104: Waiting for the Barbarians by J.M. Coetzee
It’s the perfect time to read or reread J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians. This short and immensely readable novel was written in 1980 by the South African author before the end of apartheid, but pondering the definition and impacts of empire, the balance of individual and state sovereignty, and the difference between implicit and explicit forms of control are no less relevant today.
The story itself is told from the perspective of an unambitious magistrate stationed in a quiet frontier outpost who finds his world turned upside down by the rumor of an imminent barbarian invasion.
Topics of discussion include:
The obvious allegory (wait is it so obvious?)
A lesson for how to exist justly in a world of laws
The significance of that peculiar intimate relationship
Torture as a symbol
Quite the book, and quite the episode. We hope you enjoy it.
