tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post5229974291687771185..comments2024-02-20T12:26:24.682-05:00Comments on language goes on holiday: Thinking the unthinkableDuncan Richterhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-48789607938024516442010-08-06T08:35:33.644-04:002010-08-06T08:35:33.644-04:00Thanks. Yes, he might be thinking back to his ear...Thanks. Yes, he might be thinking back to his earlier self. At least these characters of his are fictional though. Part of what Costello objects to in West's writing, I take it, is that these were real people who really killed and died. Another part is that the executions were intended to be painful and humiliating, so that describing them accurately in detail humiliates the dead again. Which is just what Hitler might have wanted. So even if Coetzee ventured into similar territory earlier, in ways that Costello might not approve, he didn't go <i>that</i> far. Perhaps West's going where angels fear to tread brought up the question of how far one should and should not go as a writer, and then there is a question (but no clear answer) as to whether Coetzee has ever gone too far himself.Duncan Richterhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15708344766825805406noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6454161596094447448.post-54289521389994462072010-08-06T00:29:00.954-04:002010-08-06T00:29:00.954-04:00I think you're right to wonder about what SM s...I think you're right to wonder about what SM says here. He also discusses the tension between the Costello who gives this talk (about West) and the Costello of the last chapter ("At the Gate") who distances herself from all of her own beliefs.<br /><br />In <i>Dusklands</i>--which contains two early novellas by Coetzee, the first from the POV of a lunatic Vietnam war officer (of some sort), the latter from the POV of an 18th century South African hunter/imperialist type--Coetzee does get into some dark territory, and into the minds of some dark characters. And there is something obscene about the way both characters think. Here's a bit from "The Narrative of Jacobus Coetzee"; I have to quote this at length (or else the effect of the final sentence won't be as unnerving):<br /><br />"In the wild I lose my sense of boundaries. This is a consequence of space and solitude. The operation of space is thus: the five senses stretch out from the body they inhabit, but four stretch into a vacuum. The ear cannot hear, the nose cannot smell, the tongue cannot taste, the skin cannot feel. The skin cannot feel: the sun bears down on the body, flesh and skin move in a pocket of heat, the skin stretches vainly around, everything is sun. Only the eyes have power. The eyes are free, they reach out to the horizon all around. Nothing is hidden from the eyes. As the other senses grow numb or dumb my eyes flex and extend themselves. I become a spherical reflecting eye moving through the wilderness and ingesting it. Destroyer of the wilderness, I move through the land cutting a devouring path from horizon to horizon. there is nothing from which my eye turns, I am all that I see. Such loneliness! Not a stone, not a bush, not a wretched provident ant that is not comprehended in this travelling sphere. What is there that is not me? I am a transparent sac with a black core full of images and a gun." (p. 79)<br /><br />I think the last sentence is amazing; but it's also terrifying. Not having read West, it's hard to know what the effect (or possible point) of West's book is. Maybe Coetzee is thinking back to his own earlier ventures in to the minds of madmen, and wondering whether that's a good thing. It doesn't seem like a bad question, but there's a bit of a paradox since the question only seems to sensibly arise if we think these things (or explore these dark territories) first. Perhaps the question is just a way of bringing attention to the risks? (Costello's position is stronger than this, but that's all I've got for now...)Matthew Pianaltohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16380038537888895216noreply@blogger.com