I really respect what this book was trying to do and it is definitely provocative and filled with fascinating, rich ideas. That being said, it was a giant pain in the ass to read. You basically need to take a breath at the end of each chapter and brace yourself for another lecture. Obviously Coetzee is a smart guy and would be perfectly aware of this effect on readers. It's interesting to consider that this is his follow-up book to the Booker Prize-winning "Disgrace." It's hard not to feel like he's making some kind of commentary or statement by releasing a "novel" that is basically just a collection of non-fiction essays. But yeah, he is really not giving you any slack here. Even the postscript refers to a letter from the 16th century to Francis Bacon--if you didn't have access to wikipedia and/or a really fucking amazing education (I had both, not to brag, but I STILL didn't get the reference). Coetzee is not fucking around here so you better be ready because there is nothing about this reading experience that is going to easy for you. If you're gonna read this book, then better bring your A game and be prepared. I didn't like this book because I didn't enjoy reading it (it was a dread and a chore to have to pick it up and turn the page) but at the same time I have respect for what it was trying to do. Maybe if it was about topics that were more interesting to me personally, then maybe it would have been a different experience. But maybe I'm just making excuses here--this is the second time I've read it (first time was in high school) and it still didn't make me go WOW OMG HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

Elizabeth Costello, an Australian born writer, who found global renown for one of her earlier works is the story narrator, as we follow her around the world giving lectures, accepting prizes, and more. Coetzee uses Costello's framing story to share eight philosophical or metaphysical essays covering issues such as animal rights, the problems with writing about evil, and the globalisation of Western storytelling. Although well crafted and very accessible, the overall feel and aim is a bit more complex and asks the reader, me, to think.

It should be noted that some of the essays had been previously shared by Coetzee, as authored by himself. To a degree the overall book is a critique of the literary fame circuit; as well as encompassing the idea that a writer should not / cannot be defined by a single work; and that imagination is exactly that, and a writer, in this case a successful writer, should only be limited by their imagination, and not be anything else including social norms / constraint. This was my first Coetzee, and probably not the best starting point, but even so this book has made enough impact, especially the writing and characterisation (which technically is only there as an envelope for the essays!), that I will surely read much more of his work! 6 out of 12.

I read this just after it came out, and was pretty disappointed. Having just given it another go... I'm still disappointed. The blurbs are surely ironic: "One of Coetzee's best... an important book, extraordinary... every word counts. Every sentence lives... bracing." It is self-evidently Coetzee's worst, dull, unimportant, pointless. Only a psychologiser of authors could care about this quaquaquaqua novel, though if you're a philosopher you may get something out of the new Coetzee industry, see Mulhall's 'The Wounded Animal' etc...

I would call it an experiment, and you know what? Sometimes, in fact, usually, experiments fail. As essays or short stories the chapters 'Realism' and 'The Humanities in Africa' are pretty decent, and worth reading. It's probably no coincidence that they're the chapters with the most interesting characters and the better arguments (none of the arguments being much good, which I'm sure is the point and so on...) Putting them in with the other stuff is a disservice to those two chapters.

No, not even pretty disappointed. In fact, I'm infuriated that this got printed and put on the Booker long list. Oh well.

Elizabeth Costello es una barbaridad: entre ensayo y novela, Coetzee ha creado un monstruo literario. Si bien antes se habían escrito libros que oscilaban entre ambos registros, la idea de Coetzee es novedosa: ¿qué puede saberse de un ser humano a partir de sus creencias? ¿Cómo habita cada ser el conjunto de sus creencias? ¿Qué implica lo que pienso en relación con los demás? Elizabeth Costello deja verse a partir de sus apetencias, de sus carencias e inseguridades. Allí hay una mujer que considera que ya sus años pasaron, que la palabra literaria no la habita, que la ha dejado en el océano de este mundo en el que la gente no se escucha y se maltrata. Que creer es mérito de dioses, y la humanidad está condenada a padecer la duda...a sudar frío y arañarla cada tanto a pesar de precarias certezas.

El problema de Costello es el de reconocer que está próxima a morir y los demás sólo ven en ella la gloria de su pasado remoto: sus ideas presentes no indican nada...son sólo vestigios de otra época. O eso cree ella, porque cada palabra suya retumba con el brillo del que sin saberlo es sabio. Elizabeth Costello, antes que presentar una argumentación impecable, muestra la duda: la deja ser, la explaya sobre cada página y enfrenta al lector a su incertidumbre. Por eso su reticencia al filósofo, que ya no escucha sino que habla, que murmura para sí mismo verdades que terminan por ser obviedades. Costello, en cierto modo, es heideggeriana: toda verdad se escucha, no es algo que parta de nosotros. Es, más bien, la experiencia del mundo que se impone y reclama su lugar. Se vive para padecer que se es humano; mientras tanto, algo de sí mismo y la humanidad se reconoce en cada acto.

Costello, a pesar de no ser afín a la lectura de Kafka-que no es lo mismo que a su literatura e ideas, esto queda claro-, le rinde tributo desde el pensamiento: ya sea en su mención constante sobre el "Informe para una academia" en su ensayo sobre el realismo y los dos sobre los animales; como en esa pesadilla en que juega sus cartas ante su particular infierno literario, la escritora rememora que hubo un escritor que enfrentó el dolor de este mundo y dio voz a realidades y subjetividades que no conocían la palabra que reconoce el oído humano. Asimismo, retumba el ensayo sobre "El problema del mal" y tal vez el más bello de todos a mi juicio: "Las humanidades en África". Aquí, Costello expone en mejor medida algo que ya ha desarrollado a lo largo de sus conferencias; esto es, que el ser humano habita cada saber, cada hallazgo con el que se encuentra. En este sentido, la existencia se justifica desde la experiencia que se impone; y no tanto desde el argumento perfecto o la razón depurada.

It's not often that I come across an author who summarizes my views on several trying quandaries in one teeny 230 page novel. It was, to me, life changing. This is not a book you should approach without some sort of foreknowledge about the subject matter or about Coetzee himself. "A steely intellect" they say, and it is true. So steely that it can be trying at times. That is why some sort of mental preparation is required. It is written in almost an essay format, switching from internal points of view to external wherever Coetzee saw fit. Each chapter confronts one of the many innumerable issues that plague humanity: animal rights, the identity and functions of an author, evil (in the broad sense), divinity, and realism. I wish I could wax eloquent on these subjects but alas I would only detract from the beauty of what Coetzee has to say.

The truth of the matter is that writers are entertainers. It seems vain that the value of ones work should hinge on the yea or nay of another. Does it not matter more what your own opinion is? In the end beliefs prove inconsequential, faulty, and unreliable; they are not our only support system nor should they be our principle support system. Our heart, that is to say our conscience, should be the basis of our morality. This is at least the standpoint of Coetzee. A quote, perhaps, would clear this up: “Death to reason, death to talk! All that matters is doing the right thing, whether for the right reason or the wrong reason or for no reason at all.” Words to live by.

Uh, kakva knjiga! I namučila me, i uživala sam u njoj.

Elizabeth Costello australska je spisateljica koja putuje svijetom (SAD, Južna Afrika, Nizozemska) i drži govore. Dugo već nije ništa napisala, no i kada ju predstavljaju, nitko ne navodi romane novijeg datuma, već jedan od njenih prvih, kojim se i proslavila. Riječ je o romanu Kuća u Eccles Streetu o Marion Bloom, supruzi Leopolda Blooma iz Uliksa Jamesa Joycea.

Ovo je roman bez konkretne radnje. U poglavljima su nam uglavnom predstavljeni kratki isječci iz života spisateljice, i to najčešće oni koji se događaju prije, tijekom i poslije njezinih javnih govora. Često sam se našla u situaciji da se nikako ne slažem s njezinim razmišljanjima, idejama, govorima i došlo mi je da ju prodrmam da se spusti na zemlju. Pripisat ću uspjeu piscu da stvori jedan takav lik.

Ono što me je još očaralo, bilo je nenametljivo, a opet značajno ubacivanje detalja iz klasične literature. Osim već spomenutog Uliksa, tu su grčka mitologija, Biblija, Kafka, Rilke, Swift...

Ne mogu reći da mi je knjiga bila savršena - dio koji me namučio jest poglavlje koje je, bar prema mom osjećaju, trebalo biti kafkijansko, ali u tome nije uspjelo. Tu je naznaka atmosfere iz njegovih romana Proces i Dvorac, tu je blagi osjećaj nemoći, neizvjesnost, nejasnoća, no sve mi je to bilo mlako realizirano. Ostatak romana bio je odličan i drago mi je što sam ga pročitala. Coetzee se svakako čita i dalje!

I just can't get into this book, Yes J.M. Coetzee can write well but so what, this book just comes of as smug and elitist, none of the charactors are remotely likeable, and the story if there is even one is about a writer that goes around and talks about writing, the state of writing in today's world, blah, blah,fucking, blah. This is a literature essay masquerading as an important work of fiction.I hate this fucking book!

Original, stunning: the protagonist Elizabeth Costello, seen through the eyes of those around her, gives speeches on various topics, making it border on an essay collection. But this would be a misconception: the so-called essays are produced by a figment of fiction, so...

A beautiful novel.

This is one of the best pieces of fiction I've read. Dizzying, disturbing, and yet somehow life-affirming and - there's really no other word - almost spiritual as a reading experience, this story forcefully shook my ideas and brought up a welling of compassion, not only for the characters (and animals), but for living things outside its pages.

Its chapters are titled 'lessons', but the book does not read like a sermon so much as an extended Socratic-dialogue embedded into fiction. Each so-called lesson is in reality a set-piece in the life of the protagonist, Elizabeth Costello, an elderly novelist, highly celebrated for work she did long before but feels she can't reproduce. There is too much prolonged argumentation about ideas for this to be a novel in the tradition of Tolstoy and Dickens and Austen and Proust and Joyce, and in fact, the book is always sacrificing a touch of immersion to deal with its subject-matter; but this I do not find a problem at all. David Foster Wallace, in his essay on Dostoevsky lamented the dwindling of real philosophical fiction, attributing the fact to irony-culture and corrosive postmodernism shticks in vogue in writing. I wonder if he read this book before he died. The novel is subtle and understated in its principles, but it is certainly not ironic - though it has flashes of wit - and, while Coetzee bows to Barthes, and unveils himself as writer in the first chapter, deprecating his own story-telling, the emotional and moral import that follows does not lose out from self-awareness, and thankfully Coetzee stops interrupting after the first time.

That Coetzee puts himself voluntarily on the chopping-block of the capital 'a' author (authority, what terrible etymology!), and that this does not limit him from working his subsequent magic, is just proof how good he is. The prose oozes style - lyrical Coetzee has been called, with which I agree (as with any good writer he presses his habits on you irresistibly, like he's yawning and you then yawn back). Here's a snippet of nice little descriptive imagery conjuring up ancient Greece (cliched on-purpose, but pretty), 'Hellas: half-naked men, their breasts gleaming with olive oil, sitting on the temple steps discoursing about the good and the true, while in the background lithe-limbed boys wrestle and a herd of goats contentedly grazes.' The dialogue is snappy, though I say again, improbable in its length because of the book's emphasis on teasing complex, profound truths out of contemporary life. But to detractors of this I would say, what's good enough for Dostoevsky, Oscar Wilde, and Aldous Huxley, is good enough for us. The narrative-style is silky and, finally, quite beautiful to observe, so smoothly does it bound forward between scenes, like a rabbit taking running leaps along a forest path. Some writers are demanding on their readers, but to his great credit, Coetzee wants you to keep up with him all the time.

Each discussion (lesson) takes place with Elizabeth as a focal point, with her presenting a thesis to an audience at a literary conference, meanwhile as forcefully arguing with herself whether she is correct. Elizabeth doesn't trust herself. She doesn't trust reason anymore, and the great irony of the narrative is that she still uses reason to try to understand her mind nonetheless, and to pry apart the difficult questions - have I lived a moral life? Should I have had more fun? Should I have written about other people more often, not myself? Agitated for causes? And what about my family? and so forth. Elizabeth, on the death-knell of her short life, instead of savoring every remaining moment, drifts into sink-holes of rumination and agonizes over things she isn't able to grasp until entering the grave.

I don't want to interpret the 'message' like so many reviewers will do when they read something, first of all because I think this is an incredibly smart book and that that is no straightforward task, but more importantly because 'Elizabeth Costello' is not, in my opinion, a book for consensus. I don't think this book comes to a great, fanfare conclusion about, for instance, whether the Hellenic or Judeo-Christian philosophic vision is superior for achieving the good-life (or for the good-enough-life), or whether poetry can offer us a better approach to animal rights than the cutting-edge of modern philosophy. What it does do is, like its prose, whittle all the excesses and superfluities away till you feel like what is essentially important is laid bare, like you have been shown where the fault-lines, the embattled trenches of these debates are located.

If I were to venture, my personal opinion, which needs to be revised by a second, and third, and fourth reading, is that this novel does not offer us any bandaging to the void of meaning that engulfed us when Nietzche and Darwin pronounced God dead, it really reminds us of something located in the heart, not intellect: compassion. Compassion for ourselves, and 'others' - all the beings we vehemently disagree with or personally dislike or fail to understand, around us. Argumentation, violence is getting old-fashioned. Somewhere in this book it says something like, 'Discussion can only be had where there is shared ground,' and I cannot think what better ground there is to share between living creatures than good-will. Love is an inarguable thing, it cannot be stitched together from fragments, or 'unpacked' into various ideas: you either choose to nurture it and to feel it or you don't. You cannot demonstrate love with a mathematical proof, or a set of premises in a treatise, though zealous philosophers or materialist scientists may urge you to believe otherwise.

If anyone has gotten this far into a very un-substantive review, thank you, but I urge you to glean substance yourself by going and reading this excellent and thoughtful book, which will endure a long time if it stirs other readers as much as it did me. Now I'm going to go cry on my bed next to a tissue-box, and watch a film...

“It’s not like” I began, “Dialog should be /that/ scary. Or-I suppose-monologues. I suppose it’s my theatrical upbringing that an extended spotlight doesn’t make me fidget. It feels that that this book is awkwardly esteemed on its page-one of reviews. Even the good reviews exude an uncomfortable ambivalence. It’s coupled that the speaker is older and therefore subject to an aged gregariousness, but I didn’t like Costello less for this, to do so would have made me an asshole.”

“Like some of the assholes in this book. But them a-holes probably have some non-harangues issues too. Qualms we don’t know about besides a tossed line here and there. That’s what’s interesting for me, characterization through philosophy. What can we infer about Elizabeth through her ideas?, seems a pretty cool approach to me. How do our minds, and how we contend with these issues, relate to Costello? There’s the world, me/you, and an old Australian writer. The characterization of the titular Cos’tel are the size of crumbs they fill up your starved stomach.”

“And hell yes, (spoiler) a third of this book should deal with animal rights. If you’re not always kind-of thinking about that stuff, you’re dead meat to me!”

“Man, that Coetzee guy, his books are so sideways, off-kilter, peripheral gazing, wonky-wise, you’re never sure of your footing, everything’s out of reach by like, a thousand centimeters, you’re always falling off the beam of his style. It’s such a conventual way to be experimental.”

"I often wonder what thinking is, what understanding is. Do we really understand the universe better than animals do? Understanding a thing often looks to me like playing with one of those Rubik cubes. Once you have made all the little bricks snap into place, hey presto, you understand. It makes sense if you live inside a Rubik cube, but if you don't..."

Much food for thought, delivered in a truly capturing style. The old lady inside me also approved of it.

It becomes increasingly difficult to achieve originality after everything has been done (& then over and over overdone). I cannot help but compare this masterpiece (I love using that word, but it must be noted that only a select few books are labeled by me as such) to the Pulitzer Prize-winning "Olive Kitteridge." Because it is the author's intent to sieve through snippets of the titular character's life to reach an essence, an aura, making the fictional person practically real, they are quite comparable (though here the South African writer writes circles around the American one). Not overly impressed by "Disgrace," I will swallow my pride, revise the previous and premature assessment of Coetzee (which was: "Eh") and say that I MUST READ ALL HIS works (just as I must get my hands on ALL of Margaret Atwood, Anne Patchett, Philip Roth & Louis de Bernieres), poste haste!

Who else can create an entire detailed (and therefore, poetic, rich, amazing...) portrait of an aging novelist in less than 230 pages? No one. The genius of the book is its innovative reasoning and new literary structure: through eight formal addresses we meet and inhabit the life of Elizabeth Costello. Her life is there in her own spoken words, as we are devoid her actual (fictional) body of work.

What to do with so many ideas, how to put them together to come out with a concrete result in the end? The merger of intellectual and emotional facets of the writer's life gives so much levity to the book--why can't books explore literature in a matter like this? Directly--in a fresh, glowing post-modern (though not pretentious) way?

I wholeheartedly and with an unnatural enthusiasm recommend this book, 100%. For its conciseness, it sure knows how to captivate a reader who, quite frankly, must be tired of the same plot formats and modern global concerns on the human condition.