My introduction to Coetzee, fantastically constructed, each chapter is a world of thought on its own. Excellent development of the fictional world, characters, their plights and intermingling fates. Lots of deep philosophic commentary, commentary about how we structure societies, how families are structured and what effects these arrangements have on the self and the hero's journey as it develops. While at the same time, Coetzee is setting up a unique and thick plot, in an interesting seemingly alternate universe to our own. Not quite fantasy, not quite reality, just augmented enough to give him license and play to bend the world into the way he wants to describe it to give his commentaries max efficiency without losing the trajectory and motivations of a novel.