Elizabeth Costello: Amazon.de: J.M. Coetzee: Englische Bücher

Amazon.co.uk

For Australian writer JM 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 centre of his book, Elizabeth Costello. As the work opens, 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, Amazon.com -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe .

Amazon.com

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 -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine vergriffene oder nicht verf�gbare Ausgabe dieses Titels.

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3 von 3 Kunden fanden die folgende Rezension hilfreich

Awesome 4. April 2005

Von "sancho_111"

Format:Taschenbuch

In Elizabeth Costello, we find Coetzee confronting some of the fundamental structures of the society we have known for so long, forcing the reader to think and have an insight into life. This thought-provoking novel which is actually a collection of essays with some having been published before as lectures, is a deep but entertaining book. Coetzee uses Costello Elizabeth as a fictional character to put forward these essays and uses other characters as critics to create a dialectical outlook for the book. It is this approach that I think made this book so unique. A reader is forced to think beyond his beliefs. And in so doing, the reader is forced to evolve.
I recommend this book along with DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE to any curious mind.

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One of Coetzee's best 21. Dezember 2004

Von HORAK

Elizabeth Costello is a 66 year old Australian author who has written 9 novels as well as poetry, a book on bird life and journal articles. She is the recipient of several literary awards and on each occasion she is invited to give a lecture in which she expresses not only her ideas in her books but her view of religion, the lives of animals, the mission of a novel writer or various aesthetic issues.
Thus the reader is confronted in Mr Coetzee's novel with a wide range of essential thoughts: how to define the function of the novel in our lives, the specificity of native African literature, "The humanities teach us humanity", the way people treat animals compared to the way the Nazis treated the Jews - a questionable comparison? - or the fact that fiction takes us out of ourselves into other lives. Elizabeth Costello also discusses poets like Rilke or Ted Hughes or the relevance of imposing Christian faith in many African countries. How should the writers deal with the question of evil and Eros in their writings? Does a writer need to have beliefs, is he allowed to change his beliefs?
It is not easy to say how much Mr Coetzee wishes to tell about himself through the main character of his novel. In any case, Elizabeth Costello is a better writer than lecturer/talker: "Her strategy with interviews is to take control of the exchange" by using blocks of dialogue rehearsed in advance. "Even as a reader of her own stories she lacks animation". "Not her métier, argumentation. She shouldn't be there". Henceforth, her lectures often lack a structure and the audience are puzzled by her changes of topic - or sometimes lack of topic - due to the fact that she is "full of doubt, and desperate too". She feels that it is not her duty to teach or preach anything through her books but merely to show how people lived in a certain place and time.
An accomplished work which deals with a wide range of philosophical, ethic, religious and moral issues that are so essential in our lives.

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Awesome 24. Februar 2005

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No one liked it in our bookclub

Well, as the title suggests, no one liked it. And we read a lot, and we like a lot of different books. Lesen Sie weiter...

Ver�ffentlicht am 13. Oktober 2005 von "cric1280"

Elizabeth Costello [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

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