In Elizabeth Costello the novelCoetzee’s latest novel to come out in paperback here in Stockholm is currently on sale during the annual countrywide book sale/reading frenzy. Elizabeth Costello the novelist gives a series of lectures on topics that clearly interest J.M. Coetzee the author. Costello is not Coetzee’s mouthpiece, however; she gets a generous hearing, but we get hints that while she and Coetzee know the same things, her perspectives are that of another person — perhaps an older, waning person.
One of Costello’s lectures is a passionate defense of animal rightsThis part of the novel was originally published by Coetzee as the novella The Lives of Animals, delivered as a lecture at Princeton University in 1997. The Nation has a great review.. In the middle of her speech, just as her daughter-in-law whispers to her son that “she is rambling,” she begins a critique of Thomas Nagel’s famous essay, What is it like to be a bat? Nagel argued that even if we can imagine what it is like to behave like a bat, we cannot ever know what it is like to be a bat, because human mental states are just too different from those of bats — for starters, we can’t sense sonar.
Costello’s retort is twofold: First, she can make inroads into imagining her own death (so why not an animal’s life?):
‘For instants at a time’ his mother is saying, ‘I know what it is like to be a corpse. The knowledge repels me. It fills me with terror; I shy away from it, refuse to entertain it.
‘All of us have such moments, particularly as we grow older. The knowledge we have is not abstract — “All human beings are mortal, I am a human being, therefore I am mortal” — but embodied. For a moment we are that knowledge. We live the impossible: we live beyond our death, look back on it, yet look back as only a dead self can.
Second, novels work because “there are no bounds to the sympathetic imagination.” And if that is the case, “if I can think my way into the existence of a being who has never existed, then I can think my way into the existence of a bat or a chimpanzee or an oyster…”
Later, it struck me: Elizabeth Costello the novel is really an essay entitled “What is it like to be Elizabeth Costello?” Coetzee wants to know: To what extent is it possible to imagine what it is like to be her or someone like her? Not just behave like an elderly person, but be one?
It’s a question I never really asked myself when I was 18, but which I have pondered more often in recent years. Perhaps we can at then least answer the question “What is it like to be 35?”
Answer: You wonder what it is like to be 70. I’m sure in part it has to do with both surviving grandparents — my grandmothers — now being in their early 90s.
One grandmother is as sharp as ever, living unassisted, devouring crosswords and French novels when not cheating atrociously at Solitaire or ScrabbleWhy do the elderly cheat at games so much? Have they learned a lesson in life we haven’t yet? I’ll put down phoney words at Scrabble but that is allowed. Feeling for blanks, however, is beyond the pale.. Every so often, matter of factly, she mentions that she won’t be around for much longer. I’ve noticed myself (and others) hush her on such occasions, telling her she will likely outlive us all, or mock-chiding her for her morbidness. I think these episodes reveal more about us than about her, however. At her age, death is not something you can put off thinking about. It looms. It is we young ones who grow skittish when compelled to contemplate death. But I wonder if we are not doing my grandmother a disservice by denying her an opportunity to give voice to such thoughts. I wonder if it is something that the elderly talk about when we are not around.
My other grandmother lives in a dementia ward. She is frail, often confused, and tires quickly. It is as if she has a surfeit of memories to process, but only as if, because that’s not really what I suspect she is experiencing. In fact, I am not at all sure I am able to imagine what it is like to be her, in part because when I attempt the exercise I find myself using mental faculties that I suspect I need to imagine no longer having.
Contemplating her existence doesn’t provide any new intellectual insights. We know consciousness is not a binary notion, on or off, a matter of being awake to the world or dead, but a collective, a group effort prone to slow dissolution. Yet what is it like to feel your identity ebbing? Could someone not in her state write a convincing novel about a protagonist who is?
There seem to be several different challenges to overcome, then, when trying to think one’s way into the existence of an elderly person. I can think of three. Perhaps the easiest is to imagine being physically frail; after all, we’ve all broken a bone or been bedridden. Then there is the matter of acquiring the right perspective — from near the end of a life, from where you can count with your hands the number of summers left to you. And finally, in some cases, the challenge of imagining being on a trajectory into mental unbeing.
I will probably live to find out what my grandmothers are experiencing now. It will be too late to compare notes with them, though.
This is a great post, Stefan. I think about this from time to time (old age, death not being a bat). Unfortunately, the life lines (one grandmother died of breast cancer at 55 and the other of another cancer at 70) are not as long in my family so it’s hard to imagine myself at 90.
But as a kid, I volunteered every Saturday at an assisted living facility near my house (got me out of doing household chores!). I went around and chatted (mostly listened) with the elderly women while I painted their fingernails. Fortunately, their vision was so bad they couldn’t see what a horrific job I did (I was never very good at coloring within the lines)! Mostly they enjoyed the company. What I learned from that was recognition of the continuum of life, this (to me) imaginary gap of time between me and them.
We can’t fully understand their lives at an old age because we haven’t lived the 50 years or so in between, in their span of time which is so different from ours. But there’s so much beauty buried in their experiences, things we’ll never know no matter how much we read about that time.
They can accept death because they’ve lived full lives whether they find them satisfying or not, they’ve had the heartaches and joys we have yet to discover. I’m 33 now and my mother had already given birth to 4 children and me, I lead a life of pure selfishness. Let’s get take this in baby steps, imagine 35 and work our way up to 80?
Hehe, I cheat at solitaire too. Sounds like the first grandma is a hoot. I hope you’re spending as much time with them both as you can.
I have a candidate answer for your question what is it like to feel your identity ebbing? Could someone not in her state write a convincing novel about a protagonist who is?. Ella Minnow Pea is an utterly charming novel. It doesn’t entirely speak to your point, but there’s a similarity. It’s about power and language. As the novel progresses, the town council bans certain letters for various reasons. The more they ban, the more creative its citizens need to be in order to communicate. Eventually, communication becomes impossible. The protagonists may be thinking, but with no means of expression, may as well be suffering from dementia.
Hm. I screwed up the link to the book. Here is is.
Brilliant post. Written with great sensibility. Sounds like you’re getting ready to write your own novel … As I’m approaching retirement (at the all too early age of 65!) I’ll be happy to take care of a dutch translation…
..yes… it is a brilliant post, and gives me new reflection how it is to be a spouse (I guess it is extra interesting as I met this patients and theirs spouse daily in my work as a district nurse). I`s also interesting of the cause of that I am a child born ‘n the early 70th also called “the children of egoism and demandings”. I can see(in my work), a generation (ironicly including myself) who dosen`t got time for theirs spous , not too intresting of the lifestory they are carring.
From time to time I woundering how this will end, as we have demandings to succeed with our jobs and social life. Where people between the age of 30-40 more happy earlier, did the have more time with their spous?
I belive their was more tolerance and loving giving to spous earlier. To be old, die is a weakness not realy acceped today, or has it ever been?
Hey, where’s Stefan?
Here’s another book I just finished reading that tries to answer your question: John Bayley’s memoir of Iris Murdoch. Bayley, Murdoch’s husband, wonders whether she’s aware of her Alzheimers, and how her vibrant mind is slowly receding (as she put it: “sailing alone into the dark”) even though she’s unable to communicate the answer either way.