Age Of Iron

AGE OF IRON

by J.M. Coetzee

 

Award: Nobel Prize Winner 1991


Nomination: LA Times Finalist 1991

 

Date Read: August 22, 2021

 

If I had to describe this novel in one word it would be despair. Mrs. Curran, a retired schoolteacher, is dying from cancer. From page 1 she is aware of her impending death and this is the lens through which she sees everything and everyone around her. She continuously tries on different ideas of how to go – should her death mean something? Should she go out in one brave act? Should she vanish quietly like a bubble popping on the surface of a pond?

 

Mrs. Curran finds Vercueil sleeping in her courtyard and rather than tossing him back out onto the street, she tolerates his being there. Over the course of time, she forms a relationship with him and looks out for him. Mostly silent, Mr. Vercueil reveals very little about himself and his past. As Mrs. Curran’s health continues to deteriorate, he becomes her caregiver and receiver of her past, her thoughts and a prized letter to her American daughter that the majority of this novel is spent composing.

 

With nothing left to lose and no ego to protect, the reality of the anti-apartheid movement is revealed to her. She is shocked at the injustice, the violence and the cheapness of life. Her own unwitting participation in this system occurs to her and she is faced with her privilege in growing up so innocently while the black youth of Africa are in a life and death fight. This generation is made of iron. 

 

But the most magical part of this is the strange and twisted relationship between Curran and Vercueil. This vagrant who comes and goes as he pleases but always seems to return. As much as Curran believes she is helping him, she comes to realize that they are helping each other. The most beautiful part is the ending, an embrace that ends all embraces, even if it isn’t an embrace of love.

 

And for so many reasons Coetzee won the Nobel and here’s just one more glimpse of why: “…let there still be, to the last, gratitude, unbounded, heartfelt gratitude, for having been granted a spell in this world of wonders.”

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