The Pole : a novel /

Coetzee, a Nobel laureate and two-time winner of the Booker Prize, is one of the most critically acclaimed writers in the English language. His latest novel focuses on Beatriz, who is Spanish, approaching 50, and married, but no longer passionate with her husband; and Witold, a Polish concert pianist in his early seventies who performs at a recital in Barcelona. Over time, Beatriz and Witold have an affair. He confesses his love for her, but she is restrained and circumspect and their physical relationship quickly ends. Much later, Beatriz comes into possession of Witold's poetry, written for her in Polish. She hires a translator, interprets the poems, and searches for meaning by attempting to decode hidden messages. Captivated, she begins to write letters to Witold. Concepts of linguistics and the phenomenon of language are central as Beatriz interprets Witold's poems translated from Polish into Spanish that are then relayed to readers in English. Like Beatriz, readers might ask what is lost in translation, and what these gaps in understanding might reveal. Beatriz, once on the periphery of creative processes, is now immersed and perhaps even able to love more fully. Exquisitely elevating the fundamental influences of music and language, The Pole unequivocally affirms the often-enigmatic relationships among art, love, and human experience.

Nobel laureate Coetzee returns (after the Jesus trilogy) to the brevity of his earlier works in this rich and engrossing story of a brief love affair between a Polish pianist and a wealthy Spanish woman. Witold is in his 70s, "a relic of history," and has made a name for himself as a "controversial" interpreter of the works of his countryman Chopin. Beatriz is a banker's wife and a casual patron of the arts. The pair meet when Witold is invited to play for Beatriz's "Concert Circle" in Barcelona. What follows is a strange, lopsided entanglement: Witold is the pursuer, apparently consumed by an epic passion that makes sense only to him. Beatriz is initially bemused, later offended, and then suddenly amenable, a change of heart that leads to the lovers' only tryst: a few days spent together in Beatriz's husband's family vacation home in Mallorca. After Beatriz puts an end to the affair, she looks into her heart and finds "no dark residue: no regrets, no sorrow, no longing." Much is made of Witold's age and "deficiencies"; he's much more of a cipher than Beatriz, whose interior monologue readers are privy to. The prose is unornamented but nevertheless consistently incisive. Coetzee's ability to render the human condition in all its vagaries is as masterful as ever. (Sept.)

A droll novel that skips lightly across serious matters--art and death and love. There's a playfulness from the outset of this slim work by the Nobel Prize--winning Coetzee. "The woman is the first to give him trouble, followed soon afterwards by the man," it begins. The woman, we soon learn, is Beatriz, a board member of the music series that has brought the man to Barcelona. The man is the title character, a Polish pianist "whose name has so many w's and z's in it that no one on the board even tries to pronounce it--they refer to him simply as 'the Pole.' " Which leaves "him," and that would be the novelist, who presents himself as not creating these two characters but chronicling them, perhaps channeling them, as if they have hearts of their own. The pianist is known for his idiosyncratic readings of his countryman Chopin, though he falls well short of a virtuoso's renown. Just as he is not an extraordinary musician, she is not an extraordinary listener. She seems to be doing her civic duty, as some women of a certain age and income might. She will soon be turning 50; he's almost a quarter-century older. "Surely, at his age, he will not expect sex," she thinks, even before her obligatory first meeting with him, which appears inconsequential. But why is she even thinking of that? She is a married woman, though she and her husband pretty much lead separate, sexless lives. And when the Pole subsequently reveals that she has become his obsession, she isn't sure how she feels or how to respond. Why her? He seems to have something of a Dante-Beatrice fixation, and his obsession with her changes his life. And hers too. Love and art can do that. Coetzee seems to be having some compassionate fun, and so will the reader. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.