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Title
J.M. Coetzee and the ethics of narrative transgression : a reconsideration of metalepsis / Alexandra Effe.
ISBN
9783319601014 (electronic book)
3319601016 (electronic book)
9783319601007
3319601008
Published
[Cham, Switzerland] : Palgrave Macmillan, [2017]
Language
English
Description
1 online resource (183 pages)
Call Number
PR9369.3.C58 Z652 2017
Dewey Decimal Classification
823/.914
800
Summary
This book is about the metanarrative and metafictional elements of J.M. Coetzee's novels. It draws together authorship, readership, ethics, and formal analysis into one overarching argument about how narratives work the boundary between art and life. On the basis of Coetzee's writing, it reconsiders the concept of metalepsis, challenges common understandings of self-reflexive discourse, and invites us to rethink our practice as critics and readers. This study analyzes Coetzee's novels in three chapters organized thematically around the author's relation with character, reader, and self. Author and character are discussed on the basis of Foe, Slow Man, and Coetzee's Nobel lecture, 'He and His Man'. Stories featuring the character Elizabeth Costello, or the figuration Elizabeth Curren, serve to elaborate the relation of author and reader. The study ends on a reading of Summertime, Diary of a Bad Year, and Dusklands as Coetzee's engagement with autobiographical writing, analyzing the relation of author and self. It will appeal to readers with an interest in literary and narrative theory as much as to Coetzee scholars and advanced students.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references (pages 161-167) and index.
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Source of Description
Description based on print version record.
Acknowledgements; Contents; Prologue; 1 Introduction: Metalepsis as Ethics; 2 Author and Character: Of Fathers, Foes, and Figurations; Foe; "He and His Man"; Slow Man; 3 Author and Reader: Communication, Creation, and Care; Authoring Opinions and Building Bridges; Writing in Limbo; 4 Author and Self: Accounting for Voices and Worlds; Dialogue and Truth in Autobiography, History, and the Novel; Summertime; Diary of a Bad Year; Dusklands; 5 Conclusion; Works Cited; Index.
