List Price: | |
Our Price: $16.00 | |
For Bulk orders
| |
Used Book Price: | |
Elizabeth Costello: Fiction / Coetzee, J. M. | |
Publisher: Penguin Books | |
Availability:In Stock. | |
Sales Rank: 408657 | |
|
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 clich s." Perhaps Coetzee's Elizabeth Costello, which can be read as an extended critique of clich d 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
Now you can buy Books online in USA,UK, India and more than 100 countries.
*Terms and Conditions apply
Disclaimer: All product data on this page belongs to .
No
guarantees are made as to accuracy of prices and information.