J.M. Coetzee
Paperback | Pages: 136 pages Rating: 3.69 | 2410 Users | 199 Reviews
Mention Appertaining To Books The Lives of Animals
| Title | : | The Lives of Animals |
| Author | : | J.M. Coetzee |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 136 pages |
| Published | : | May 6th 2001 by Princeton University Press (first published 1977) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Philosophy. Animals. Academic. School |
Chronicle Concering Books The Lives of Animals
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.Be Specific About Books Toward The Lives of Animals
| Original Title: | The Lives of Animals |
| ISBN: | 069107089X (ISBN13: 9780691070896) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Elizabeth Costello |
Rating Appertaining To Books The Lives of Animals
Ratings: 3.69 From 2410 Users | 199 ReviewsPiece Appertaining To Books The Lives of Animals
Excellent. Brief and resounding. Highly recommend. Though a bit intellectual at times, very human and bits and pieces resonated with me very deeply. It left me pondering and wondering about some ideas, and most importantly, towards the end it managed to put into words something that had implicitly and covertly been troubling me for a while:- {...} What is it that you can't say?- Its that I no longer know where I am. I seem to move around perfectly easily among people, to have perfectly normalThis story is ingeniously written. Coetzee, invited to give two talks as part of a university lecture series, instead delivers a fictional story in two parts about a novelist who is invited to give a series of university talks. His lecturer, Elizabeth Costello, chooses to engage with the philosophies underlying vegetarianism and humane treatment of animals, rather than speak about her own work. Meanwhile, his protagonist (her son and a junior professor at the university), must navigate the
This is a short fiction book on the debate on the lives of animals and their worth compared to human lives. Very well written, it walks the reader through the philosophical arguments around this debate (even with footnotes), while frame it in the story of a family of academics and of university politics. Not exactly my cup of tea, but it is definitely food for thought.
I'm glad I was able to read it and especially glad I didn't have to pay $20 to buy it. I thought Coetzee's "academic novella" had poorly written characters and a badly told story, if it was supposed to be story. However, I was delighted and surprised to see Peter Singer's work of "fiction." Seems like he had a ball writing that! What a talented writer and astute ethicist (Singer). I bet Singer would have written a much better academic novella than Coetzee. And ... isn't Coetzee a fiction writer,
This is another Odyssey project reading. The book as a whole is kind of interesting because of the essays that accompany the main story, which is a pair of lectures written as a fiction story.That said, the main story of the novelist giving lectures about how humans should do something in regard to animals differently than they do now falls flat for me. Coetzee's apparent alter ego of Costello doesn't seem to know what she wants people to do. She is a vegetarian, but doesn't suggest that for
yep. vegetarian for sure now.
ENGLISH: This book by a Nobel Prize, well-known vegetarian, defender of the rights of animals, is very well written and tries to keep an impartial tone where the main character, Elizabeth Costello, defends her position in public, is answered by those who do not share her ideas, and sometimes even cannot answer.ESPAÑOL: Este libro de un Premio Nobel, conocido vegetariano, defensor de los derechos de los animales, está muy bien escrito y trata de mantener un tono imparcial. El personaje principal,
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.