New York Times Takes a Look at Chimpazee Research

I thought I should post this because it directly relates to some of the issues that Coetzee explores in Elizabeth Costello, and The Lives of Animals.

Exploring the Ethical Implications of Chimpazee Research

God of Reason: The Lives of Animals

          Coetzee's The Lives of Animals is a very interesting work, and while it did not manage to turn me vegetarian it certainly pushed me to consider not only what I eat, but how I behave. A concept I found interesting in the lectures was how they approached the idea of reason, specifically "The Philosophers and the Animals." Elizabeth Costello, the character through which Coetzee writes these lectures, presents to us in the novel the idea that "Reason is the being of a certain spectrum of human thinking." (The Lives of Animals, pg. 23) The reason why I point to this statement is because I believe that Coetzee, through Costello, is arguing for us to see past reason so that we may become more open to a discussion of animal rights, as well as our treatment of other human beings. I say discussion because I do not think that Coetzee feeds to us an answer of what is right and wrong, but instead presents to us the tools for a new way of thinking. In this passage Costello states that reason is only one established "spectrum" of the way we think, pointing to the fact that we have many other ways at our disposal to analyze and see the issues. Although, the novel draws the striking comparison between the Holocaust and the slaughter of animals I do not that Coetzee is trying to push an animal rights agenda down our throats, rather I believe that Coetzee is trying to throw his readers into a situation where this very taboo and touchy topic takes us out of our usual spectrum of thinking. That is to say, we cannot solely rely on our ability to reason to comprehend the several ideas that are at stake in the discussion of animal rights.

         On one level I believe that the novel is presenting us several points on the rights of animals, but on the other hand I believe that Coetzee's talk of animals also brings about some interesting points about our humanity towards humans. However, the significant point which I believe is relevant to both is the fact that we cannot run away from knowledge. Coetzee states in his non-fiction essay "Remembering Texas," that “Complicity is not the problem – complicity was far too advance a notion for the time being. The problem was with knowing what was being done. It was not obvious where one went to escape from knowledge.” (Doubling the Point, pg. 51) Coetzee says this about his time at school in Texas, in response to a student who asked him why he lived in US if he did not agree with the war. What Coetzee is trying to say in this phrase is that the student assumed that Coetzee dislike of the war lied in some sense of complicity with what was being done, but it was not complicity that perturbed Coetzee, but only the simple fact of knowing. We must consider that Coetzee had been living in South Africa during apartheid and there too did he suffer the faith of knowing the injustices being done without being able to hide from it. Coetzee's statement says more than it appears to say because through knowing the history of Coetzee's life it implies that the injustices are taking place everywhere and anywhere and we, especially in this age of technology, cannot escape the burden of knowing. I feel that this idea is prevalent in The Lives of Animals and that what Costello is pointing to is not our complicity with a monstrosity, whether in the form of the Holocaust or slaughterhouses, but how knowledge is a powerful thing and our biggest mistake is trying to ignore it. I think this theme has appeared again and again in the works I have read so far. I believe that what the novel is pushing for is a realization from its reader that when one has the knowledge of something one cannot simply try to cover it up and ignore it, and that while complicity may be part of our crime, trying to drown out the cries of others is equally as bad or worse. In Waiting for the Barbarians, the Magistrate is both complicit and attempts to ignore what is being done, but near the end of the novel he denounces the crimes of the army and the citizens publicly, and I believe that really what Coetzee, through Costello, is looking for in these lectures is not necessarily to change the way people think, but to encourage us to not "just...sit silent" (The Lives of Animals, pg.59) against any kind of injustice.

100000 Year Old Art Kit Found In South Africa

100,000 Year Old Art Kit Found In South Africa

I thought this was interesting in general but also because it has to do with art and the way people 100,000 years ago went about storytelling through painting.

Fighting Our Foe to Find a Voice

          I have found in everyone of the novels I have read by Coetzee an exploration of storytelling, and history and Foe has not been the exception. Coetzee has dealt with the problems of finding a voice, how to tell a story, and with the preoccupation of how a story will be understood (or misunderstood) by generations to come. I find that Foe more than any of the other novels reaches into the depths of creation, and what it is to create a narrative and give life to not one, but many different voices. Coetzee in this novel touches on the idea of voice in peculiar way because he gives voice to a woman, Susan Barton, and to a black slave, Friday, during the late 17^th century. These people who during this time would have not had much say in their own lives become the center of the story as the patriarchal narrative dies off when Cruso dies on the ship. The death of Cruso can seen as the metaphorical death of old narratives, that were male centered, and colonial, dying off, to give way to the narrative of this woman and slave.
          Despite the fact that Friday is unable to speak because he has no tongue his silence speaks for him, and it is his eerie silence that lingers and jabs at us at every turn of a page. In the novel while Foe and Susan argue about Friday's inability to tell his story Foe states, “We must make Friday's silence speak, as well as the silence surrounding Friday.” (Foe, pg. 142) Susan becomes obsessed over Friday's loss of his tongue not simply because it is a physical mutilation that is hard to look at, but because it hinders Friday from all communication or because she believes it to. Throughout the novel Susan mourns the fact that Friday cannot engage in storytelling but she does not understand that much like she decides to keep the story of Bahia to herself, Friday too decides to keep to himself, of his own desire. Speech comes in many forms in the novel, it appears in writing, in dialogue, music, gesturing, and even dancing. However, it must be noted that every one of these vehicles for language have their own lexicon and unless one has familiarity with it, it can seem foreign or nonsensical. Susan ignores both Friday's silences and his attempts at expression as simple dullness, while ignoring the fact that she could have been learning about Friday from these expressions. This speaks to the fact that people tend to ignore what they do not immediately recognize and what is not familiar is meaningless. Therefore it can be said that because slaves like Friday represent the “other”, to the “self” their narratives are trivial and senseless. There were times in the book where I felt that Friday did indeed still have a tongue but only chose not to use it because he knew his speech would be misconstrued, and bastardized much like Susan feared would happen to her own words. 

           Susan is always very much concerned with the truth and having her narrative told exactly as she wishes it so that it will be truthful, and not as fantastical lies that she has no control over. In the beginning of the novel Susan tells of the story of her last name and states that her father's last name “was properly Berton, but, as happens, it became corrupted in the mouths of strangers.” (Foe, pg. 10) This idea of the truth being corrupted in the lips of a strange becomes more and more relevant to Susan as she becomes desperate to have her story written down. Susan worries through out the novel about her independence and concreteness, and allowing for a stranger, in this case Foe, to control her narrative would be to lose control over her self-prescribed identity. Susan sees herself as objectified by Foe and reproaches him by saying that “(she is) not a story...(she is) a free woman who asserts her freedom by telling her story according to her own desire.” (Foe, pg. 131) When Susan proclaims that she is not a story but rather a woman, she is trying to claim substance into her being, because she wishes to separate herself from what she calls ghosts, or phantoms. This constant appeal to be seen as a substantial being also speaks to Susan's fear of being but a character in novel, simply a puppet in Foe's text, and even in the text that Coetzee himself has created. In the end whether Susan is substantial or not becomes irrelevant, because her underlying concern is real. This concern is that her story will be trivialized and that it will lose meaning. That she will too suffer Friday's voiceless faith, helplessly trying to gesture a truth that will never be understood.

This quote from William Shakespeare's Macbeth  seemed relevant to me because I felt that Coetzee in this novel not only touched on what it is to create and weave a story, but what it is to create our own narratives and our own worry that we do not hold that control, and more importantly that our substantial being will perish without a meaning or trace:

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day,
To the last syllable of recorded time;
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!
Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player,
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.
(Macbeth, 5.5.25–27)

Waiting for the Last Train Out

“There are only two places, up the line and down the line.”

(The Life and Times of Michael K, pg. 41) 

 

           This week I read the book The Life and Times of Michael K by Coetzee. This book was very different from the previous Coetzee books I have read so far. I was not sure what to make of it, and much like the doctor in the rehabilitation camp Michael K intrigued me, but I could not understand him. However, upon looking at the text again I found that I could understand him more as he related to the idea of waiting in the book.

           From the beginning of the novel Michael K is forced to wait for things that never come, for the bus, for the permits, and even for his mother. Moving from one place to another represents the way in which we move through our lives, but one must note that the buses are late, or never arrive, and that paper work never comes through in this novel. Therefore, it can be said that Michael K's life is stuck in suspension while society wages its war. Yet, the failed bureaucratic system that Michael encounters is not just a bump along the road that is unfortunately placed in his path, but a  man-made obstacle. Michael may clash with  police, nurses, and soldiers, but really he is crashing into the the barrier that is society itself. Very few people are sympathetic in this novel because it tries to develop the idea that people would rather become part of the roadblock than help eliminate it. Everyone would rather wait for the war to be fought and won for them, than to really do anything for themselves or anyone else. This idea can be seen in the way in which Michael is treated when he has contact with figures of authority, he is constantly ignored and told to wait more. However, after his mother's death, his determination to reach Prince Albert forces Michael to see that social restrictions placed upon him are truly meaningless and that they can be avoided through back roads and that he does not have to wait to make life happen. Michael K can be seen as representing the alternatives that are available to all, but which we often neglect.  

           For example, when Michael hunts and kills one of the wild goats of the Visagie's farm we are told that “The thought of cutting up and devouring this ugly thing...repelled him,” and also that he “ate without pleasure, thinking only: What will I do when the goat is consumed?” (The Life and Times of Michael K, pg. 55-6) Here it can be seen that Michael K is repulsed by the violent act of taking without giving anything back, of simple reckless consumption. Coetzee uses the word “devour” rather than “eat” because of its implications of violence and negligence. Michael's discomfort with this idea of devouring up his meal stands for the concept of war and destruction without giving thought to the aftermath and the collateral damage. Michael himself is often presented as collateral damage, he is incarcerated several times for no reason, he is abused by the soldiers and vagrants he encounters, because these people are looking for the most convenient way to serve themselves. Michael is concerned with providing for himself but without placing the burden on others and it is for this reason that gardening becomes his true calling.

           His concern for the destruction of the earth, or his surroundings in general becomes more marked during his second attempt to grow a garden after his escape from the labor camp. There is a moment where Michael is forced to eat what he can find while he waits for his garden to grow and anything he eats is said to “(have) no taste” or as “(tasting) like dust.” (The Life and Times of Michael K, pg. 101) This is because for Michael the act of growing something is synonymous with life and the deeper we move into the book the less Michael will be willing to eat things that he hunts. It must be noted that food becomes enjoyable for him once he has tasted the fruit of his work. The book tells us that “eating the food that (his) own labour (had) made the earth to yield” brought “tears of joy (to) his eyes” and that “For the first time since he had arrived in the country he found pleasure in eating” (The Life and Times of Michael K, pg. 113) His pleasure does not arise from the food itself, or even from the act of eating, but from the the fact that the pumpkin symbolizes to Michael results of his work. Although it can be argued that Michael is simply falling into the system of waiting once more, it has to be remarked that it is his choice to wait because “there is time enough for everything” and waiting is much different when one chooses to be patient. Thus the novel makes a distinction between waiting for one's own to work to flourish and waiting without acting, condemning the latter and making Michael triumphant in his fight to wait on his own terms. 

A Blind Empire and the One Just Man

           This week I read Waiting for the Barbarians and while I found the violence a bit unsettling, I enjoyed the book nevertheless. I am always interested in the way J. M. Coetzee goes about making his character more believably human by putting so much attention into their physicality and sexuality. However, what really caught my eye from the start of this novel was Coetzee's repeated use of the idea of blindness, whether artificial, accidental or metaphorical. In the beginning of the novel the image of blindness we get is that of Colonel Joll and his "two little discs of glass" (Waiting for the Barbarians, pg.1) covering his eyes and the magistrate wondering if he is blind. This image is significant for two reasons. First, it establishes the idea that Colonel Joll has a questionable ability to see things because his eyes are covered, and second it demonstrates the fact that the magistrate and Colonel Joll are from different worlds.

            We can see these ideas develop through out the novel. For example, not much further into the chapter a parallel is drawn between the first young prisoner we see and the Magistrate. The magistrate states, "He has probably never seen anything like it before...I mean the eyeglasses. He must think you are a blind man." (Waiting for the Barbarians, pg. 3) On one level this establishes a connection between the young "barbarian" and the magistrate because they both share a certain distance from the Empire and its modernity, which is exactly what Colonel Joll represents. Despite the fact that these are not the words of young prisoner, Joll is being set apart again from the world of the frontier town. There are many soldiers that are stationed there, but no one quite like Colonel Joll. While many soldiers are stationed there they grow accustomed to the ways of the town, Joll does not. Also, we are reminded that Colonel Joll's ability to see is being put into question, that is not his physical ability to see, but his ability to understand, analyze things and view them past the Empire colored lenses he wears. The Magistrate spends much of his time trying to make Colonel Joll and the envoys of the Empire understand that they are going about things the wrong way, but often he finds that they cannot be reasoned with. Their blindness therefore, becomes a handicap to their perception of the situation around them, which will ultimately lead to the erroneous military decision that devastates their armed forces as well as their town. However, it has to be understood that their blindness in no way serves as an excuse for their actions. The fact that Joll and Mandel  voluntarily shield themselves against any reasoning or explanations presents the audience with an understanding that they do not wish see things a different way, much in the same way that the Empire wishes to do things its way without yielding to the demands of anybody else. The Magistrate describes Colonel Joll's glasses as "dark shields hiding healthy eyes" (Waiting for the Barbarians, pg.5) putting forth the fact that not only does Joll shield himself from what is truly going on around him, but hiding, much the same way the Magistrate tries to hide from the truth behind their interrogation methods at the beginning of the novel.

            The ability to see, to experience things is very important in the novel because really the only person who sees the barbarians is the Magistrate, to everyone else they are only dark shadows in the distance. One cannot understand something that one never sees or experiences and the Empire's blindness to this as embodied by Joll is a comment on this idea. More over it is also a comment on the way the Barbarians become an abstract concept to fear, and the way in which the Empire itself has become an abstract concept beyond the people of the frontier towns who are suppose to be ruled by it.

(EDITED: September 27, 2011 12:29 to be double spaced)

Reflections

            The concept I touched on in my previous posts hinted at the idea of duality in Dusklands, but I did not delve into this as much as I could have mostly because it was something that was brought to my attention by someone else. The idea of a battle between the bodily existence and the conceptual existence is really one of the things that I was trying to get at. The characters can live out their existence and believe in the concept of the colonizer, but does that mean they can embody it? Not necessarily, as is shown by the fact that the bodily existence of both Jacobus and Eugene suffers from their inability to see the concept of the colonizer as what it is, a concept that has been constructed by not just someone, but several people, something inorganic, which they mean to accept as tangible and organic. This concept cannot be lived out because things are simply not as black and white as they might have seem for Jacobus and Eugene. They want to subscribe to the idea of difference, trying to determine who they are based off what they are not. However, both characters find that they have more in common with the other than they had initially thought. The "other," is not quite the other, and can share many things in common with the self. It is like looking at a mirror, thinking that the face that looks back at you is different from you, only to realize that what you have been looking at all along has been your own self. For example, Jacobus has to begin to rethink his ideas of the Namaqua when he is faced with the fact they are proud people, like him. Therefore, he finds himself in the position of having to account for this similarity, which is contrary to what he had known. While acknowledging this fact, that they possess will, unlike his slaves, he has to explicate the difference by subjecting them again to the narrative of the colonizer, without conceding the fact that this same narrative has begun to fail him. Similarly, Eugene tries to explain his failure at work and his marriage by coming to the idea that he is a misunderstood genius. The oppressors then can be seen as being brutalized by their own narrative, in their attempts to oppress others. Their physical bodies must endure the pain that their egos cannot endure when their idea of the colonizer/colonized relationship is subverted. Dusklands does not simply place all answers in one's lap. One has to dig through the text to realize that even though these two characters are horrible, and although it may seem like there is no punishment administered, there is no worse punishment for them than being trapped in their crumbling ideals, because they have seen the light between the cracks of their broken mirror, but they cannot bring themselves to accept what is beyond it.

(Haiti Slave uprising, the slaves hang  old masters)

(EDITED: September 27, 2011 12:31 to be double spaced)