<![CDATA[Elizabeth Costello]]>

false <![CDATA[Elizabeth Costello]]> http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165555492m/6206.jpg 6206 22 For South African writer J.M. Coetzee, winner of two Booker Prizes and the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, the world of receiving literary awards and giving speeches must be such a commonplace that he has put the circuit at the center of his book, Elizabeth Costello. As the work opens, in fact, the eponymous Elizabeth, a fictional novelist, is in Williamstown, Pennsylvania, to receive the Stowe Award. For her speech at the Williamstown's Altona College she chooses the tired topic, "What Is Realism?" and quickly loses her audience in her unfocused discussion of Kafka. From there, readers follow her to a cruise ship where she is virtually imprisoned as a celebrity lecturer to the ship's guests. Next, she is off to Appleton College where she delivers the annual Gates Lecture. Later, she will even attend a graduation speech. Coetzee has made this project difficult for himself. Occasional writing--writing that includes graduation speeches, acceptance speeches, or even academic lectures--is a less than auspicious form around which to build a long work of fiction. A powerful central character engaged in a challenging stage of life might sustain such a work. Yet, at the start, Coetzee declares that Elizabeth is "old and tired," and her best book, The House on Eccles Street is long in her past. Elizabeth Costello lacks a progressive plot and offers little development over the course of each new performance at the lectern. Readers are given Elizabeth fully formed with only brief glimpses of her past sexual dalliances and literary efforts. In the end, Elizabeth Costello seems undecided about its own direction. When Elizabeth is brought to a final reckoning at the gates of the afterlife, she begins to suspect that she is actually in hell, "or at least purgatory: a purgatory of clichés." Perhaps Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, which can be read as an extended critique of clichéd writing, is a portrait of this purgatory. While some readers may find Coetzee's philosophical prose sustenance enough on the journey, some will turn back at the gate. --Patrick O'Kelley 1076637 2001 Elizabeth Costello total:1266|5:194|4:358|3:440|2:190|1:84| 1266 4186 1840 167 5 4 false false Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Wed Jul 18 20:59:17 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 18 20:59:20 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 4 false false Fri Dec 05 09:16:36 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 09 11:58:08 -0800 2009 more...]]> 1 2 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Feb 26 23:37:06 -0800 2009 Sun Mar 01 02:40:33 -0800 2009 1
It doesn't really feel like a novel, instead at times more like a particularly pompous academic paper, or an exercise in technique. It is filled with monologues - external in th...more...]]> 2 1 false false Fri Feb 20 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Feb 18 13:47:07 -0800 2009 Fri Feb 20 11:28:21 -0800 2009 I feel this book should be great, especi...more...]]> 4 1 false false Sat Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Thu Mar 20 15:37:48 -0700 2008 Thu Mar 20 15:52:03 -0700 2008 Elizabeth Costello is, as has been noted, an odd sort of novel; the chapters, or "lessons" as Coetzee calls them, are vignettes in the life of Elizabeth Costello, a fictional author. This format allows Coetzee tremendous freedom, going back and forth between addressing the reader directly...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jul 01 13:41:17 -0700 2008 Sat Mar 08 17:33:37 -0800 2008 Tue Jul 01 13:41:17 -0700 2008 more...]]> 2 2 false false Sun Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Mon Feb 11 10:06:36 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 11 10:14:23 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 1 false false Tue Jun 05 13:15:42 -0700 2007 Tue Aug 05 22:50:19 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 1 false false Sat Sep 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Sep 10 09:31:06 -0700 2007 Wed Oct 03 14:03:08 -0700 2007
But man. Could you have spiced up th...more...]]> 5 1 false false Tue Jan 06 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 06 07:21:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 07 02:17:35 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri Dec 05 23:49:09 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 00:45:04 -0800 2008 more...]]> 4 29 false false Fri Oct 02 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri Oct 02 20:26:13 -0700 2009 Sat Oct 03 14:28:37 -0700 2009 Elizabeth Costello, I would only recommend it to others -- others, that is, who don't love me intensely, obsessively, and/or unconditionally -- at the peril of sacrificing our friendship, getting my tires slashed, and -- worst of all -- being on the receiving...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sat Aug 22 14:48:33 -0700 2009 Sat Aug 22 15:05:34 -0700 2009 When I read Coetzee's 'Disgrace' I battled with two conflicting forces. It's impossible to deny that it is stunning in how beautifully it's written, however, I still didn't feel overly compelled by it. Were it a longer book I probably wouldn't have finished it. I strongly disliked something in...more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 18 03:00:04 -0700 2009 Mon May 18 03:05:26 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Oct 28 18:48:51 -0700 2009 Wed Oct 28 18:54:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Dec 13 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 11:32:53 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 13 11:32:53 -0800 2008
"...I seem to move around perfectly easily among people, to have perfectly normal relations with them. Is it possible, I ask myself, that all of them are participants in a crime of stupefying proportions? Am I fantasizing it all? I must be mad! Yet every day I see th...more...]]> 2 1 false false Mon Feb 09 17:36:15 -0800 2009 Mon Feb 09 17:36:38 -0800 2009 5 1 false false Wed May 13 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Sat May 09 21:22:41 -0700 2009 Wed May 13 17:32:35 -0700 2009 Elizabeth Costello is like one extended, intellectual conversation. In it, Coetzee explores the big questions that surround writing, making it more of a philosophical exercise than a fiction novel in a pure sense. Because these ideas are explored through the medium of fiction itself, the novel is mo...more...]]> 4 0 false false Mon Aug 03 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 16:57:28 -0700 2009 Mon Aug 03 17:02:19 -0700 2009 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Apr 16 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Tue Mar 24 19:46:33 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 16 12:13:37 -0700 2009 more...]]> http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6206