
Reading Coetzee
Elizabeth MacFarlane(Author)
Rodopi (Publisher)
Published on 1. January 2013
Book
Paperback/Softback
192 pages
978-90-420-3701-4 (ISBN)
Description
Just as J. M. Coetzee's post-2003 books present essays and narrative alongside one another, this book engages with its ideas through both critical and creative writing. Reading Coetzee interleaves critical essays on Coetzee's works with an autobiographical narrative detailing MacFarlane's more personal response to her reading and writing. The presentation of elements of the creative with the critical, and the critical within the creative, aims to challenge the traditional boundary between the two. This kind of methodology derives from the idea (and practice) of embodiment: that an idea or philosophy does not 'float free', but is tied to the idiosyncrasies, divergences, and subjective 'travel' of its speaker or writer.
Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man and Diary of a Bad Year explicitly address themes which abide more surreptitiously throughout his oeuvre: the divisions and paradoxes which occur the moment pen gains page, the value of literature, and the ethics of embodiment. In revealing the dialogue between writer-self and reader-self, and between author and character, these recent novels invite a rereading of Coetzee's previous literature. Reading Coetzee explores Coetzee's preoccupation with the act of writing using his recent books as a lens through which to view his eight previous novels as well as his memoirs and essays.
Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, Slow Man and Diary of a Bad Year explicitly address themes which abide more surreptitiously throughout his oeuvre: the divisions and paradoxes which occur the moment pen gains page, the value of literature, and the ethics of embodiment. In revealing the dialogue between writer-self and reader-self, and between author and character, these recent novels invite a rereading of Coetzee's previous literature. Reading Coetzee explores Coetzee's preoccupation with the act of writing using his recent books as a lens through which to view his eight previous novels as well as his memoirs and essays.
Reviews / Votes
"My impression is that this is a significant and daring work. It is a rare and refreshing pleasure to read an academic book where the writer is willing to put herself on the line, not only through her assessment of someone else, but by writing stories and creative non-fiction that relate to her main line of investigation. (It turns out that some of those who teach also can do). This makes everything matter to the reader because it all clearly matters to and affects Elizabeth MacFarlane. Her enterprise is not a pursuit of status but a pursuit of understanding and fuller living." - Per K. Brask, University of Winnipeg, CanadaMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Leiden
Netherlands
Publishing group
Brill
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Unsewn / adhesive bound
Dimensions
Height: 234 mm
Width: 155 mm
Thickness: 11 mm
Weight
299 gr
ISBN-13
978-90-420-3701-4 (9789042037014)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Elizabeth MacFarlane is a writer and researcher in the Creative Writing department at the University of Melbourne.
Content
Introduction
This Book is Irregular: On the critical-creative nexus
The middle voice
'I have beliefs but I do not believe in them'
The voice of the literary critic
The critical landscape
Coetzee's recurring blank page
The written is always a compromise
Metaphor as Contagion: On the Postscript of Elizabeth Costello
Elizabeth Costello as Postscript to Coetzee's oeuvre
Lord Chandos's total renunciation of literary activity
Lady Chandos and the problem of metaphor
The Author Divided in Coetzee's Novels
A moment of rupture: The white-haired woman
Time, tense, and aspect
Singing birds
Divided and divined
'A going against': Coetzee, postmodernism, and late style
Where is Coetzee? Authors and characters
Her man and she
The Ethics of Embodiment
The ethics of embodiment: Philosophy and literature
Costello's progress, human to ape
The dark chamber: Ethics and ambiguity
Two suspended elements: sentence, narrative, text
The metaphor of the real
Short fiction
The Nature of It
Museum
The Scar
Triptych
Conclusions
Foreground and background
Late style
The wrong question
Postscript: A Bad Year
References
Index
This Book is Irregular: On the critical-creative nexus
The middle voice
'I have beliefs but I do not believe in them'
The voice of the literary critic
The critical landscape
Coetzee's recurring blank page
The written is always a compromise
Metaphor as Contagion: On the Postscript of Elizabeth Costello
Elizabeth Costello as Postscript to Coetzee's oeuvre
Lord Chandos's total renunciation of literary activity
Lady Chandos and the problem of metaphor
The Author Divided in Coetzee's Novels
A moment of rupture: The white-haired woman
Time, tense, and aspect
Singing birds
Divided and divined
'A going against': Coetzee, postmodernism, and late style
Where is Coetzee? Authors and characters
Her man and she
The Ethics of Embodiment
The ethics of embodiment: Philosophy and literature
Costello's progress, human to ape
The dark chamber: Ethics and ambiguity
Two suspended elements: sentence, narrative, text
The metaphor of the real
Short fiction
The Nature of It
Museum
The Scar
Triptych
Conclusions
Foreground and background
Late style
The wrong question
Postscript: A Bad Year
References
Index