J. M. Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for literature, has written a fascinating new novel, “Diary of a Bad Year.” When I first saw the form of the book, I groaned. The page is divided into two (later three) parts, each separated by a horizontal line. The top portion consists of a series of connected brief essays by the novel’s narrator, a fictional famous writer. The essays, readers learn, are to be released by a German publisher in a book titled “Strong Opinions,” which will include contributions from five well-known authors.

The narrator of the novel, who signs himself “JC” in notes and is called “Seňor C” by the novel’s other main character, Anya, who is typing his manuscript, happens to be the author of a novel called “Waiting for the Barbarians,” which is also the title of Coetzee’s Nobel Prize winning book. The narrator also happens to be close to Coetzee’s age, although six years older, and, like Coetzee, was born in South Africa but moved to Australia. Once again, as with works by Philip Roth and other writers, readers find themselves in a land of confusion between fiction and nonfiction.

When I first opened the book, I worried that the top section of each page would be dry and overly pedantic, a chore to read. The topics range widely: from political theory, history, politics, pop culture, mathematics, animal rights, pedophilia, the art of writing, personal memories, compassion, boredom and aging. His opinions turn out to be sharp, thoughtful and original, and they display the complex nature of the narrator/author’s highly intelligent mind.
The opinions may also serve as a response to critics who deplore Coetzee’s past reluctance to speak out on public and private topics. Yet, in a note to Anya, JC warns, “Tread carefully … You may be seeing less of my inmost depths than you believe.”

At times, it is tempting to skip or skim these top sections out of eagerness to read the lower parts, which contain the emotional heart of the novel. It is Anya, the “quite startling young woman” who JC meets in the laundry room of the large apartment building where they both live, who catches the narrator’s (and reader’s) attention and becomes his obsession. He is an aging, ailing, celebrated writer who lives alone. JC notes of Anya: “She has black black hair, shapely bones” and “a certain golden glow to her skin.” “As I watched her, an ache, a metaphysical ache, crept over me that I did nothing to stem. And in an intuitive way she knew about it, knew that in the old man in the plastic chair in the corner there was something personal going on, something to do with age and regret and the tears of things.”

Anya has been living for three years with Alan, a 40-ish (10 years her senior), thoroughly modern, practical, cynical, jealous and possibly corrupt technocrat and investor. The couple lives in one of the more elegant apartments at the top of the building. Anya is very aware of her effect on men: “As I pass him (JC), carrying the laundry basket, I make sure I waggle my behind, my delicious behind, sheathed in tight denim. If I were a man I would not be able to keep my eyes off me.” In the early part of the book, Anya seems a passive, rather simple flirt and tease, but we learn in the course of the novel that there is much more to her.

The book traces the evolution of the relations between its three main characters—their private thoughts, their conversations and letters, and how each is altered by their mutual relationships. Anya becomes aware of her strength and independence and makes the biggest external changes. Seňor C acknowledges, “What has begun to change since I moved into the orbit of Anya is not my opinions themselves so much as my opinion of my opinions.” He has softened. His compassion and vulnerability are more evident.

Coetzee is a notoriously private person, granting very few interviews or public appearances. Many have wondered why he left South Africa and became an Australian citizen. In this novel, it is hard to believe that the narrator’s comments on personal and political issues (e.g. his harsh views of Tony Blair, George Bush and John Howard) are not also those of the author. But Coetzee is a very sly and skillful writer. He has used personae before, even in his Nobel Prize address, when he spoke in the persona of Robinson Crusoe as an old man living in the southwest of England

The novel’s structure captures and illustrates Coetzee’s own duality. He is a man of reason, logic and analytical skills, and an artist with great passion and imagination.
Why the title, “Diary of a Bad Year?”  Perhaps it indicates the narrator/author’s recognition that the thoughts and obsessions of one period in his life are only temporary. The experiences of a lifetime teach us that another year or month or day can bring an entirely different mood and set of concerns.

“Diary of a Bad Year” shows Coetzee in top form—clever, wise, caustic, serious yet playful, and more available to the reader than in past novels. He is one of our great writers.