Writing Slowness in J. M. Coetzee’s <i>Slow Man</i>

Abstract

Using literary semiotics and narratology as the only criteria, and starting from the hypothesis according to which J. M. Coetzee writes slowness in Slow Man , the article shows how Slow Man is made weighty, and why it evolves sluggishly. With an actant character saddled with the epithet “Slow Man”, a designation embodying slowness, Slow Man claims to be a slow novel generated by retardation devices like speech acts narrative, polyglotism, fragmentation, epistolarity, and narrative embeddednesss. Those roadblocks prevent flashy reading, promote “slow reading”, a leisurely and innovative reading by which the reader is brought to become a textual cooperator in the actualization process of Slow Man ’s meaning.