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JM Coetzee and Elizabeth Costello

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ISSN 1712-8056[Print] Canadian Social Science ISSN 1923-6697[Online] Vol. 13, No. 5, 2017, pp. 39-44 www.cscanada.net DOI:10.3968/9524 www.cscanada.org The (Wo)-Man of Revolt: J.M. Coetzee and Elizabeth Costello WU Wenquan[a],* [a]School of Continuing Education, Guangdong University of Foreign This understanding is so self-evident on one hand and so Studies, Guangzhou, China. unscientific on the other, that the mere mentioning of it *Corresponding author. might be the evidence of mental mediocrity and linguistic Received 19 February 2017; accepted 10 April 2017 foolhardiness. Accordingly, the denial of this man-from- Published online 26 May 2017 woman formula is even more absurd. However, where the absurdity abides, there generally promises a profound Abstract source of unexpected revelations; such as in the last scene This paper elaborates those unconventional textual of the First Lesson of J.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello: and narrative strategies applied by J.M. Coetzee in his Eight Lessons: Elizabeth Costello, in order to illustrate the spirit of revolt She lies slumped deep in her seat. Her head is sideways, her that is one of Coetzee’s core poetic features. On the textual mouth open. She is snoring faintly. Light flashes from the level, strategies such as authorial interferences, change of windows as they bank, the sun setting brilliantly over southern tense, and the play with the term realism are implemented California. He can see up her nostrils, into her mouth, down the back of her throat. And what he cannot see he can imagine: the to create the effect of revolt against the writing convention gullet, pink and ugly, contracting as it swallows, like a python, of realism and the complacency of the reader. On the drawing things down to the pear-shaped belly-sac. He draws narrative level, the split of the author identity and the away, tightens his own belt, sits up, facing forward. No, he tells ensuing interplaying among the three alter-egos not only himself, that is not where I come from, that is not it. (Coetzee, challenge the conventional practice of self-examination 2003, p.34) in writing, but also generate a multidimensional meta- This scene, seldom expounded by Coetzeeian scholars, cognitive space in which the self-criticism of the author in which John, the son of Mrs. Costello, on imagining the lends clues to the various mysterious details that baffle serpent-like physiology of his mother, the very physical critics and the reading public. aspect of being, refuses to be dragged down to the mere Key words: Revolt; Alter Ego; Realism; Identity physical of existence, epitomizes the very spirit of this novel: the revolt of the author and his main character(s). Wu, W. Q. (2017). The (Wo)-Man of Revolt: J.M. Coetzee and This rejection of the fact of being born from a female Elizabeth Costello. Canadian Social Science, 13(5), 39-44. Available body per se is not ethically reproachable in the sense that from: http://www.cscanada.net/index.php/css/article/view/9524 one finds his/her mother’s body disgusting as it appears so DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3968/9524 in the scene sited above, but is, on the contrary, an act of asserting one’s stand in the physical-spiritual strife. In this sense, his rejection of the sheer physicality of the mother is in essence his recognition of the true value and spirit of INTRODUCTION the mother. Though according to its etymological origin, “woman” As is well-known to scholars and readers, Coetzee is comes from wifman, meaning wife + man, namely the a typical “Aussenseiter”, not only in his life but also in wife of a man, it can also be parsed, with illogical wild his career as a writer. First of all, his origin promises a imagination, as wo + man, with “wo” meaning “where” in constant struggle with the issue of identity in his life and the German language; thus, it can be said that “woman” writing. In the autobiographical trilogy of Boyhood, Youth, means the origin of man, from where man comes from. and Summertime, the revolt against his given identity is all 39 Copyright © Canadian Academy of Oriental and Occidental Culture The (Wo)-Man of Revolt: J.M. Coetzee and Elizabeth Costello over the pages. His invented faith in the Roman Catholic won’t hear you otherwise—“I’m reading! I don’t want to be Church, his compassion with the Soviet Union, his disturbed!” Maybe they haven’t heard you, with all that racket; speak louder, yell: “I’m beginning to read Italo Calvino’s new double identity as a programmer with IBM and a literary novel!” Or if you prefer, don’t say anything; just hope they’ll scholar on Ford Marx Ford, his listening to classical leave you alone. (Calvino, 1998, p.3) music when having intercourse with a single mother; all indicate his awareness and wish to be different, to escape Yet, while in general postmodern writers tend to from the given and reach for something up there yet assure the reader of the fictive nature with frankness unspecific, to explore what he himself is. In his writing and clarity, just like what Calvino does above, Coetzee life the will to be different is all the more apparent. Each has achieved the postmodern confession in general and of his published work, fiction, nonfiction, or works semantic mysteriousness (which is vintage Coetzee) whose genre is reluctant to be determined, is “a new at the same time with his textual magic. With the title territory,” an eye-catching phrase used in the beginning “Realism” in mind, the reader of the first sentence will not of the novel (or the book with categorization difficulty) fail to connect the “problem of the opening” with literary Elizabeth Costello. He seems to be constantly running creation, especially the creation of the illusion of reality. from tradition and settledness; from the grooves of his Yet, Coetzee undermines this certainty with “how to get previous works, much twisted as they already are; from us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far any expectedness and prediction of the reading public; bank”, in which the “nowhere” shakes the very foundation into an unexplored wilderness, a brand-new maze without of realism—the mirroring of the concrete reality with any literary referential framework as a guiding map, such the unarguable and guaranteed existence as its defining as exemplified by his two latest books: The Childhood characteristic. Philosophical realism, according to Oxford of Jesus and The Schooldays of Jesus. Besides, his Dictionary of Philosophy (Blackburn, 1996, p.320), active involvement in the Anti-Vietnam-War protest, affirms “the real existence of some kind of thing, or some which led directly to the rejection of his application for kind of fact or state of affairs”, while literary realism citizenship of the USA; his reserved attitude in the matter refers to “a mode of writing that gives the impression of of literary representation of the cruelty and injustice of recording or ‘reflecting’ faithfully an actual way of life.” the Apartheid years; and his emigration to Australia in (Baldick, 2001, p.212) The simple bridge which links the his early 60’s, also epitomize the revolting self. From far bank, a relatively specific place compared with the these general aspects, it is sure to see that the spirit of nowhere-ness of this bank, has also been mysteriously revolt plays a key role in the understanding of the person built and crossed, leaving the question of where is the and the writer with the name J. M. Coetzee. This paper basis of realism if we start from nowhere, namely no intends to show how this spirit is woven into his novel certainty of anything visible, discernible, and legible. In Elizabeth Costello: Eights Lessons, with a focus on the this way, Coetzee plays with us by planting the doubt on first lesson “Realism”. the essence of his “realism” in our mind, the very source of our bewilderment which grows alongside the progress of the story. 1. TEXTUAL REVOLT The second part of the first paragraph — “It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, bridge. People solve such problems every day. They solve how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, them, and having solved them push on.” — metaphorizes nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge. People solve the function of narrative that endows the chaos of life such problems every day. They solve them, and having with frameworks within which the cognition of reality solved them to push on. becomes possible. By doing this, Coetzee intends to break Let us assume that, however it may have been done, it up the illusion that reality or the real is self-evident, that is done. Let us take it that the bridge is built and crossed, the life unfolding and whirling around us is the life per se; that we can put it out of our mind. We have left behind on the contrary, every day we unconsciously build bridges the territory in which we were. We are in the far territory, with unspoken choices to reach the sense of realness, in where we want to be (Coetzee, 2003, p.1). order to find meaning and establish the illusory sense and This is the opening of the First Lesson of the novel. It certainty of existence.
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