''I speak with the Voice of Things to Come'': Reading ''The Vietnam Project'' Today

Abstract

In this article I argue that a rereading of "The Vietnam Project" allows us to explore the varied functions of what has been dubbed ·war-porn" in relation to global image consumption then (with respect to Vietnam) and now (with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan). From renewed interest in depictions of torture in Waiting for the Barbarians to acknowledging swipes at the Bush and Blair administrations in Diary of a Bad Year, recent Coetzee scholarship has been enlivened by debates clustered around the most recent wounding of the American body politic: 9/11. By analysing an earlier piece, which is preoccupied with a conflict for which the wound emerged as the defining trope, I consider the prophetic power of "The Vietnam Project". I argue that it makes for compelling reading owing to issues such as wounding, trauma, war, its mediatisation, and the associated discourses that continue to haunt the American popular and political imagination.

Opsomming
In hierdie artikel voer ek aan dat mens by die herlees van "The Vietnam Project" verskeie funksies van wat "oorlogspornografie" genoem word, kan verken met betrekking tot die wereldwye beeldverbruik van toe (met die Vietnamese oorlog) en van nou (met die oorlog in lrak en Afghanistan). Na hernieude belangstelling in die uitbeelding van marteling in Waiting for the Barbarians en die erkenning van kritiek op Bush en Blair in Diary of a Bad Year, was daar opnuut 'n opflikkering in die vakkundigheid oor J.M. Coetzee vanwee die debat oor die verwonding van die Amerikaanse politieke bestel: 9/11. Die profetiese krag van "The Vietnam Project" word in oenskou geneem aan die hand van 'n ontleding van een van Coetzee se vroeere werke oor konflik waarin die wond as die definierende troop te voorskyn tree. Ek voer verder aan dat "The Vietnam Project" 'n boeiende roman is oor verwonding, trauma, oorlog, die mediatisering daarvan en verwante diskoerse wat in die Amerikaanse populere en politieke psige bly spook.