Scenes From Provincial Life - J. M. Coetzee [170]
Because John Coetzee was not my prince. Finally I come to the point. If that was the question at the back of your mind when you came to Kingston – Is this going to be another of those women who mistook John Coetzee for their secret prince? – then you have your answer now. John was not my prince. Not only that: if you have been listening carefully you will have understood by now how very unlikely it was that he could have been a prince, a satisfactory prince, to any maiden on earth.
You don’t agree? You think otherwise? You think the fault lay with me, not with him – the fault, the deficiency? Well, cast your mind back to the books he wrote. What is the one theme that keeps recurring from book to book? It is that the woman doesn’t fall in love with the man. The man may or may not love the woman; but the woman never loves the man. What do you think that theme reflects? My guess, my highly informed guess, is that it reflects his life experience. Women didn’t fall for him – not women in their right senses. They inspected him, they sniffed him, maybe they even tried him out. Then they moved on.
They moved on as I did. I could have remained in Tokai, as I said, in the Snow White role. As an idea it was not without its seductions. But in the end I did not. John was a friend to me during a rough patch in my life, he was a crutch I sometimes leant on, but he was never going to be my lover, not in the real sense of the word. For real love you need two full human beings, and the two need to fit together, to fit into each other. Like Yin and Yang. Like an electrical plug and an electrical socket. Like male and female. He and I didn’t fit.
Believe me, over the course of the years I have given plenty of thought to John and his type. What I am going to tell you now I offer with due consideration, and I hope without animus. Because, as I said, John was important to me. He taught me a lot. He was a friend who remained a friend even after I broke up with him. When I felt low I could always rely on him to joke with me and lift my spirits. He raised me once to unexpected erotic heights – once only, alas! But the fact is, John wasn’t made for love, wasn’t constructed that way – wasn’t constructed to fit into or be fitted into. Like a sphere. Like a glass ball. There was no way to connect with him. That is my conclusion, my mature conclusion.
Which may not come as a surprise to you. You probably think it holds true for artists in general, male artists: that they aren’t built for what I am calling love; that they can’t or won’t give themselves fully for the simple reason that there is a secret essence of themselves they need to preserve for the sake of their art. Am I right? Is that what you believe? Do I believe that artists aren’t built for love? No. Not necessarily. I try to keep an open mind on the subject.
Well, you can’t keep your mind open indefinitely, not if you mean to get your book written. Consider. Here we have a man who, in the most intimate of human relations, cannot connect, or can connect only briefly, intermittently. Yet how did he make a living? He made a living writing reports, expert reports, on intimate human experience. Because that is what novels are about – isn’t it? – intimate experience. Novels as opposed to poetry or painting. Doesn’t that strike you as odd?
[Silence.]
I have been very open with you, Mr Vincent. For instance, the Schubert business: I never told anyone about that before you. Why not? Because I thought