Saying and the Interruption of the Said: Ethical Considerations in and on J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals*
Abstract
Using J.M. Coetzee’s The Lives of Animals (Coetzee 1999) as a basis, our article compares the straightforward ethical reading of literature as an unproblematic means for creating reader sympathy (as exemplified by the work of Martha Nussbaum), with an approach based on Emmanuel Levinas’s sense of otherness. For Levinas, reading involves an awareness of otherness that does not control or circumscribe the other, but that encourages a continual unfolding of its possibilities. In this connection, he distinguishes between the “said”, that which is complete, written down once and for all, and the “saying”, that which can “interrupt” our readerly assumptions by revealing the presence of otherness. The sense of otherness, because so fundamental to our interaction with the world, needs to be respected, our ethical obligation or responsibility towards it acknowledged. We believe The Lives of Animals fosters such a sense of obligation. It both thematises moral concerns and helps enact moral understanding, unlike a straightforward sympathetic approach, which depends on exclusionary opposition at the expense of a more knowing engagement with otherness.
Opsomming
Met The Lives of Animals (1999) van J.M. Coetzee as basis, vergelyk ons artikel ’n ongekompliseerde etiese lees van letterkunde as ’n onproblematiese werkswyse om simpatie by die leser op te wek (soos beliggaam in die werk van Martha Nussbaum) met ’n benadering gebaseer op Emmanuel Levinas se siening van die begrip “ander”. Vir Levinas behels lees ’n bewussyn van anderwees wat die ander nie beheer of begrens nie, maar waarin ’n voortdurende ontvouing van die moontlikhede daarvan aangemoedig word. In hierdie verband maak hy ’n onderskeid tussen dit wat volledig is, wat vir eens en altyd neergeskryf is (“the said”), en dit wat ons aannames as lesers kan versteur (“interrupt”) deur ’n onthulling van die teenwoordigheid van die ander (“the saying”). ’n Bewussyn van anderwees moet gerespekteer word en ons etiese verpligting of verantwoordelikheid daarteenoor moet erken word aangesien dit so fundamenteel is in ons interaksie met die wêreld. Ons glo dat The Lives of Animals so ’n gevoel van verpligting aanmoedig. Morele oorwegings dien as tema vir hierdie werk en dit bevorder ook morele begrip, anders as in ’n eenvoudige simpatieke benadering wat staatmaak op uitsluitende opposisie wat groter kennis van en verbintenis met die ander teenwerk.
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