Elizabeth Costello is a work of fiction built from a series of lectures and occasions in the life of its title character, an aging Australian novelist. She travels to give talks and accept honours, and she finds herself challenged by family, colleagues and admirers.
Her subjects include the nature of realism, the place of animals in human ethics, cruelty, evil and the problem of belief. The book blends story with argument, and it often leaves the reader unsure where the author's own views lie. It is a thoughtful, unusual work that invites debate.
Quotes
He is here, with her, out of love. *He cannot imagine her getting through this trial without him at her side.”
She inhabits her characters as a woman does, not a man.
She is not sure, as she listens to her own voice, whether she believes any longer in what she is saying.
A French or English writer has thousands of years of written tradition behind him…We on the other hand are heirs to an oral tradition.