The idea of human cruelty to animals so consumes novelist Elizabeth Costello in her later years that she can no longer look another person in the eye: humans, especially meat-eating ones, seem to her to be conspirators in a crime of stupefying magnitude taking place on farms and in slaughterhouses, factories, and laboratories across the world.
Costello's son, a physics professor, admires her literary achievements, but dreads his mother's lecturing on animal rights at the college where he teaches. His colleagues resist her argument that human reason is overrated and that the inability to reason does not diminish the value of life; his wife denounces his mother's vegetarianism as a form of moral superiority.
At the dinner that follows her first lecture, the guests confront Costello with a range of sympathetic and skeptical reactions to issues of animal rights, touching on broad philosophical, anthropological, and religious perspectives. Painfully for her son, Elizabeth Costello seems offensive and flaky, but--dare he admit it?--strangely on target.
Here the internationally renowned writer J. M. Coetzee uses fiction to present a powerfully moving discussion of animal rights in all their complexity. He draws us into Elizabeth Costello's own sense of mortality, her compassion for animals, and her alienation from humans, even from her own family. In his fable, presented as a Tanner Lecture sponsored by the University Center for Human Values at Princeton University, Coetzee immerses us in a drama reflecting the real-life situation at hand: a writer delivering a lecture on an emotionally charged issue at a prestigious university. Literature, philosophy, performance, and deep human conviction--Coetzee brings all these elements into play.
As in the story of Elizabeth Costello, the Tanner Lecture is followed by responses treating the reader to a variety of perspectives, delivered by leading thinkers in different fields. Coetzee's text is accompanied by an introduction by political philosopher Amy Gutmann and responsive essays by religion scholar Wendy Doniger, primatologist Barbara Smuts, literary theorist Marjorie Garber, and moral philosopher Peter Singer, author of Animal Liberation. Together the lecture-fable and the essays explore the palpable social consequences of uncompromising moral conflict and confrontation.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 3.5 / 5.0
Creative Context for Animal Rights Review:
This small book provides a wonderfully insightful perspective on the issues surrounding compassion and respect for animals. It reviews some of the main arguments, but in the context of two lectures given by an aging academician. Adding to the substance of her lectures is the curious passive nature of her son's response, who seems to miss the point, while mainly experiencing a sense of discomfort and embarrassment at the actions of his mother. This is very readable and is intelligently written.
Well written and thought provoking:
It's not very traditional, and stylistically it reminds me a good deal of novels by Calvino, Sontag, Kundera, etc. that don't necessarily have a standard narrative. The lectures and debate take up most of the story, but it is not like reading non-fiction. I disagree with criticisms that Coetzee is disguising his own lectures, mostly because I don't think he could have accomplished the same thing as a non-fiction piece. I found the ideas about reason and literature interesting, and was drawn in by the debate... more info
great book:
Book arrived in perfect condition, and it arrived earlier than i expected. Also, it's a great book that everyone should read.
Don't bother:
Rarely do I just write off a book especially of such a prolific writer as Coetzee but this book is such an utter disappointment in his career and its only value lies in that it will prepare you for the even bigger disappointment of his most recent novel, Elizabeth Costello which this book is a precursor. I am not violently opposed to this book neither is the writing that excessively bad...the book is a definition of the utter waste of time.
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