"Now, he is beginning to taste that taste. It tastes like gall." This is the last word.Dostoevsky, the protagonist in the book, sat in the apartment rented by his stepson Pavel before his death, and began writing the novel "Demons" and the creation of the protagonist Stavrogin. "Stavrogin" also became Coetzee's last chapter.What is presented to us is the intricate intertextual relationship. When the narrative of the novel seems to be entering a dramatic conclusion, Mr. Coetzee retreats from this boiling point of possibility and returns to the protagonist Dostoevsky's labyrinth. A similar spiritual world allows his characters to walk along their own paths, make their own full voices, and form a dialogue relationship full of tension.This can't help but remind people of Coetzee's Nobel Prize acceptance speech: "He and His People".After all, Coetzee is Coetzee, even the words he wrote are different.In this acceptance speech, he derived Defoe and his characters Robinson Robinson and Friday in his works, and derived a picture that is both real and illusory, which is also full of intertextual tension.

In October 1869, Dostoevsky came to Haymarket in Petersburg, also known as Hay Street in China, to investigate the death of his stepson Pavel.Coetzee designed Dostoevsky's life in Petersburg in the autumn and winter of 1869 in this way, allowing his great writer to enter the scene of his work "Demons".Ultimately, the experiences of all living people are transformed into elements of writing in a process of torment and suffering: first Dostoevsky's, then Coetzee's, and finally a double "he" and "his" people" dialogue spectacle. In fact, shortly after Dostoevsky married his second wife Anna in 1867, in order to avoid debts and lawsuits, he left for another country and did not return to Petersburg until 1871.During this period, Dostoevsky was middle-aged, suffering from epilepsy, and heavily in debt, but his long-term solitary life allowed him to concentrate on meditation and reverie, and the Christian spirit that had always existed in his heart was greatly improved. unusual display.His friend Strahov wrote in "Memoirs": "The four years spent abroad were the best period of his life, that is to say, the period that brought him deep thoughts and feelings." Now, it is his messianic complex about redemption. The revolutionary passion and impulse of the early years have faded away, and he is disgusted and disgusted with Nechayev and his extreme revolutionary and unprincipled terrorist ideas. opposing positions.

Coetzee's design may be derived from the following reasons: In 1869, an assassination incident within the People's Punishment Council headed by the anarchist Nechayev occurred in Russia, and the imperial police surrounded and suppressed the Nechayev elements; Fyodor Dostoevsky read the news from the newspaper and began to conceive the novel "Demons" with two generations of revolutionaries, father and son, as the protagonists. In this context, Nechayev became Verho The prototype of Vinsky, the assassinated Ivanov is the prototype of the college student Shatov. Since 1871, "Demons" has been serialized in the "Russian Herald".In a sense, it is an interpretation of Dostoevsky's life and creation world, especially his creation of "Demons".

Pavel is the focus of the novel, and because of him Dostoevsky has all kinds of connections with Nechayev, the policeman, the landlady, the landlady's daughter, and Ivanov, and they have parallel voices.In fact, all these people were Dostoevsky characters: the landlady Anna Sergeyevna and her precocious daughter, both volatile and elusive, and both were attracted by Dostoyevsky. Toyevsky as physical and psychological comfort; police representative Maximov, with a mixture of rational and coercive politics; violent anarchist Nechayev, who has both Dostoev A shadow of Ski's own frenzied youth, and a personified figure of his deceased stepson Pavel.

In another dimension, Coetzee invited Dostoyevsky's people in life and other works to Petersburg in 1869, and let them join Dostoyevsky in the "basement" , "Fire" and other scenes belonging to Dostoyevsky's discourse, and participate in Dostoyevsky's spiritual life.In the novel, Coetzee mostly uses the present continuous tense and uses him (he) to describe, forming the synchronicity in the work.Under the effect of synchronicity, the plot makes the characters' free actions at a critical moment. It is Dostoevsky and Coetzee who make their protagonists suffer special mental torture, so as to force the protagonists to reach extreme levels. Nervous self-awareness speaks out.As Bakhtin said, Dostoevsky's heroes are thinkers: little people with great unresolved ideas.In, then, Coetzee created the Dostoevsky of thought.In this way, not only do the characters in Dostoevsky's works have an open and vivid awareness of others, but Dostoevsky himself has a completely independent voice, making valuable discussions and forming multiple relationships with the author. equal dialogue relationship.If Dostoevsky's novels are polyphonic, they are polyphonic polyphony.In the novel, Dostoyevsky's life, works, characters and scenes with special meanings are cut and fine-tuned by Coetzee's skills, presenting them as confusing, real and illusory , forming a multi-level intertextuality, reflecting rich meanings.

In 1971, Coetzee returned to South Africa and later taught at the University of Cape Town.During this period, he studied Russian literature in depth, and did a special topic on Dostoevsky.Coetzee likes to experiment. Perhaps in the research, Dostoevsky, who is independent from the world, also aroused his resonance. A feeling of sympathy made him write his research results into novels, of course using It is his brilliant pen as a novelist to express his respect for another writer.Coetzee and Dostoevsky are peers and interlocutors in the exploration of human propositions and humanistic concern for reality.The era in which Coetzee grew up was the era when South Africa's apartheid policy gradually took shape and then became rampant, and it has the same characteristics as the revolutionary Russian life experienced by Dostoevsky.Therefore, Coetzee tirelessly narrates the state of people under the special situation of apartheid, and triggers the exploration of universal human nature. His tone is sad.As the title of the book suggests, even if the savage does not exist, we must try to invent and fabricate him.In Coetzee's writing, there is always a devil lurking deep in the heart of man, and he is always trying to project it onto some convenient scapegoat.The same proposition is in Dostoevsky, this kind of devil sometimes parasitizes in unprincipled terrorism, expressing his reflection on the Russian Revolution.In the book, through the noisy dialogue and intricate intertextuality, whether it is Coetzee or Dostoevsky, there is a political metaphor, a political philosophy.

However, it is clear.Perhaps this clarity comes from Coetzee's forceful restraint and narrative coolness.But emotive, perhaps the empathy comes from the deep respect one writer has for another. In 1984, Coetzee's son died in an accident. In the novel, Dostoyevsky's endless pursuit and mourning for his stepson Pavel may also be entrusted with Coetzee's inner feelings.This dual discourse relationship between father and son is not only blood, but also spiritual, full of realistic and metaphorical meanings.In a sense, it is Coetzee's most emotionally indulgent work.