rides as safe as a baby. ‘Thank you!’ she says gratefully when he sets her down; but to him it is nothing, just a service he is paid dollars to do, no more personal than the service of a hospital nurse. (pg 55)
After reading this passage, with the context of the previous material, this passage made me stop reading. I was not confused, not driven to decipher this prose, nothing of the sort; it serves as a microcosm for human relations in post modern world.
Elizabeth Costello asks, not with grace, but while being stuck in a metaphorical subway of ideas, what is the role of reason in the 21st Century. The text challenges the status quo, its importance and why we have it in the first place, metanarratives, or stories that use as histories of the world in order to make sense of it, and the space that exists inside groups of people and towards others, such as between race, gender, and educational background. While this quote does not necessarily address these issues, what struck me was how, in such a short moment, two people can be introduced to each other in such an intimate way, learn about each other, than, as both readers and in the way characters do, the situation is dismissed without consideration of the situation. My question is this: What does this say about us?
As Coetzee addresses how literature and literary studies fit in our present time, mentioning canonical writers such as Kafka and Faulkner, there is also the question of where what those writers tried to represent in their time and its relevance today. What does literature look like in the 21st Century? Are ideals and values like chivalry and universal truths authors wrote about centuries ago really dead, or did we choose to do away from them. The situation between Elizabeth and the sailor presents an opportunity where values like compassion and goodwill can be present, but instead. it becomes a transaction instead of an act of kindness. Is that what post-modernity has brought us?
I think about this, and contrast it to Coetzee’s other works, like the ambivalence of Magda in In the Heart of the County, and the destructive environment that tries to empower Michael K. What kind of world is Coetzee trying to paint? If this is what he thinks is left of us?
In regards to nurses, nursing is one of the top ten careers where people are the happiest, according to the most recent Forbes list of The 10 Happiest Jobs in America. Does Coetzee think that nursing is also very much a career where people just do their job and is absent of any type of interpersonal value, and/or is it simply like any other job that people do solely to make a living? Donna Cardillo, a Registered Nurse (RN) and keynote speaker for nurses, coined the phrase, “Nurses are the heart of healthcare”. I remember trips to the doctor- nurses play a vital role when it comes to consoling a patient or trying to get them at ease. Is that non-existent?
A lot of this is based on how we., essentially, view ourselves and how we treat others. That’s really where change or signs of humanity exist in the first place. Of course there will be nurses who aren’t as good as others, but does that mean we must accept it for what the worst shows us? If there needs to be change, in a post-modern world, where it affects us the most is not in books, but in the way we treat each other, because, really that’s all we got. We live in a world of the “written word”, meaning summation and history has permeated in every opinion that exists; the new is simply a product of the referenced world. What we are left with are the simplest of human interactions. This, ultimately, leaves us with the ability to change how things operate through our daily actions.
Did I go off on a tangent? Maybe, but then again, in a postmodern world, pattern is solely a construct that we made; what we can effectively change lies with that thing that defines humanity.
Where is it? I don’t know yet, but, then again, I haven’t finished reading all of Coetzee’s novels either.
Coetzee/Rubalcava 