Ein Haus in Spanien

by J.M. Coetzee, Reinhild Böhnke (Translator)

Flüchtig und spröde, leuchtend und skeptisch, verschattet und schön – die drei Meistererzählungen J.M. Coetzees ›Ein Haus in Spanien‹, ›Nietverloren‹ und ›Er und sein Mann‹ in einem Band.

Die unverhoffte Wiederbegegnung mit einem Ort aus der Kindheit, das Wiederkennen einer existentiellen Situation, die Sehnsucht nach einem autarken Leben: Das alles wird zum Beginn erzählerischer Meditationen, die in den Falten der Geschichten, in dem, was sie verbergen, eine Wahrheit finden. Flüchtig und spröde, leuchtend und skeptisch, verschattet und schön – eine Erzählung des zurückgekehrten Robinson Crusoe beschließt diesen Band.

Heimgekehrte Schiffbrüchige – vielleicht ist das eine der vielen Signaturen von Coetzees rätselhaftem Werk.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, Literature, Africa, South Africa

64 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

J. M. Coetzee is a South African writer, essayist, and translator, widely regarded as one of the most influential authors of contemporary literature. His works, often characterized by their austere prose and profound moral and philosophical depth, explore themes of colonialism, identity, power, and human suffering. Born and raised in South Africa, he later became an Australian citizen and has lived in Adelaide since 2002.
Coetzee’s breakthrough novel, Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), established him as a major literary voice, while Life & Times of Michael K (1983) won him the first of his two Booker Prizes. His best-known work, Disgrace (1999), a stark and unsettling examination of post-apartheid South Africa, secured his second Booker Prize, making him the first author to win the award twice. His other notable novels include Foe, Age of Iron, The Master of Petersburg, Elizabeth Costello, and The Childhood of Jesus, many of which incorporate allegorical and metafictional elements.
Beyond fiction, Coetzee has written numerous essays and literary critiques, contributing significantly to discussions on literature, ethics, and history. His autobiographical trilogy—Boyhood, Youth, and Summertime—blends memoir with fiction, offering a fragmented yet insightful reflection on his own life. His literary achievements were recognized with the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003.
A deeply private individual, Coetzee avoids public life and rarely gives interviews, preferring to let his work speak for itself.

Reviews

[Jean-Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

To have read something and remember nothing about it is not a frequent occurrence at the age of thirty-one. And yet here we are. The book in question is admittedly brief, thirty pages containing three short stories, but I hope that having now read it twice this decade, I won't have to look back in the next one and not remember doing so. Leave that for when I'm eighty!

Each of the slight stories collected here is concerned with a question, and Coetzee is poignant in his explorations. Can a man fall in love with an object like he would with a person? What is lost when subsistence gives way to enterprise and entrepeneurism? What is the relationship between not just the lives we lead and the stories we tell, but the lives led and stories told by others? Coetzee is renowned for his novels, not his stories, but I wasn't disappointed.

[John Hatley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've liked every novel by J. M. Coetzee that I've read. This little collection of Three Stories has demonstrated that he is equally good at writing short stories. I thoroughly enjoyed all three of them.

[Kaustav · Rating 5 out of 5]

But of what else does he secretly sing, he wonders to himself, this poor afflicted man of whom he reads, besides his desolation? What is he calling, across the waters and across the years, out of his private fire?

[Shuhan Rizwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautifully crafted tale of a form of marriage between a man growing old and a house no longer young.

[Brock · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be honest, the reason I plucked this book from the library shelf was because of it's sleek, eye-catching design. And I'm glad I did. The three short stories contained in this volume are a lot more thought-provoking than their length suggests. Each is written in a fairly simple, unembellished style, yet below each crisp surface lies a much deeper comment on humanity. A really enjoyable, quick read.

[Abdul Hadi · Rating 3 out of 5]

Memang keunggulan cerita dari J.M Coetzee terletak pada kekuatan bahasanya. "Pelitiran" kata yang ia tulis, demikian menancap di pikiran pembaca, bahkan oleh saya yang tergolong pemula dalam melahap bacaan-bacaan berbahasa Inggris, pun dapat dengan mudah menangkap "rasa", serta bentuk, dan olahan kata yang ditulis oleh Bapak Coetzee ini

[Osama · Rating 4 out of 5]

ثلاث قصص قصيرة للمؤلف جون ماكسويل كويتزي

[Marianne · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three Stories is a sleek little volume of three previously published short stories by award-winning South African-born writer, J M Coetzee, which showcase his literary talent.

I. A House in Spain (2000) is a reflection on the parallels between marriage and owning a house. The man who has bought for himself a house in Spain find his attitude altering from scorn for people who profess to falling in love with a house, to feeling something akin to just that for the old homestead on which he begins to lavish attention.
II. Nietverloren (2002) is a lament on the loss of the traditional use of the South African farmland for a crop of a very different kind.
III. He and His Man (2003) imagines the life of Robinson Crusoe and his man Friday on their return to England, as Robin lives vicariously on the travels Friday undertakes. This is an interesting exercise although Coetzee places them there during the Plague, which does clash with the Defoe book.

With these short stories, Coetzee proves he is the master of powerful prose on thought-provoking topics. The stories are those of a great novelist at his peak, and this volume will be a must-have for Coetzee fans.

[Arun Singh · Rating 4 out of 5]

Heard a lot about Coetzee and I can see why. Three short stories and what a remarkable way of telling it. The first one draws a parallel between marriage and house-owning and at the end words compel you to feel the bond in the same way you perceive a human relationship.

The second one is about nostalgia about childhood and the effect of globalization and industrialization on age-old practices which made up our childhood and leaves an interesting question in front of us.

Just loved them.

[Matthijs · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5*

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wonderful prose, I found the stories a little thin compared to much else in Coetzee's late work.

[rachy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I recently rediscovered this tiny short story collection that I last read almost a decade ago in a box at my parents house. Since I've been spending time with a lot of longer novels, and given how just extremely short this collection is, I thought it would be nice to revisit it as a little afternoon diversion.

The first story was lovely, albeit not without issue. It definitely went back and forth with itself a little too much, in a way that inspired doubt in my confidence of the storytelling, rather than being a quirk of the story itself. The thread of being in love/comparing marriage to the buying of a house felt a little tenuous and unfocussed, but generally I liked the message the story was aiming at nonetheless. It also had a good sense of character and place.

The second story is the best of them from this small collection. It also had a really strong sense of place and character, even more so than the first, and completes a satisfying little emotional journey over the course of its pages. It's also the most well written of the three. It's 'moral' (as it were) I found poignant and it definitely rang true personally for me from my time spent in South Africa also.

The less said about the final story the better. Unfortunately for this story, I absolutely loathe Robinson Crusoe and so any attempt at romanticising it or him as a character is entirely wasted on me. I have no capacity for empathy with such a character personally, so it was too hard for me to objectively examine the merits of this final story.

This is definitely a nice little edition of a few stories that was really only put out to sell Coetzee a few more books (and who could blame him for that). Despite that, there is definitely some merit in this tiny collection, and in it's middle story especially. Since it only takes up a little time to read (and I mean very little!), it's hard to be overly critical. However, I do think that if I personally were curating such a small collection of only 3 stories, I definitely would have chosen stronger ones. Coetzee's writing is good enough that I'm sure he has plenty. They also seem chosen almost at random, with not so much as a theme or motif to link them. I'd definitely rather invest my time in a real collection, or any of his novels, than this slapdash little volume, but it certainly wasn't all bad.

[Helen King · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice, brief read. I enjoyed the first story the most - which was probably four stars for me (only for the insight - they are such brief stories that they almost don't warrant that description. Maybe 'impressions', or 'scenes' might have been a better way of classifying them). I found I skimmed through the second and third stories, which did not leave much of an impression on me.

Spoiler - The first story, 'A House in Spain', follows a man's realisation of attachment to non living things, namely a home. He realises that, contrary to his dismissive idea that 'one cannot fall in love with a home', when he buys his house in Spain, that is exactly what he does. He wants to know about the people who lived there previously - in much the same way a lover might want to know about former partners - he connects with the villagers - again, in much the same way as he might connect with friends and acquaintances of a partner, and he worries that, 'when his own time has passed, he does not want to be utterly forgotten ... he hopes (hoping against hope) that in some sense the house itself will bear the memory of him'.

I'm not sure I am entirely in agreement with this conclusion, but I found it a really interesting description of the attachment someone can have to a home (and presumably, their surrounding environment) -

'What it comes down to, astonishingly, is that he wants a relationship with this house in a foreign country, a human relationship, however absurd the idea of a human relationship with stone and mortar might be. For the sake of that relationship, with this house and its history and the village as a whole ... - in return for that relationship he is prepared to treat the house as one treats a woman, paying attention to her needs and even her quirks, spending money on her, soothing her through her bad times, treating her with kindness.

'Kindness. Fidelity. Devotion. Service. Not love, not yet, but something like it. A form of marriage between a man growing old and a house no longer young'.

[Ankita Chauhan · Rating 5 out of 5]

J M Coetzee, One of the best literary writers, the way he creates his own world for his characters, is heart-catching. His short stories as well as novels are thought-provoking. This book comprises of his three crisp short stories, simple still classic read.
In his first story "House in Spain" he draws attention of readers by writing such simple lines as “We fell in love with the house’, friends of his say. How can you fall in love with a house when the house cannot love you back, he wants to reply? Once you start falling in love with objects, what will be left of real love, love as itused to be? But no one seems to care. People fall in love with tapestries, with old cars.”
...And third story "He and His Man" is somewhat beyond the words….set up during Plague era.
Must enjoy.

[The Twins · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought I start with some short stories from J.M. Coetzee but they are actually a bit too short to get a real feel for him. Saying that I really enjoyed and connected with the first story: A House in Spain.

[Al-anoud Al-Serhan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Three Stories includes 'A House in Spain', 'Nietverloren', and ',He and His Man'. Coetzee wrote the latter as his acceptance speech for the Nobel Prize for Literature.
The stories explore themes of exile, love, identity, and solitude. Coetzee’s writing style is captivating; his language is clean and precise. He carefully crafts his words, weighed enough to befit a feeling he wants you to feel. Moments of "silence" are deliberate, not random, not cinematic. Open to interpretation, contemplation, and reflection.
1. A House in Spain is a masterpiece ( and I underlined the whole first page). It follows the story of a writer preoccupied by questions of love and ownership. He decides to buy a house in rural Catalonia. Already in his 50s, he decides to renovate the property by choosing color scheme uniform to the village.
His plan was to spend two seasons of the year at the house, but as months passed it fully occupied his mind, daydreaming about every room, and the tiniest of details. He finally moves there, and this is how he describes it:
"If this is marriage, he tells himself, then it is a widow I am marrying, a mature woman, set in her ways. Just as I cannot be a different man, so I should not want her to become, for my sake, a different woman, younger, flashier, sexier."
This one is a story about longing to belong, redefining love beyond the familiar meaning, and the fear of being forgotten. There is something somewhat intimate about Coetzee's language. What I always admired about him is the sense of calmness he conveys in his writing, no excessive exclamation marks, just class exquisite prose.
The narrator at the beginning of the story found it odd to fall in love with a house. When his friends say "we fell in love with the house" he wondered: how can you fall in love with a house when the house cannot love you back. Little did he know that he'll experience a feeling close - but not quite- to love. The narrator concluded the story beautifully:
"kindness. Fidelity. Devotion. Services. Not love, not yet, but something like it. A form of marriage between a man growing old and a house no longer young."

2. Nietverloren ( Afrikaans for not lost) is a story of childhood memories, the ghost of the irretrievable past, and the invisible thread between man and land. The story is about an older man who goes back to his country South Africa after years of being away. He goes back to the place where he grew up, and realizes how much has changed. The irony of the title "not lost" when the story depicts the "loss" of what the protagonist held onto, but was faced with a different reality. Nothing is the same as it was, and is indeed lost because there's no trace of what existed once.
The story is reflective; it's been over twenty years since the last time I visited granpa's lands. The steadfast olive trees he planted in the middle of the desert, which once was the middle of nowhere in the country. I have no doubt I will experience the same feeling of "loss", torn between the memories of my childhood and what became of the lands now.
"The bitterness of defeated love. I used to love this land"

3. In He and His Man, you have to slow down a bit. an exchange between two characters — He ( Daniel Defoe) and His Man (Robinson Crusoe) .
An exchange between an author and his character as if they exist in each other's worlds for real, but miles apart. I find them a reflection of each other, of their loneliness, of the art of writing, of authenticity and imitation.
Coetzee describes both He and His Man as "two ships sailing in contrary directions, one west, the other east. Or better, that they are deckhands toiling in the rigging, the one on a ship sailing west, the other one a ship sailing east. Their shops pass close, close enough to hail. But the seas are rough, the weather is stormy: their eyes lashed by the spray, their hands burned by the cordage, they pass each other by, too busy to even wave"

[Sarah ⸜(｡˃ ᵕ ˂ )⸝♡ · Rating 4 out of 5]

"but, writes his man, we forget what kind of courage was called on to confront the (black) plague. It was not a mere soldier's courage, like gripping a weapon & charging the foe: it was like charging Death himself on his pale horse"

this was both an author & collection I had never heard about before my class yesterday, wherein our teacher sat us down & placed out a group of books, and told us to reach for one. Someone beat me to Franz Kafka's works and for that? I am glad. I reached immediately next to the book that had caught my eye for the whole class, the thinnest book, the prettiest, covered in a light blue coat with gold titling, it was eye-catching at the very least.
and the stories did not disappoint.

this is a tiny book, filled with three stories, all about 20 pages long ( though more like 7 a4 pages ) the first story is a comparison to marriage and owning a house, it was intriguing and the writing beautiful. The second was a story I forgot almost immediately, unfortunately, however, the last story told the tale of comradeship through writing and reading something someone has written that you have never met, through some of the darkest times.

I found while the stories weren't overly enticing plot and character-wise, they were written so beautifully that I had to keep reading.

[G. Munckel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Billy Collins dice que la belleza de un poema puede medirse por el grado de silencio que viene después del último verso. Y si bien estos no son poemas, el silencio que me acompañó al terminar cada uno de estos cuentos sí tenía mucho que ver con el asombro de la poesía.
“Una casa en España” es una analogía entre matrimonio y propiedad, esposa y casa. Pero cada párrafo está cargado de una belleza sutil. ¿Es posible enamorarse de un objeto? El protagonista se sorprende al descubrir la respuesta: “No amor, todavía no, pero algo parecido. Una forma de matrimonio entre un hombre que envejece y una casa que ya no es joven”.
En “Nietverloren”, las tierras del veld se miran desde una distancia interna llena de nostalgia amarga.
Al aceptar el Premio Nobel de Literatura, en lugar de un discurso, Coetzee escribió un cuento: “Él y su hombre”, un tributo maravilloso a sus lecturas, pero también una reflexión sobre el acto de escribir.

[Juanjo Conti · Rating 3 out of 5]

Los primeros dos cuentos son del tipo reflexivo.

En el primero, Una casa en España, se pregunta sobre la relación que puede tener uno con un inmueble. Rescato una idea: el narrador quiere colgar de las paredes fotos de los antiguos habitantes. ¿Por qué quiere hacerlo? Para que cuando él muera, alguien hago lo propio con su retrato y no desaparezca por completo.

En el segundo, Nietverloren, la reflexión es sobre cuestiones agrarias de Sudáfrica en relación al pasado. Me interesó menos que el anterior.

El tercero se supone que es una conferencia, y por lo tanto pensé que sería más claro que los anteriores pero me resultó sumamente hermético.

Lo leí en un bar tomando dos lisos luego de estar todo el día en una clínica. Eso puede haber intervenido.

[Tessa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mélancolique et lumineux disait Fabien Deglise dans son commentaire critique du Devoir le 10 décembre 2016 à propos de Trois hisoires de John Maxwell Coetzee. Cette petite plaquette de moins de 50 pages contient 3 nouvelles qui ont en commun un regard amer sur les changements qui s'opèrent dans les mentalités (tomber en amour avec une maison), les changements de comportements sociaux (faire des anciennes fermes de l'Afrique du Sud des sites touristiques) et le changement des apparences dans ce texte touffu qu'est la troisième nouvelle, Lui et son homme, qui incidemment relate un épisode de la peste à Londres en 1665.

Pour qui suit de près l'oeuvre de ce grand écrivain, c'est une autre matière à réflexion et à appréciation.

[Dafne Brosius · Rating 3 out of 5]

Het laatste verhaal 'Nietverloren' bleef wel hangen, vooral door de setting in de Zuid-Afrikaanse Karoo die vroeger zo vruchtbaar geweest zou zijn. En de zinnen 'Het enige gewas dat je tegenwoordig lonend kunt verbouwen is de mens. Het toeristengewas.' en 'Dit is de enige toekomst die jullie hebben in Zuid-Afrika, zeiden ze tegen ons: om de bedienden en de hoeren te spelen voor de rest van de wereld.' We horen het zo vaak over landen die we bezochten, dat anderen er gek van zijn. Zo was het ook met Zuid-Afrika. Maar omdat wij lang en traag reizen, kijken wij daar vaker door.

[Zara Chowdhury · Rating 3 out of 5]

I struggled through Coetzee’s award winning book disgrace, however the parts I liked of the book, in its lyrical writing and interesting analysis of humanity have translated well to digestible and quaint short stories. While boring and stilted at point I enjoyed them, especially a house in Spain.

[Steven Brand · Rating 4 out of 5]

a pleasant read about my favourite subject, the human condition

[Elisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Drie heel korte, mooi geschreven verhalen, die allemaal iets hebben, maar tegelijk ook iets lijken te missen...

[Andreu Escrivà · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fins i tot quan té poc a dir ho diu bé.

[Ruth Bonetti · Rating 3 out of 5]

The second story, Nietverloren, resonated with me, but the other two less so. Perhaps because I expected more story arc structure rather than ruminations.

[Sammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Spanish House is the best in my opinion- I read it twice and pondered on the seasons of attachments to people and places.

[Luis · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, concentrated Coetzee for a short evening read

[Betty · Rating 3 out of 5]

I quite liked this to begin with, it was an interesting way to learn about Coetzee and life in South Africa; however the novel seemed to become increasingly self absorbed and eventually quite boring.

[Sean Harding · Rating 3 out of 5]

Coetzee Hangers #1
Three short yarns from this geezer, nothing that I will be remembering in ten years time, but still a decent enough read.