Presentation is Everything

Today, still reeling from our class’ back-to-back viewings of Earthlings, I delved into E.M. Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello with unease, unsure of what I would find there. I knew I couldn’t take any more images or descriptions like I had seen in Earthlings, couldn’t handle much more talk of animals of any kind, really. It was too painful. Needless to say, I found myself confused, albeit pleased, when I found the book to be a story of a gifted female writer (though not-so-gifted a mother, to be sure) struggling to stay relevant in a world where her ideas and books are considered old fashioned. I enjoyed very much what I have read so far and have found myself captivated by Elizabeth as a character, especially when it comes to the discrepancies between the personality she apparently puts into her books and lack thereof in the “real world.” But my enjoyment of the book is not the point I wanted to discuss in this blog entry!

Though there were many pieces of Costello’s speech about animals and animal rights that I did not understand (this is a book that I feel like I will probably want to read several times, over and over, savoring every word and rolling its main ideas around in my head until I can make some shape of the lump of clay they represent to me now – it’s a challenge), I did certainly appreciate and understand her stance on animals. She speaks almost exactly about facts and statistics regarding animals and their rights as Earthlings did, yet she (and Coetzee, if you break the fourth wall for a moment) seems to be farther ahead of her time than Earthlings.

Early on, it is established that Costello has an incredible talent for creating characters, for putting words to a page, to bringing an entire country fame with her books. However, that talent with words does not translate into oratory skills. She doesn’t think she needs to posess this talent as she tells Emmanuel Egudu, “From the beginning the novel has made a virtue of not being performed. You can’t have both live performance and cheap, hardy distribution,” (Elizabeth Costello, 50). However, I felt myself pained when reading her speech(es) regarding her beliefs on animal treatment. While her ideas might be valid and even understandable normally, under these circumstances with these people and with her rather condescending way of presenting her information, it just comes off terribly. Her son remembers a time when his wife would ask Costello how she could make a choice to be a vegetarian and she responds with the condescending, “You ask me why I refuse to eat flesh. I, for my part, am astonished that you can put in your mouth the corpse of a dead animal, swallow the juices of death wounds,” (Elizabeth Costello, 83).

I feel much the same way as Elizabeth after watching Earthlings and learning about animals via other outlets in this class like Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. When on the phone with my parents, I try to convince them to watch Earthlings with me, try to convince my friends of the same thing. Though I do not know exactly what my stance on every minute issue of animal rights and animal cruelty is, I do know that I believe animals absolutely do NOT deserve to be caged, beaten, unnecessarily starved, and put in pain that is not warranted. Animals will always be slaughtered, that is a fact I have come to accept. But do I have to support the inhumane (pardon the irony, I cannot think of a more effective word at 11:30 at night) treatment of treatment they go through in the process? Is it really that difficult to put an animal out of pain before you kill it?Is it really too much to ask that a fox be killed before its skin is ripped from its body like wrapping paper?(image courtesy of: http://www.canadianvoiceforanimals.org/files/SkinnedFox.jpg). I also thought about attempting vegetarianism, but was met with statements from my family and peers like what is essentially summed up in Wendy Doniger’s “Reflections”, “[to] refrain from killing and eating animals is to protect [my] own soul from pollution,” (Course Anthology, 350). And it is true, for what good will it do for me to become a vegetarian other than make myself feel happy? It certainly won’t save animals from pain. (This video confirms, in part, what Doniger says when she writes that we "refrain from eating animals to protect....our bodies from social pollution" [Course Anthology, 50] courtesy of:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GgUgj9xZO7E). The jury is still out for me, on the issue of vegetarianism, but that is beside my point. These are the things I feel passionate about, and these are the things that, like Elizabeth, I have tried explaining to my parents and friends. However, like Ms. Costello, I have been met with disinterest, with glazed over looks and condescending nods. Sometimes, in the case of my extremely self-centered little brother, I am met with a laugh in my face and the phrase “Animals are worthless. We can do what we want with them.” As infuriated as I am, I can only imagine the frustration Elizabeth felt. Here is this woman who was given the gift of an extremely intelligent brain (or “mind” as Elizabeth would insist on calling it due to “it seeming gratuitously insulting to call it just a brain” (Elizabeth Costello, 68)) but has not harnessed the ability to convey what her mind knows through her speech. One cannot help but wonder if Egudu was giving this speech, with his winning smile and confident yet not overbearing attitude, would people respond better? In this case, presentation is everything. I found myself wishing, as I read through instances of her being challenged by everyone from her audience to her own son, that she would write a book about her feelings, one that didn’t offend others or make them uneasy the way her spoken words do. Though, I suppose that’s what E.M. Coetzee is doing, after all.

(An effective speaker can sell an audience pretty much anything. How I wished for Elizabeth to have the gift of motivation in her speaking when she spoke about such an important issue as animal cruelty! image courtesy of:http://api.ning.com/files/cjhSEEQnSUDxAZLqbh5JiDz6-NHr6nDDGMEOwixb*wQZFgNYfaE8RGxXKw0llm6ahDH*IvVdN7KxMd7jS7cSWO9S3x77FxJl/CustomizedPicture.jpg)

I am looking forward to continuing with this book and to learning more not only from Elizabeth Costello’s great mind and how she applies this to her beliefs about animals but also how I can apply not only what she does right but what she does WRONG in her presentation of her beliefs so that I can apply it to my own life.