Having thought before that I may be getting into a rut with heavyweight white authors of advancing years I then chose to combat this by rading a novel by a heavyweight white author of advancing years. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose and all that. But then, when a book's as much of a call to arms of the intellect as this bad boy is, it's not such a bad rut to be in. In it, the ageing author Elizabeth Costello, her best work long behind her, is pushed from pillar to post in a series of "lessons". Be it receiving prizes, being a writer in residence on a cruise ship or giving speeches which dwell on man's cruelty to animals when people were expecting something about literature, it's the story of someone who's race is almost, though not quite, run, trying to make sense of it all. As such, it's certainly a heavy read at times. Costello herself is disputative, contrary and, at times, self-defeating. But it's never not interesting. Coetzee ...
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