The various components of K's journey in Life and Times of Miohael K

The journey and the sufferings of the eponymous K in J.M. Coetzee's Life and Times of Michael K (1983) is one of such suffering, such cruelty (mental and physical), such loneliness that it stands as possible the most sorrowful and harrowing of "road novels," but it also recalls several other themes and literary genres. First of all, all readers will be struck by K's ingenuity and his ability to survive alone, w/out money, just by living off the land - cultivating a few pumpkins and squash plants, shooting birds w/ a hand-made slingshot, chasing down a wild goat that he kills and slaughters. In some ways he's living an isolated life that goes well beyond that of, say Thoreau - and touches on the world of adventure (Robinson Crusue) and even sci-fi and cinema, a story of human ingenuity (The Martian, All Is Lost) - yet w/out the introspection. K remains a blank slate in some ways: skilled w/ his hands, and educated to a degree in gardening and cultivation, but obtuse when it comes to politics and social themes. He's an object acted upon, not an actor; a victim, not a revolutionary. I have wondered if JMC meant K in some manner to represent the oppressed black resident of South Africa during the time of Apartheid - constantly watched by the police, arrested and imprisoned r held in a work camp for no reason, deprived of rights, consigned to a miserable education - but if so JMC is also careful never to specify K's race (at least through the first 125 pp of this short novel). The social climate that JMC delineates (but never, intentionally, clearly explains - the country is at war but there is no discussion of the cause of the war, the antagonist, anything - we see it all from the benighted perception of K, through a glass darkly) is also part of K's journey: he's not traveling into the past (to his mother's native ground) in order to find himself, to reach closure, to make a point. He's on a journey of survival, but a journey that is both interior (man alone) and exterior (man oppressed), an interrogation of the oppressive government and a frightening look at the deprivations - of basic commodities and of all liberties - during a time of war. 

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