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Kai Wiegandt (Berlin) Kai Wiegandt (Berlin) J. M. COETZEE'S COMPLICATED MIGRATIONS In this artieie I read J. M. Coetzee's novel Slow Man as arefleetion on how nation­ ality infleets migrant identities and how migration ean result in a erippling of the seifthat the novel emblematieally duplieates in the amputation ofthe protagonist's leg after an aeeident. Diseussions of relevant passages from Coetzee's Diary 0/ a Bad Year and Here and Now eomplement my reading in whieh I show that Ray­ ment's life in Australia is presented as a seeond, redueed stage of his life, a meta­ phorieal afterlife. This afterlife is a dark reading of 'emigration', equating it with a erippling ofthe seifthat does not only involve the self's body but also, as the soli­ tary Rayment remarks, its soul. Rayment's insistenee on an authentie, eomplete body is motivated by the memory of his former body, while his yeaming for an 'authentie' horne is motivated by the memory of his early years in Franee. These yeamings are questioned by Marijana Jokic, an immigrant from Croatia who nurses the erippled Rayment and whose adviee that he use a prosthesis is in line with her view that identities - national, re1igious, even physieal- ean be rebuilt and ehanged. I show that Marijana and her family exhibit a eosmopolitanism that relies neither on the body nor on a notion of authentieity but remains haunted by the ghost of nation­ alism. Throughout my analysis I triangulate the novel's eompeting eoneepts of identity with Etienne Balibar's ideas on nationality and immigration to assess what is at stake in Coetzee's attempt to eomplieate the reader's notion of migration by teasing out ambivalenees ofthe migratory experienee. What does 'horne' mean for recent migrants in different parts of the world? Is it their place ofbirth, the displaced cultural community or the new nation­ state? The last twenty-five years have seen an increasing acceleration of glo­ balization that has transformed migration and notions of horne in ways not yet understood. At the same time, a heightened political concem for the larger economic and social impact of migration has tended to obscure the actual nature of the migratory experience itself, such as the emotions and practicalities of departure, travel, arrival and the attempt to rebuild ahorne. It is in contemporary literature that particularly rich and subtle explorations of emerging forms of migration and their effects on migrants' identities can be found. Since J. M. Coetzee's move to Australia in 2002, the South African-Aus­ tralian writer's fiction has been increasingly concemed with emigration, nationality and belonging. These issues were already pertinent in Youth Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 07:15:26PM via free access 146 Kai Wiegandt (2002), in which the South African protagonist John emigrates to London and eventually moves to the United States. Elizabeth Costello (2003) deals with an Australian writer who unceasingly travels around the world giving lectures. Slow Man (2005) addresses migration and national identity most explicitly: its protagonist Paul Rayment is born in France, emigrates to Aus­ tralia at the age of six and returns to his country of birth as an adolescent before re-emigrating to Australia. The protagonist of Diary of a Bad Year (2007), JC, has emigrated to Australia, and questions of nationhood often crop up in the essays and conversations of the novel. In Here and Now (2013), his exchange of letters with Paul Auster, Coetzee addresses ques­ tions of linguistic and national identity. Coetzee's recent novel The Child­ hood of Jesus (2013) features a man and a boy who arrive in an unknown, possibly otherworldly, city and try to find ahorne there. In the present article I read Slow Man as a reflection on how nationality inflects migrant identities and how migration can result in a crippling of the self that the novel emblematically duplicates in the amputation of the pro­ tagonist's leg. Discussions of relevant passages from Diary of a Bad Year, Here and Now and The Childhood ofJesus complement my reading of Slow Man, the story of Paul Rayment, a 60-year-old citizen of Adelaide, which beg ins when he is thrown off his bike in an accident. A leg has to be ampu­ tated, and the novel henceforth deals with Rayment's coping with this loss which does not only immobilize hirn but makes hirn gradually lapse into general neediness, astate in which his yearnings for the lost integrity of his body and for ahorne reinforce each other. Hope arrives in the guise ofMari­ jana Jokic, a resolute and vivacious Croatian-born nurse who takes care of Rayment. Marijana finds Rayment's yearnings understandable but of little help and ultimately unnecessary. Her advice that he use a prosthesis is in line with her view that identities - national, religious, even physical - can be rebuilt and changed. The protagonists' diverging views on identity are put to the test when Rayment falls in love with the married Marijana, and when the well-known Australian novelist Elizabeth Costello, titular heroine of Coet­ zee's previous novel, suddenly appears on his doorstep one-third into the novel. Costello does not move from Rayment's side, gives unwelcome advice and sets up a tryst with a second, false Marianna (note the different spelling). Rayment, who peeks into the notebooks Costello keeps on his life, discovers that Costello is in fact writing his life as she goes along - a meta­ fictional migration of Rayment to the literary realm which renders his iden­ tity even more precarious. Determined not to be Costello's puppet, Rayment continues pursuing Marijana, but eventually settles for becoming her son's godfather and benefactor. In order to bond with the boy named Drago, Ray­ ment intro duces hirn to his valuable collection of photographs depicting life Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 07:15:26PM via free access J. M. Coetzee's Complicated Migrations 147 in early Melbourne and on the goldfields - to the effeet that Drago replaees one ofthe pietures with a forged eopy and uploads a digitally doetored ver­ sion ofthe photograph on his website. As I will show, Marijana and her fam­ ily exhibit a eosmopolitanism that relies neither on the body nor on a notion of authentieity but remains haunted by the ghost of nationalism. Throughout my analysis I triangulate the novel's eompeting eoneepts of identity with Etienne Balibar's ideas on nationality and immigration to assess what is at stake in Coetzee's attempt to eomplieate the reader's notion ofmigration by teasing out ambivalenees of the migratory experienee. Photography and Authentieity Slow Man's sustained referenees to photography and the role of Rayment's eolleetion of photographs offer a good starting point for an analysis of the relationship between nationality and identity in the novel. The photographs were taken by Antoine Fauehery (1827-1861), a Freneh writer and photog­ rapher who sailed to Australia in 1852 and 1857 and worked in and near Melbourne for several years as a gold-digger and as a photographer. 1 Ray­ ment's insistenee on ownership ofthe 'true' Fauehery eonstitutes one of sev­ eral interrelated realms in whieh Rayment's yearning to find ahorne is invested and negotiated. Donald Powers sees the funetion ofthe photographs in highlighting the contrast between Rayment seeking identity in clinging to an 'authentie' origin and past and the Joki6 family's more flexible, eosmo­ politan view of identity. Rather than representing an authentie origin, the Fauehery photographs demonstrate how the past, in the form of a static image, is open to different interpretations in the present. This eonstrueted nature ofphotographie 'authentieity' is already hinted at by the name Faueh­ ery whieh resembles the Freneh wordfaux and the English 'forgery'. Sinee the historieal Fauehery must be seen as a model for Rayment - both were photographers, both emigrated to Australia twiee -, the reader is also invited to note that the name Rayment is not only close to the Freneh vraiment but also to the English 'raiment' whieh eoneeals rather than bares. It is not alto­ gether surprising, then, that Rayment's desire for an 'authentie' photograph soon runs into eontradietions. While Rayment insists that Drago has stolen his Fauehery photographs and wants them back, he pretends to be only the temporary eustodian ofthe Fauehery eolleetion and denies his claim to own­ ership. Elizabeth Costello debunks Rayment's pretension that he just guards I See "Fauchery, Antoine", in: Australian Dictionary 0/ Biography, vol. 4, Melboume: Melboume University Press, 1972. Downloaded from Brill.com10/03/2021 07:15:26PM via free access 148 Kai Wiegandt photos for the sake of national history: he does it also to establish a relation­ ship with Drago and his family,2 and that is something entirely different from his desired affiliation with the Australian nation by bequeathing the "Ray­ ment Bequest" (p. 49)3 to the State Library of Adelaide. The photos are Rayment's attempt at creating a mutual past of immigra­ tion for the Joki6s and hirnself, an unacknowledged nesting on Rayment's part in a family held together by primary identities: the community of the family itself, heredity, ethnicity, etc. It is a strategic attempt to affiliate him­ self with the nation that proves too weak to 'Australianize' hirn - to break down primary identities in order to define a particular identity and to offer hirn ahorne. Rayment yeams for such national affiliation but also senses that it cannot be had without letting the nation manipulate his innermost self. As Etienne Balibar argues, national identity is a secondary identity, whereas gender and race are primary identities that constitute anthropological differ­ ences.
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