tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post7248104578512232405..comments2024-03-18T16:55:31.971+00:00Comments on This Space: Metaphysical ache: JM Coetzee's Diary of a Bad YearStephen Mitchelmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-74631272508746723832009-10-06T17:53:08.561+01:002009-10-06T17:53:08.561+01:00In "The Lives of Animals", yes. Given by...In "The Lives of Animals", yes. Given by Coetzee *as* Elizabeth Costello, though not in drag one presumes (sadly).Stephen Mitchelmorehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01658772259307446873noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-66388138317892629112009-10-06T17:48:12.318+01:002009-10-06T17:48:12.318+01:00Just a little point: the Costello essays were all ...Just a little point: the Costello essays were all lectures given by Coetzee earlier.<br />Nice review, btw.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-85173999619860043062008-02-11T17:58:00.000+00:002008-02-11T17:58:00.000+00:00"On Intelligent Design" is only one of the dumbest..."On Intelligent Design" is only one of the dumbest of a set of dumb essays that don't reflect Coetzee's actual beliefs. Coetzee must have cringed as he was writing them.<BR/><BR/>I was hoping that people would have picked up on this trick the third time, but no, they're content not to question their own prejudices and assumptions.<BR/><BR/>More <A HREF="http://www.waggish.org/2008/02/07/jm-coetzee-diary-of-a-bad-year" REL="nofollow">here</A>. I had a similar reaction to Steve, but I don't find this new novel so different than the two that preceded it.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-69838082263133335212007-12-31T00:52:00.000+00:002007-12-31T00:52:00.000+00:00Can anyone tell me where exactly Coetzee stands "O...Can anyone tell me where exactly Coetzee stands "On Intelligent Design." I hate to think of Coetzee as some type of sophisticated creationist.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-61689919522737399372007-10-14T03:39:00.000+01:002007-10-14T03:39:00.000+01:00I don't think the essays per se were antithetic to...I don't think the essays per se were antithetic to Coetze's novel. I mean, that kind of thing has been in fiction ever since it started. You can't pick up, say, a French erotic novel from the 18th century without finding, among the seduced nuns and engorged cocks, page after page of a-moral lectures by the seducers - until finally, in De Sade, both the orgies and the lectures become unbearable. <BR/><BR/>What I did not like at all about the Coetze novel is that the essays were really weak, and they dominated the actions and characters in a book in an unpleasant way. I am mostly on Coetze's side, politically - except for the odd pseudo-scientific piece about evolution - and against the conservative banker, Alan, but one felt sorry for Alan, as though he were being forced to gamble using loaded dice in a house of ill repute. His easy slide towards moustache twirling villainy, that embarrassing dinner that climaxes the novel and succeeds in prying Anya away from him, was simply limp, an exhibition of sentimentality. The limpness of the whole performance was a certain novelistic shirking before the voices that novels unleash - the voices that aren't under the control of the author's viewpoint or ideology - to be Bakhtinian about it. And so, instead of the form of the page showing us certain fissures in the essays, weak in themselves, instead of some tension growing up there, instead of even some self awareness and anguish about old age and beautiful young bums, such as Anya's, I felt much more like the essays were stepping on the marginal action. I took Anya's remark, that J.C.'s essays were best when directed at concrete things, as a way Coetze tried to externalize, capture and neutralize something he must have felt himself about this writing.Roger Gathmannhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11257400843748041639noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8470094.post-27790897519731008782007-10-05T04:33:00.000+01:002007-10-05T04:33:00.000+01:00Has anyone compared this with Roth's latest? Some ...Has anyone compared this with Roth's latest? Some remarkable thematic overlapping.<BR/><BR/>What is it both Roth and Coetzee have revealed here?Jacob Russellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07090220157886320148noreply@blogger.com