Just cooked corpses
Efadul Huq is intrigued by a story
Elizabeth CostelloJ M Coetzee
Secker & Warburg How does a writer affect his society by writing? What should an ideal writer write about? More importantly, where does a writer's words come from? These are the questions asked and discussed by J M Coetzee, from both ends of the spectrum, in Elizabeth Costello. The novel insightfully explores the many aspects of writing and writers, about the capability of evil in goodness and about the neutrality of the one who writes. Elizabeth Costello, the title character of the novel, is a famous writer who is invited to lecture at several universities and gatherings throughout the book. While doing so, she finds herself battling with her evolving thoughts as she discovers that there's more gray than black and white in the universe. Consequently, the novel becomes a collection of eight lectures given by this aged author who, in the twilight of her life, realizes her true identity but remains misunderstood by her son, daughter-in-law, journalists, critics, fellow authors and, of course, the audience. Through the intriguing character of Costello, J M Coetzee attempts to come to terms with many controversial issues of this age. In the first lecture, when asked to speak on the subject of 'realism', a disillusioned Costello refers to one of Kafka's stories. The story is about an ape who speaks before a learned society, in civilized tongue. From there, and also going through a complex philosophical rigmarole, Costello concludes in the end: 'We don't know and will never know, with certainty, what is really going on.' Having proved reality untrustworthy and gathering a lot of controversy, some of which are crudely offensive, Costello moves on. The next lecture, on a cruise ship heading for Antarctica, is about novels in Africa. While one of her contemporary Nigerian writers claims that African novels don't flourish in Africa because 'the African novel, the true African novel, is an oral novel', Costello provides a bolder perspective. She argues and points out the problem as: 'But the African novel is not written by Africans for Africans. African novelists may write about Africa, about African experiences, but they seem to me to be glancing over their shoulders all the time they write, at the foreigners who will read them'. The story proceeds and we find Costello lecturing on animal rights. A vegetarian by choice, Costello finds it appalling that animals are killed to be eaten. To her animal meat is nothing more than cooked corpses. She believes in her cause to such an extent that she compares the slaughter of cattle to the massacre of Jews in World War II. This, however, agitates her audience and they question her grounds with much vigour. To their questions she doesn't have any concrete answer. In fact, she wonders if this evil is essentially omnipresent as even she wears leather shoes. A few pages later, Costello's thoughts on evil move beyond wonder when in a lecture in Amsterdam she raises unsettling inquiries about the very profession of writing. If a writer can instill virtues in us, she asks, can he also not instill in us vices? If writing can bring us the realization of truth, she ponders, can it also not bring us the realization of falsity? If a writer delves into the darkest region in history or of human psyche to make his novel authentic, will he come out of the experience unscathed and without any evil? Led by these questions Costello decides perhaps some experiences are better left unwritten. Invited to speak against censorship in the lecture, she ends up endorsing censorship! Near the end of the novel, our confused writer finds herself in an imaginary courtroom, quite Kafkaesque, waiting for her trial to commence. Before she is allowed to pass through the heavenly portals to the other side, she must make a confession of her belief. It is then that she comes face to face with the ever-present dilemma of her life: to believe or not to believe. She appeals that, as a writer, she cannot believe in any particular entity or idea, that she must wear belief like any garment. For her, she confesses, the invisible voice speaks and she, like a 'secretary', merely writes down what it says. It could be the voice of the murdered but it can also be the voice of the murderer. She is not the one who chooses. Allow this reviewer to leave the verdict of that court unwritten. It hardly remains to be said that the Nobel-winning J M Coetzee masterfully tackles highly complex philosophical viewpoints under the guise of a story, weaving non-fictional arguments into the fictional lectures of his protagonist. The plot is loose and there is no central driving force per se, but Costello's outpourings, oftentimes poetic but charming nevertheless, on life and its several aspects keep the readers entranced. Despite the novel being a bunch of lectures, it never ends up being didactic. It is rather involving because Coetzee provides both sides of the issues at hand as angry audiences or fellow writers argue with Costello. Indeed, J M Coetzee, by writing this novel with contradictory opinions, exemplifies that in the end a writer has no belief to call his own. He only writes what the invisible voice dictates, as did Elizabeth Costello. Efadul Huq is a student at Georgia Southern University, USA
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