“Something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark”... and the alarming smell of this rot permeates one of Coetzee’s most powerful and merciless books. He asks questions - and furiously seeks answers to them. Because the world that he considered familiar suddenly changed - and did not change for the better. Is a prosperous society slowly but surely turning into a self-destructive society? The state suddenly turned from a protector into an enemy - or a spy? How can a person survive in a society where democracy has become an evil parody of itself? The lyrical hero of this book - the alter - ego of the great writer himself - again and again painfully asks himself and the reader: is it possible to seriously protest against the readiness of the modern System to neglect considerations of morality and civil liberties in a situation in which the end, by definition, justifies the means?