The Grounds of Cynical Self-Doubt: J.M. Coetzee's Boyhood, Youth and Summertime

Abstract

In this article, I argue that J.M. Coetzee's autobiographical trilogy can be read as a set of texts in which the author responds to the problem of cynical self-doubt, as it is described in Coetzee's writings on confession from the mid-1980s. Against Derek Attridge's critical view of the relation between Coetzee's autobiographies and these early writings, I argue that Coetzee's texts do not passively abide by the author's early scepticism, but rather inspect the grounds of cynical self-doubt and show its position to be intellectually confused. I specifically demonstrate that Coetzee's texts present cynical self-doubt as an intellectualisation of akratic failure (weakness of will). The texts not only analyse the crisis from which cynical self-doubt emerges, but also try to look beyond a sceptical perspective. With this in mind, this article will read Coetzee's autobiographies as writings that "aspire to a condition of gossip". In this aspiration, the autobiographies point to an ethic of assent they themselves cannot yet fully inhabit.

Opsomming
In hierdie artikel voer ek aan dat J.M. Coetzee se outobiografiese trilogie gelees kan word as 'n stel tekste waarin die auteur 'n antwoord bied op die probleem van siniese selftwyfel soos dit voorkom in sy werke oor belydenis sedert die middel-tagtigerjare. Teenoor Derek Attridge se interpretasie van die verhouding tussen Coetzee se outobiografiee en sy vroee kritiese werke, voer ek aan dat die outobiografiee die skeptiese twyfel nie sondermeer aanvaar nie maar poog om die gronde daarvan te ondersoek en dit as intellektueel verward uitwys. Ek toon spesifiek aan dat Coetzee se tekste 'n intellektualisasie van akratiese mislukking (swakheid van die wil) voorstel.Ek stel dat siniese selftwyfel in die outobiografiee ontmasker word as synde 'n rasionalisering van wilswakheid. Die tekste poog nie slegs om die krisis wat spruit uit die skeptiese twyfel op genealogiese wyse aan die lig te bring nie, maar ook om verby die skeptiese perspektief te kyk. So lees ek dan Coetzee se outobiografiee as tekste wat aspireer om 'n skinderdiskoers te wees. Hierdeur wys die tekste heen na 'n etiek van bewilliging wat hulle self nie ten voile kan beliggaam nie.