Can one eavesdrop on written correspondence? If the author’s voice is strong and distinctive, of course one can. The very letters on the page are signs, images of sounds.

Such are the letters collected in HERE & NOW a joint publishing venture between Faber & Faber and Harvill Secker presenting correspondence between Paul Auster and J.M. Coetzee from July 2008 and August 2011.

Enthusiasm for Freud, Kafka and Beckett energize their cross countries conversation as well as meditations on art, sport, film, travel, the Global Financial Crisis, sleep, food, and, of course, writing.

Coetzee on critics – “Quite aside from the question of animus on the critic’s part, there may be errors of fact in the review, or elementary misreading. He (the critic) becomes like the child lobbing pebbles at the gorilla in the zoo, knowing he is protected by the bars”.

On biographical reductionism- “treating fiction as a form of self disguise practiced by writers; the task of the critic is to strip away the disguise and reveal the ‘truth’ behind it.”

Yes, these letters make up a mutual admiration society, but they are never fawning or sycophantic, just honest, open connexions by a pair of erudite minds.

Both men, with their impressive body of works, are now of an age, and sage in their pondering of their advancing years.

“How does one escape the risible fate of turning into Gramps, the old codger, who, when he embarks on one his “back in my time” discourses, makes the children roll their eyes I  silent despair” ruminates Coetzee. Well it helps that is a discourse and not a rant and that is why these two elders of our age are worth reading and listening to.

These letters are remarkable – great hatchet blows of thought, an implacable narrative speed, and a pulverising sense of prose.