J.M. Coetzee and the Limits of Language

Abstract

In this article, with particular reference to Waiting for the Barbarians ([1980]2000) and Disgrace (1999), I explore the ways in which Coetzee’s texts confront the difficulty of bringing meaningfully into linguistic range that which appears without precedent in given language. The irruption caused by the not-yet-said has the capacity to disturb the assumption that a meaningful language, recognised and shared by addressor and addressee, is being spoken at all.  Yet the enquiries set up in the worlds of Coetzee’s fiction never end with the first thought that something may be beyond discursive limits, even in the recognition that the effect of subsuming difference under the homogenising effect of a dominant discourse can be just as ethically fraught. In the course of the article I suggest a link between Coetzee’s ethical enquiry about the limits of language, and that of Holocaust writer, Jean Améry, in his book, At the Mind’s Limits ([1966]1980).

Opsomming

In hierdie artikel word daar met spesifieke verwysing na Waiting for the Barbarians ([1980]2000) en Disgrace (1999) gekyk na Coetzee se unieke wyse om dit wat in geen taal voorheen bestaan het nie op 'n komplekse talige wyse aan te roer. Die irrupsie wat deur die nog-nie-gesegde veroorsaak word, het die vermoë om die aanname te versteur dat 'n betekenisvolle taal wat deur die implisiete stem en aangesprokene  gedeel word, wel bestaan. Tog eindig alle ondersoeke wat na die fiksionele wêrelde van Coetzee onderneem word nooit met die eerste aanname dat iets buite diskursiewe grense eties belaai mag wees nie. Selfs in die herkenning van hierdie onderliggende verskille onder die homogeniserende effek van die dominante diskoers is daar verskillende vlakke of lae. In hierdie artikel suggereer ek 'n ooreenkoms tussen Coetzee se etiese ondersoeke oor die grense van taal en die werk van Jean Améry in At the Mind’s Limits ([1966]1980).