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Oct. 2003. 234p. Viking, $21.95 (0-670-03130-5).
Although it's billed as "a novel masquerading as a biography," some readers may speculate that Coetzee's newest is a biography posing as a novel, or even lectures formed into fiction (six portions were previously published separately). The format is instantly intriguing. Elizabeth Costello is a near-elderly Australian novelist who remains best known for an early work in which she appropriates James Joyce's Ulysses character, Molly Bloom. Coetzee tackles problems of writing, literature, philosophy, and family through eight "lessons," most of which center on a lengthy formal address. In "Realism," Costello travels to Pennsylvania with her son to receive an award: Coetzee slyly enumerates conventions of realistic storytelling even as he guides Costello through ...