A review by paulsnelling
Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee

3.0

Not really a novel, more a collection musings most of which have been published before. Personally I prefer my philosophy to be written by philosophers rather than fictional characters. But there’s some interesting ideas, not all of which were interesting to me. In the final dream chapter the writer clams she has no beliefs that as writer she reports the voices of others, that she will speak for murderers. Previously the protagonist spoke at a conference railing against a novel which described the gruesome end of hitler-plotters. That book should not have been written, she said. Is there a contradiction here, or was it a literary device which evaded my reading, quickened in my haste to get to the end if the book? To find out I would have to go back and reread, as I would a work of philosophy. But by then I just didn’t care.