It tells the story of Dostoyevsky's return to St. Petersburg from Germany following the mysterious death of his stepson, and the great writer's attempts to establish what happened, and what his stepson's attitude towards him really was.
There's so much here that is great, but Coetzee's real feat is to tie the reality he imagines back to Dostoyevsky's fiction, in particular his great novel, Demons (or The Devils as it is sometimes translated). He does this in such a beautifully subtle way that it is only very gradually that we understand what is happening; gradually, but at exactly the pace Coetzee decides. Like all great fiction, Coetzee makes us feel more intelligent, because he allows us to feel like we have uncovered these connections rather than him, and yet as soon as we realise this we feel humbled.
While this is, in one sense, historical fiction, it never takes on the horrible weight of deliberately obvious research that is common so much of that genre. Coetzee's pervasive use of the present tense makes things feel much more urgent than they otherwise would, and this effect is heightened by his complete mastery of free indirect style, so that we are frequently experiencing Dostoyevsky's creative process first hand. It's a remarkable effect.
The Master of Petersburg is the work of a great writer working at the very highest level. The overt formal innovation for which Coetzee is famous is missing, but he has still managed to find a way to examine his favourite subject – fiction itself – by imagining his way into the mind of one of its greatest ever exponents in the very act of creation. Astonishing.
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