Rating: 
Summary: Powerful stuff
Review: J.M. Coetzee won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003, and has won the Booker Prize twice, most recently in 1999 for 'Disgrace', a stark and disturbing novel about a South African university professor who finds himself at the centre of a horrifying set of events - ie. getting fired from his job after an affair with a student, witnessing his daughter's gang-rape. . . It is fair to say that 'Disgrace' doesn't pull too many punches.
'Elizabeth Costello' is less harrowing, but no less thought-provoking, and explores similar themes to that novel - redemption, travel, the human condition etc. through the life of the eponymous main character, an Australian writer, who finds her own life thrown into turmoil.
Where there are some works which might make you want to give up on life altogether, and live on a South Sea Island in a state of narcotic bliss ('The Lotos Eaters' by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, springs to mind), this is a book that is similarly anti-aspirational. A kind of antidote to all those self-help books out there, this is not written to cure anybody's crippling depression, and might be best avoided by those who are feeling life is getting them down.
I couldn't recommend this to absolutely anybody, any more than I could 'Disgrace', and while the nihilism of 'Costello' is almost unbearably bleak at times, it is a powerful work, and rightly acknowledged as perhaps the greatest work Coetzee has produced so far.
Rating: 
Summary: Brilliant and difficult
Review: "Elizabeth Costello" is at turns brilliant and difficult, like much of Coetzee's work. On the one hand, the polemical structure is mesmerizing, if you are not pushed away by its seeming coldness and distance (Coetzee's writing in general is quite icy, and if you are not prepared for it, it can come as a shock, if not off-putting). The discursions about Wolfgang Kohler and Srinivasa Ramanujan are erudite, fascinating, and compelling, and, as always, Coetzee is a sharp, pointed observer of postcolonial and post-imperial relations. On the other hand, the protagonist, a fading, aging female Australian novelist who has a following large enough to allow her to make a living lecturing on college campuses and on cruise ships (meant perhaps to be a shadow of Iris Murdoch or Doris Lessing) is clearly an extension of the author's persona, and is often unconvincing and thinly-drawn as a character. Coetzee does not convincingly (in my view) speak through the character in a woman's voice.
Rating: 
Summary: Elizabeth Costello: no ordinary woman, no ordinary novel.
Review: "I am Elizabeth Costello," J. M. Coetzee's protagonist says in this novel of moral and aesthetic ideas, "and I have a complicated statement to make, if you will hear me out" (p. 169). Born in 1928, Elizabeth Costello is a sixty-seven-year-old Australian novelist, poet, and journalist. She is best known for her fourth novel, THE HOUSE ON ECCLES STREET (1969), whose main charecter is Marion Bloom, the wife of Leopold Bloom, the principal character of James Joyce's weighty novel, ULYSSES (1922). Her son, John, is an academic, and her sister, Blanche, is an African missionary. There are many parallels between Coetzee and his principal character. Like Booker-and-Nobel-Prize-winner Coetzee, Elizabeth Costello is also a celebrated thinker.As its title suggests, Coetzee's novel is essentially a character study of Elizabeth Costello, an unforgettable woman. Coetzee is at the heighths of his talent with this novel. His writing blurs the line between fiction and nonfiction as it follows a series of philosophical lectures delivered by his main character on topics including reason, feminism, reading "as a strangely solitary business" (p. 40), animal welfare and vegetarian ethics (she compares slaughterhouses to the "Nazi butchers"), "the age-old problem of evil," and eros. While she encourages her audience to walk, "flank to flank, beside the beast that is prodded down the chute to his executioner," John wonders about his mother; "why can she not be an ordinary old woman living an ordinary old woman's life?" (pp. 83; 111). To be sure, Elizabeth Costello is neither an ordinary woman nor an ordinary novel. In fact, meeting Coetzee's complicated character was one of my most satisfying experiences in literature this year. Highly recommended for serious readers. G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: The 2003 Nobel Prize Recipient Delivers Another Winner
Review: "There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge." In J. M. Coetzee's new novel, ELIZABETH COSTELLO, these first sentences greet the reader as a comment on first sentences, a self-conscious opening that makes clear the novelist's job: to bridge the gap between reality, "which is, as yet, nowhere," and fiction, "the far bank." Before leading us into "the far territory, which is where we want to be," he introduces us to his title character: "Elizabeth Costello is a writer, born in 1928. She has written nine novels, two books of poems, a book on bird life, and a body of journalism. By birth she is Australian. Elizabeth Costello made her name with her fourth novel, THE HOUSE ON ECCLES STREET (1969), whose main character is Marion Bloom, wife of Leopold Bloom, principal character of another novel, ULYSSES (1922), by James Joyce." Literature and the lives of writers are just two of the freighted topics Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, expounds upon through his title character. Structured as a series of lectures Costello delivers around the world, this novel of ideas addresses the nature of realism, the rights of animals, and the problem of evil. ELIZABETH COSTELLO is never showy; rather, the emphasis is on quiet technique-subtle, focused metafiction. It is a novel that looks for its own logic, and Coetzee locates it in ideas and arguments, the presentation, discussion and repudiation of which structure the novel vibrantly and rationally. Each section explores various approaches to the essence of writing. In the opener, entitled "Realism," Costello delivers a public lecture arguing that ideas presented through fiction cannot be autonomous, but must be anchored in objects and given voice by characters. As the chapter unfolds, Coetzee heeds this argument, setting up a trio of characters --- Costello, her son John, and an academic named Susan Moebius --- who throughout the chapter will voice different ideas that will control their own actions and responses toward each other. At another event Costello talks about the "willed ignorance" of an entire generation of Germans prior to and during World War II --- people who were aware of the concentration camps but convinced themselves and the world that they didn't know what evils lurked so close. She uses this as a metaphor for the mass slaughter of animals in farms and abattoirs, a comparison many in her audience find condemnable. Furthermore, if we cannot grasp such large numbers of victims --- if, as she herself states, we "cannot count to a million deaths" --- how can we count to a million passive sinners who are allowing such exploitive animal massacre to take place? The point is that Costello's ideas are not always sound --- her lectures are never very well received and her ideas are met with scorn and disregard. Even she doubts her own arguments and questions their logic. She agonizes in "The Problem of Evil" over whether to lecture on literature "as a form of moral adventurousness, [which] has the potential to be dangerous." Feeling it is her job as a writer to present the undecorated truth, she goes ahead with her talk, only to realize immediately the critical flaw in her argument. In other words, in her old age and out-of-step extremism, Costello is prone to self-doubt and self-incrimination; she argues most with herself and is her own most belligerent critic. But the unreliability of her logic does not weaken the book, but strengthens it by anchoring the arguments in her vulnerable character. What seems to be missing from ELIZABETH COSTELLO is her fiction, surely an intended omission. That she does not read from any of her novels at these lectures is telling: her oeuvre is the god off-screen, never glimpsed but exerting a mighty influence. This gaping absence makes these episodes all the more theoretical in nature, but it also implies that contemporary writers --- in fact, all writers --- bear a public responsibility that transcends bestseller lists and book signings. They have a duty to traffic in ideas and promote free thought, and whether they are wrong or right matters very little. In Coetzee's view, a writer's most important tasks are to make us reconsider our own intensely guarded ideas, if only briefly, and to allow us to empathize with other humans. "There is no limit to the extent to which we can think ourselves into the being of another," Coetzee reminds us. "There are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination." --- Reviewed by Stephen M. Deusner
Rating:
Summary: The 2003 Nobel Prize Recipient Delivers Another Winner
Review: "There is first of all the problem of the opening, namely, how to get us from where we are, which is, as yet, nowhere, to the far bank. It is a simple bridging problem, a problem of knocking together a bridge." In J. M. Coetzee's new novel, ELIZABETH COSTELLO, these first sentences greet the reader as a comment on first sentences, a self-conscious opening that makes clear the novelist's job: to bridge the gap between reality, "which is, as yet, nowhere," and fiction, "the far bank." Before leading us into "the far territory, which is where we want to be," he introduces us to his title character: "Elizabeth Costello is a writer, born in 1928. She has written nine novels, two books of poems, a book on bird life, and a body of journalism. By birth she is Australian. Elizabeth Costello made her name with her fourth novel, THE HOUSE ON ECCLES STREET (1969), whose main character is Marion Bloom, wife of Leopold Bloom, principal character of another novel, ULYSSES (1922), by James Joyce." Literature and the lives of writers are just two of the freighted topics Coetzee, winner of the 2003 Nobel Prize for Literature, expounds upon through his title character. Structured as a series of lectures Costello delivers around the world, this novel of ideas addresses the nature of realism, the rights of animals, and the problem of evil. ELIZABETH COSTELLO is never showy; rather, the emphasis is on quiet technique-subtle, focused metafiction. It is a novel that looks for its own logic, and Coetzee locates it in ideas and arguments, the presentation, discussion and repudiation of which structure the novel vibrantly and rationally. Each section explores various approaches to the essence of writing. In the opener, entitled "Realism," Costello delivers a public lecture arguing that ideas presented through fiction cannot be autonomous, but must be anchored in objects and given voice by characters. As the chapter unfolds, Coetzee heeds this argument, setting up a trio of characters --- Costello, her son John, and an academic named Susan Moebius --- who throughout the chapter will voice different ideas that will control their own actions and responses toward each other. At another event Costello talks about the "willed ignorance" of an entire generation of Germans prior to and during World War II --- people who were aware of the concentration camps but convinced themselves and the world that they didn't know what evils lurked so close. She uses this as a metaphor for the mass slaughter of animals in farms and abattoirs, a comparison many in her audience find condemnable. Furthermore, if we cannot grasp such large numbers of victims --- if, as she herself states, we "cannot count to a million deaths" --- how can we count to a million passive sinners who are allowing such exploitive animal massacre to take place? The point is that Costello's ideas are not always sound --- her lectures are never very well received and her ideas are met with scorn and disregard. Even she doubts her own arguments and questions their logic. She agonizes in "The Problem of Evil" over whether to lecture on literature "as a form of moral adventurousness, [which] has the potential to be dangerous." Feeling it is her job as a writer to present the undecorated truth, she goes ahead with her talk, only to realize immediately the critical flaw in her argument. In other words, in her old age and out-of-step extremism, Costello is prone to self-doubt and self-incrimination; she argues most with herself and is her own most belligerent critic. But the unreliability of her logic does not weaken the book, but strengthens it by anchoring the arguments in her vulnerable character. What seems to be missing from ELIZABETH COSTELLO is her fiction, surely an intended omission. That she does not read from any of her novels at these lectures is telling: her oeuvre is the god off-screen, never glimpsed but exerting a mighty influence. This gaping absence makes these episodes all the more theoretical in nature, but it also implies that contemporary writers --- in fact, all writers --- bear a public responsibility that transcends bestseller lists and book signings. They have a duty to traffic in ideas and promote free thought, and whether they are wrong or right matters very little. In Coetzee's view, a writer's most important tasks are to make us reconsider our own intensely guarded ideas, if only briefly, and to allow us to empathize with other humans. "There is no limit to the extent to which we can think ourselves into the being of another," Coetzee reminds us. "There are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination." --- Reviewed by Stephen M. Deusner
Rating:
Summary: Controversial but thoughtful
Review: A fascinating novel. Coetzee confronts fundamental underpinnings of the society we live in and wanders deeply into controversial territory in a thoughtful and insightful way.
Rating:
Summary: Good but overdramatized
Review: All the time I kept reading this book I was reminded of "Disgrace" and what an awesome book that was! Its not that I hated Costello, but then again somewhere down the line Coetzee's mastery did not come through as it did for Disgrace. Elizabeth Costello is less of a novel more of a manifesto. A manifesto of relationships - seen through an aging writer's eyes-with her son, his wife, the members of her fraternity, with her sister (who she has lost touch and meets only once after eons), with the person she admired as a child, with her mother and with the Almighty (if I may say that). Elizabeth Costello is about many day-to-day questions whose answers we look for in our lives and still are. The book does not provide you with answers, but it does make a great read somewhere down the line. Sublime, funny and sharp - Coetzee is a genius! My bone of contention: I know this one could have been ten thousand times better!!
Rating: 
Summary: Pedantic and boring (most of the time)
Review: as much as I'd like to be cerebral and enlightened, i must confess that this book bored me. the writing is high-minded and lovely, but the novel's basically formatted as 9 "lessons," or lectures, and after about the 3rd lecture, i lost interest in the preachings. elizabeth costello was interesting when she clashed with other people - her son, her daughter-in-law, other authors - but during most of the book she simply digressed, unchallenged. i'm giving it 2 stars for coetzee's prose, which made me talk and write better while reading this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Shattering
Review: Coetzee's latest takes philosophy head on, in a series of lectures of pure but often mysterious thought. Elizabeth Costello (the book and its narrator both) presents a dialectical critique of rationalism, contextualizing it by evocation of both exceptional and quotidian aspects of being that give rise to abstract philosophical concerns. Coetzee writes so beautifully, so simply; and yet is unflinchingly complex. The book is heartbreaking -- elusive and elucidating at once.
Rating:
Summary: A Novel of Great Questions.
Review: Despite what many reviewers would like to assert, Elizabeth Costello is not a novel of "great ideas". It is, essentially, a work that demonstrates the inherent deficiency of academic discourse, poetry, and fiction in attempting to capture the essentials of what it means To Be (to be a novelist, to be an intellectual, to be a human, etc). Throughout the novel we see Elizabeth Costello, the famous novelist and intellectual, struggling to come to terms with her role in society. The lectures in which she offers her views are often vague, rambling, and inconclusive, especially when compared to the often spirited responses offered from the Costellos adversaries. As always, Coetzee does not write of a world inhabited by black and white, but a world populated by shades of grey. By inhabiting the body of Costello, the famous Author JM Coetzee- two time winner of the booker prize,nobel laureate, post structural-linguist, and critical darling- is able to ask the question "what is the purpose of the writer" without offering any anwser of his own (atleast overtly). This is not a novel of great IDEAS, this is a novel of great Questions. Questions that have been posed by those who came before Coetzee, and questions that will be posed long after he is gone.
Critically this novel has not recieved the near universal praise bestowed upon such works as Disgrace and The Life and Times of Michael K. It is a difficult book becuase it asks difficult questions, and perhaps it does deserve less praise than the masterfully constructed novels that preceeded it. That being said, I believe that we will look back on Elizabeth Costello as Coetzees most enduring work for the simple fact that it boils everything he has done in his career down to its essential core question: What does it mean To Be? This novel is an essential key to the themes that permeate all of Coetzees work, and should be viewed as an important moment in 21st century fiction.
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