ABSTRACT
J. M. Coetzee turns to the wound, lays it bare, "works from it", asserts the need to expose oneself to it as fully as possible. In the case of Michael K, Coetzee does not blur the line between madness and passion but combines passion with effacement and inarticulacy, bringing out the dimension of passivity inherent in passion. Michael K seems intent on saving a connection with the earth without using it in a certain way—and being used by the same means: critics have emphasised how this "idea of gardening" buries the mother's dream of the farm, an idealisation masking the fact she was a servant there. The record of Michael's stay at the camp dramatises the torments endured by a man who tries to come to terms with the meaning of an encounter that has opened his eyes and yet left him in the dark.
