Backlisted - Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee

Episode Date: September 20, 2021

We are joined by novelist Mary Costello for a special episode recorded live at Galway International Arts Festival in Ireland on September 10th 2021. The book we're debating is Elizabeth Costello (2003) by South-African born Nobel Laureate J.M. Coetzee, a novel that politely asks the reader to consider, amongst other matters, animal rights, the power of faith and the limits of fiction itself. Also in this episode, new books by two Irish authors: Sally Rooney's novel Beautiful World, Where Are You and John Moriarty’s The Hut at the Edge of the Village, a collection edited by Martin Shaw and published by the Lilliput Press.Timings: (may differ due to variable advert length)40:06 - The Hut at the Edge of the Village by John Moriarty. 09:09 - Beautiful World, Where Are You by Sally Rooney. 16:04 - Elizabeth Costello by J.M. Coetzee* To purchase any of the books mentioned in this episode please visit our bookshop at uk.bookshop.org/shop/backlisted where all profits help to sustain this podcast and UK independent bookshops.* For information about everything mentioned in this episode visit www.backlisted.fm*If you'd like to support the show, listen without adverts, receive the show early and with extra bonus fortnightly episodes, become a Patreon at www.patreon.com/backlisted Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Dear Hitch, and welcome to Backlisted, the podcast that gives new life to old books. Today, you find us recording from Galway International Festival in the O'Donoghue Theatre on the campus of the National University of Ireland in the city of Galway. This is our very first time that we've done on stage in Ireland are backlisted. In fact, it's our first time in front of a live audience since the Proust Christmas special, our Christmas special devoted to all seven of the volumes of La Recherche de Temps Perdues by Marcel Proust. ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod ystod Rwy'n gwybod, mae'n anhygoel y byddem yn hoffi bod yn gyda'n gilydd eto, ond rydyn ni'n gwneud hynny.

Mae hyn yn dda, mae'n llawer gwell na Zoom, mae'n dda cael cynulleidfa yn ystafell. Rydyn ni'n arbennig yn hapus i fod yn ystafell academaidd sy'n cael ysgrifennu arbennig i chi sydd wedi darllen y llyfr y byddwn ni'n ei drafod heno. Ond yn gyntaf, rydyn ni'n ddweud cyflwyniadau. Rwy'n Jon Mitchinson, ganlyniadwr Unbound, y llatform lle mae ddarparwyr yn cyffredinu'r llyfrau maen nhw wir eisiau eu darllen. A fi yw Andy Miller, awdur o'r flwyddyn o ddarllen yn anodd ac yn dod â ni heddiw yw ein cwblwyr, Mary Costolo. Wel cymryd Mary.

Mary, ydych chi wedi here tonight? About a half an hour. A small village called Kinvara. Oh, playing the local crowd. But you've moved back to... Yes, I lived in... You're from Galway originally? From Galway originally. I grew up here and went to Dublin when I was 17 to go to college and then worked and lived in Dublin for about 30 years

and just camel yn 2016. Mae'n wych. Mae'r casgliad ffarchnadau ffair Mary, The China Factory, wedi cael ei gyhoeddi gan Stinging Fly yn 2012. Roedd hi'n cael ei nodi ar gyfer Cynulliadau'r Ddau Ddau a'i ddod yn ystod i'r cyfnod i gyfnod Iwerddon. Roedd ei gyfnod cyntaf, Academy Street,

a gafodd ei gyhoeddi gan Canongate yn 2014, wedi cael ei gyfnod i'r Cyfnod Iwerulliad Cynulliadau'r Ddau Gwlad a'i enwodd yn gyfan Cynulliadau'r Ddau Gwlad. Roedd hi'n cael ei ddynllunio ar gyfer y Cynulliad Llyfrgell Dyfodol, Cwrs y Cynulliadau'r Dyfodol, Cynulliadau'r DU a phrofiadau eraill, ac mae wedi cael ei ddynllunio mewn nifer o iaith. Roedd ei ddynllunio ar gyfer y Cynulliad Iwerddon yn 2019, ac roedd hi'n cael ei ddynllunio ar gyfer y Cynulliadau'r Ddau Gwlad, Cynulliadau'r Grup Kerry a Cynulliadau'r Dalci. novel The River Capture was published in 2019 and shortlisted for the Irish Book Awards,

the Kerry Group Novel of the Year and the Dalkey Novel Award. Mary, we originally planned to discuss an Irish novel here in Galway for Backlisted. Have you chosen an Irish novel for us to discuss? I'm afraid I haven't. I've chosen a book that has an Irish name, actually. Costello, or Costello is a very common Irish name, especially in the west of Ireland and in the south. It's Norman, originally. But it's written by a South African writer about a character who's from Australia.

So we're in several continents. o'r cwreirydd sy'n o'r Australiwyd. Felly, rydym yn ym mhob cwmpas. Ond mae'n debyg bod y cysylltiad Iwerddon yn rhywbeth o'r llyfr, oherwydd mae'r nofelist Elizabeth Costello, y nofelist aponymus, wedi ysgrifennu, a byddwn yn dod ati yn ystod y bryd. Ydym yn dweud hynny i'r cyfnod? Ydym yn gwneud hynny. Iawn, gadewch i ni wneud hynny. John, beth rydych chi wedi bod yn ei ddarllen y wythnos? A ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym ni'n dweud, a ydym Moriarty, of whom I knew nothing until very recently. I'm working with a writer called

Martin Shaw, who is the editor of this collection of John Moriarty's writings, and he commended it to me, and I read it, and it was, I have to say, exactly up my street. The book, What Do You Need to Know About John Moriarty? He, as Paul Durkan says on the back, he is the most outstanding philosopher-theologian since Bishop Berkeley, Ireland's most outstanding philosopher-theologian since Bishop Berkeley in the 18th century. If you are interested in how autobiography,

folklore, myth, and theology can be woven into incredibly powerful, suggestive, complex texts, I would suggest that some time spent in John Moriarty's company is well... he's kind of like Joseph Campbell amped up to the max. His book, A Dream Time, is probably his most famous but his autobiography of which I'm going to read a very short passage in a moment nostos there's a huge amount in this book it's a very this is a very good introduction I'm going to read a little tiny bit from the introduction these are not pastoral times we are living in but prophetic we're at a moment when

the world as we understand it has been turned upside down. The challenge is that there are fewer and fewer people who can interpret such happenings in a deep soulful way. Moriarty can do that. When culture is in a woeful crisis the insights rarely come from parliament, senate or committee. They come from the hut at the edge of the village. So let me just give you a little bit. This from his autobiography lapwings i remember my mother lighting the lamp and in the field in front of the house lapwings calling every call a complaint or so it seemed to me and the wonder was that even when they were being battered by hailstones they didn't alter their complaints they neither lengthened nor deepened them in all weathers and at all hours of the night, their complaints were as

elegant as their crests. What saddened me is that they were so frightened of me. I'd only worked to walk into the fields and they instantly would become a flock of shimmerings, swiftly swerving as they flew, and then, as though quenching themselves, they would land farther off among the rushes where I'd no longer be able to see them. That's what happened this evening. But now, again at nightfall, they had come back to the richer feeding grounds beside the house, and that I was glad of, because if ours was a house that lapwings could come close to, then surely also it was a house that angels would come close to. Surely tonight they would come close, because since darkness had begun to fall, this was Christmas Eve, and Madeline, my older sister, was singing Silent Night, Holy Night.

And Chris had brought two bags of turf from the shed, and Babs had brought two buckets of water from the well, and already, its flame perfectly calm, the lamp was giving more light than the fire, with its raptures big and small. But lamplight and firelight, that was every night. Tonight was different. Looking at the crib in the deep sill of our front window, I could see that the light of the highest heaven was in our house. It was a night of wonders. Tonight, all night, the gates of heaven would be open to us. Riding animals higher than our horse and wearing glittering vestments, not clothes, the three wise men would show us the tracks in the morning,

plain as could be, we saw them last Christmas morning. And Santa Claus would come and would bring us what we asked for. To Babs, he would bring a blouse. To me, he would bring a game of snakes and ladders. And to Brenda and Phyllis, he would bring dolls. And soon we would have supper with currant cake. There was no denying it. It was wonderful. And in a glow of fellow feeling with all our animals,

I went out and crossed the yard to the cow's door. Pushing open the door, I looked in, and at first I just couldn't believe what I was seeing. No candles lighting the windows, no holly, no crib, no expectation of kings or of angels, no sense of miracles. What I saw was what I would see on any other night. Eleven short-horned cows, some of them standing, some of them lying down, some of them eating hay, and some of them chewing the cud, two of them turning to look at me. Devastated, I had to admit

it was an ordinary night in the stall. Coming back across the yard, I looked at the fowl house and the piggery in the darkness, and the silence that had settled on them couldn't say it more clearly. Christmas didn't happen in the outhouses. Christmas didn't happen to the animals. The animals were left out, and since the animals were left out, so inside me somewhere was I. Terrific. Andy, beth ydych chi wedi'u darllen? Wel, a allwch chi i bawb weld beth yw hynny? Wel,

roedd yn ymddangos i mi fod yn Iwerddon yn y flwyddyn o 6 September 2021, oherwydd, cofio, mae hyn yn mynd ar record permenant, neu ar lwyth o hyd, o ran bod, cofiwch, mae hyn yn mynd ar y record permenant, neu ar leiaf ymlaen â'r amser ar gyfer y gweithred, a ddim siarad am newyddion Sally Rooney, Beautiful World, Where Are You? Rydym yn ymarferwyr am Sally Rooney am Batlisted.

Roedd John yn siarad am bobl cyffredinol pan roedd hi'n cael ei gyhoeddi ar un o'r bwyntiau o Batlist, a'i recordio ar y Ffestiwl Yn Y Rhyw Ddwy. 3 mlynedd yn ôl. 3 mlynedd yn ôl. A rydyn ni, John a fi, yn hoffi ei ysgrifennu iawn ac wedi edrych arno dros y flwyddyn diwethaf wrth i'r llyfr hwnnw ddewis miliwn o copïau, gyda'r cymysgedd o ymddygiad a'r ymddygiad. Oherwydd y gwirioneddau y llyfr hwnnw yn ymddangos i ni fod yn gyffredinol a llythrennol.

Ac mae wedi'i ddod i mewn i ffyrdd o ddiwylliant cyfoeth yn ffyrdd o'r hyn y gallwn ni ei ddychmygu amdano, ac rwy'n credu y gallai Sally Rooney ei hun ei ddychmygu amdano. Felly, fel y byddwch chi'n gwybod, mae'r llyfr newydd, Ymddygiadau, Yr Eiddo, a'i gynnal ym mis Ymlaen, wedi cael ei gyfrifo'n hollol gwahanol. Nid ydw i wedi darllen unrhyw gyfrifiadau o'r llyfr, oherwydd roeddwn i eisiau darllen y llyfr

heb sbwylio, heb anghyffyrddiaeth, heb ddarllen y llyfr gyda phwysigrwyddau, a phwysigrwyddau, a chymharau, uchel neu lawl. Ac fe wnes i ei ddiweddar ar y plen ar y ffordd ymlaen, ac fe wnes i roi 5 stawl arno, a chredaf ei fod yn wych. Dyma'r peth. Dyma'r cymaint o fy nghyngor. Roeddwn i'n meddwl ei fod yn wych. Ac rwy'n credu ei fod am bob math o wahanol bethau.

Byddau gwych, lle ydych chi? Ond un o'r pethau sy'n ei ymwneud â phethau gwahanol o wahanol bethau. Ie, bydd gwych, ble ydych chi? Ond un o'r pethau sy'n ymwneud â hyn, a dyma beth sy'n bwysig iawn, rwy'n cael y syniad y mae Sally Rooney yn rhoi llawer o sgwrs am fod wedi dod yn ffymus mewn ffordd heb ei gynrychioli. Ac nid dyna beth y mae hi wedi ymgysylltu â hyn. Ond hefyd, os yw hi'n dweud ar unrhyw bwynt, fel mae hi wedi gwneud yn y cyfweliadau, dydw i ddim yn mwynhau hyn. Rwy'n ymwybodol o lawer o bobl yn dweud, oh, siaradwch. Siaradwch, roeddech chi'n gwybod beth roeddech chi'n mynd i'r afael â hyn.

Bydd pawb am fod yn fawr, bydd pawb am fod yn llwyddiannus fel rydych chi. Ac mae'n ymddangos i mi fod un o'r pethau y mae hi'n ei wneud yn y llyfr hwnnw yw ysgrifennu'r rhwydwaith da a'rr fforddau beidio o'r ffordd honno. Ffordd sy'n debyg i uned oed yn ymwneud â'r math o lyfrau y mae hi'n ysgrifennu. Ac rwyf am ddarllen i chi ymgyrch, un o'r dau heronwyr ym maes hwn, sy'n enw Alice, a sy'n nofelist, sydd wedi dod yn ddiweddar iawn ym mis ym mis ym mis. O ble mae Sally Rooney yn cael ei syniadau? Dwi ddim yn gwybod. Roeddwn i eisiau darllen hwn oherwydd mae'n debyg i mi

nad ydych chi'n gallu gwrando ar hyn a'ch meddwl, dywch chi'n ddigon ffodus. Iawn? Felly, rydw i'n mynd i ddarllen. Mae'n ffodus. Ydych chi wedi dweud nad ydw i'n gallu darllen llyfrau cymdeithasol o'r diwedd? Rwy'n credu ei fod oherwydd rwy'n gwybod y cymaint o'r bobl sy'n eu hysgrifennu. Rwy'n eu gweld nhw'n holl amser yn ffestifilio, yn drin rydw i a siarad am y rhai sy'n cyhoeddi ym Mhrydain.

Yn ymddygiad am y pethau mwyaf anodd yn y byd, nid yw cyhoeddusiaeth neu adolydiadau pech neu rhywun arall sy'n gwneud mwy o arian. Pwy ydy'n bwysig? Ac yna maen nhw'n mynd i ffwrdd a ysgrifennu eu llyfrau fach oedolion o ran bywyd amdanynol. Y gwir yw, nad ydyn nhw'n gwybod unrhyw beth am bywyd amdanynol. Nid yw'r rhan fwyaf ohonynt wedi gweld y bywyd mewn dystodion. Mae'r bobl hyn wedi bod yn eistedd gyda chlostiau tabl llinyn bach wedi'u lleihau o'u cynnwys ac yn penderfynu am adolygiadau pech ar ôl 1983. Dwi ddim yn hoffi beth maen nhw'n meddwl am bobl cyffredinol. Yn ystod fy mhobl, maen nhw'n siarad o safbwynt gwahanol pan maen nhw'n siarad am hynny.

Pam na ddywant ysgrifennu am yr un fath o bywydau maen nhw'n arwain a'r un fath o bethau sy'n eu hysbysu? Pam maen nhw'n gweithio i gydag ymddygiad â llwyddiant a grif a ffasism? Pan maen nhw'n ystyried eu bod yn hysgrifio â llwyddoedd, a chyfroedd a ffasism? Pan maen nhw'n ystyried a yw'r llyfr gwaith eu hir yn cael ei adolygu yn y New York Times. Mae llawer ohonyn nhw o gefndir yn ymddygiadau cyffredinol fel fyny, wrth gwrs. Nid yw'r holl blant yn bwysigol. Mae'r pwynt yn y gwir yw eu bod wedi mynd yn y llwybr cyffredinol. Efallai nid pan ddodd y llyfr cyntaf, efallai'n y llwybr tair neu'r llwybr quth.

Ond, mewn gwirioneddath roedd yn ddiweddar. Ac nawr pan edrych nhw y tu ôl, yn ceisio cofio beth oedd bywyd gyffredinol yn debyg, mae'n rhywle y mae'n rhaid iddynt ysgwint. Os ysgrifennwyd yn onest am eu bywydau eu hunain, nid y byddai unrhyw un yn darllen llyfrau. A'n eithaf gywir. Efallai y byddwn ni'n gorfod cyfweli sut o wyt, would read novels. And quite rightly. Maybe then we would finally have to confront how wrong, how deeply philosophically wrong, the current system of literary production really is. How it takes writers away from normal life, shuts the door behind them and tells them again and again

how special they are and how important their opinions must be. And they come home from their yn dweud eto a eto sut arbennig maen nhw ac sut bwysig y dylen nhw. Ac maen nhw'n dod yn ôl o'u wythnos yng Nghymru, ar ôl 4 cyflwyniadau llyfrgell, 3 sgwyddo, 2 digwyddiadau gwerthu, 3 ddynion hir iawn lle mae pawb yn ymddygiad am adolygiadau pech, ac maen nhw'n agor y macbook i ysgrifennu llyfr newydd i'w hystyried yn gwych am fywyd cyffredinol. Dydw i ddim yn dweud hyn yn ddifrifol, mae'n gwneud i mi eisiau bod yn sych. about ordinary life. I don't say this lightly. It makes me want to be sick. The problem with the contemporary Euro-American novel is that it relies for its structural integrity

on suppressing the lived realities of most human beings on Earth. Woo! Now, you don't get that in much chick lit. So, I think this book is absolutely terrific and I applaud and salute Sally Rooney for having the strength of character and the grace under fire to write another terrific and important book, living a life that very few people, if they actually had to live it, would enjoy. So there you go. ysgolion bwysig iawn, bywyd bywyd, y byddai'n ddim unrhyw bobl, os oedd ganddo, yn ei fwynhau. Felly, dyna chi. Mae hynny'n ymgyrch o'r pasig, ond...

Mae llawer o ddau. Iawn, a phant o bobl yma wedi darllen hynny? Ie, pawb. Ie, pawb yma wedi darllen hynny, Sally Rooney, yn barod. I bawb! Waw, mae pawb yma wedi darllen hynny. Mae hynny'n anhygoel. Na, y person yna wedi darllen hynny. Y ddyn yno, rwy'n meddwl. A wnaethoch chi ei fwynhau? Iawn, iawn.

Gwych. Fe wnaethon nhw, iawn, roedd yn gwych. Dyma chi, dau. Dyma dau adolygiadau 5 star. Iawn, iawn. Bydd y sgwrs llyfr yn paratoi ar y llwybr arall o'r neges hwn. John, a allwn on to the main event? Because I think some of the themes in both passages,

our relationship with animals and our relationship with literary culture, are absolutely germane to the book that Mary has chosen, to the book that Mary has chosen, which is, as we said, Elizabeth Costolo by Jerm Cotseer, published in 2003 by Secker and Wahlberg in the UK and Viking in the US. So now this novel is, I think I'm spoiling nothing by saying,

it is quite challenging, Mary. It has that reputation, certainly, but I think in the actual narrative or the writing of it, it's very readable. Yeah, yeah. His prose are incredibly readable. I agree. So what I've asked John to do,

John has taken on the challenge of preparing a description for the audience who may not have read it. Normally at this stage in the podcast, our producer, Nicky, who sadly can't be here tonight, would say, what's it about? And Andy and I will kind of, yeah, we'll sort of have to try. Um and her.

Um and her, yeah. So here's a paragraph which I'm laying on the table as an attempt to say, to answer Nikki's question. Elizabeth Costello, the eponymous hero of the novel, is a famous Australian novelist, now in her late 60s and living in that strange otherworldly realm where most of her professional life consists in delivering academic lectures or attending award ceremonies. She is still best known for her fourth novel, The House on Eccles Street, in which she liberated Molly Bloom from

her soliloquy and Joyce's Ulysses and gave her new life and agency. This annoys her. Many things do, cruelty to animals in particular. The novel is divided into eight lessons, that's the subtitle, Elizabeth Costolo, Eight Lessons, rather than chapters, built around eight speeches or lectures which Elizabeth either delivers or listens to. As David Lodge has written, it is a book which begins like a cross between a campus novel and a platonic dialogue, segues into introspective memoir and fanciful musing, and ends with a Kafkaist bad dream of the afterlife. In other words, it shows J.M. Curcia at his enigmatic, gynharach, yn gweithredu'n gweithredu'n gwerth. Felly, a yw hynny'n cael ei ddefnyddio i chi?

O, yn fawr iawn. Mae dim ychydig i'w ychwanegu. Iawn, mae ein swydd wedi'i wneud. Ond, byddwn ni'n ddweud... Mary, ie. Byddwn ni'n dweud... Mary, os ydych chi'n hapus gyda hynny, gadewch i mi ofyn i chi, pan wnaethoch chi ddarod o'r cyntaf i ddysgu'r llyfr hwn? Pam wnaethoch chi ei ddewis i ni, a phan wnaethoch chi ei gyfnod o'r cyntaf? Dwi'n meddwl,

roedd Cotzei wedi defnyddio ddwy o'r llyfrau hyn mewn llyfr bach bach, dwi'n meddwl ei fod wedi cael ei ddysgu o'r llyfr 1999, a oedd yn enw'r bywydau o dynion. Ac fe wnaeth ei hun ddarparu'r ddwy llyfrau hyn yng Nghymru fel rhan o'r sieris o leitio'r tanner. And he himself had delivered these two lectures at Princeton as part of the Tanner series of lectures. So the two, chapter two and three, the Lives of Animals philosophers and the Lives of Animals poets, he delivered those at two lectures in Princeton.

He did that with the Nobel Prize as well. He delivers a story, and it was the first time he had introduced Elizabeth Costolo. Then a few years later, he brought out this book, and he added more lectures. And in fact, the one about the problem of evil, he delivered that lecture at a real conference in Amsterdam on evil as well, the problem of evil. So these are his lectures,

but he had constructed the character of Elizabeth Costello some years before that. So the big draw for me, I had read Cotzea before that, The Life of Times of Michael Kay, and maybe one or two others, but I didn't have the same pull until this book. And John Banville reviewed The Lives of Animals, that slim book around 1999 I think and I just rushed out and bought it. Obviously the surname floored me for a start. I thought

my God it's like a sign you know you feel an instant connection. So I bought that and the issue of the way she suffers for the lives of animals was what hooked me, to be quite honest with you. I knew instantly our guest, that Cotsey himself was concerned with the same issues and had the same sensibilities and sensitivities. And indeed, he's much more

public in recent years about how he feels humanity treats animals and each other, of course. Then when the book came out, I was in love with it. I've reread it several times, and with each reading, I think I said it to you in an email, I am floored. There are moments. It has a reputation for being very serious and dry, and there are certainly sections, especially the long dialogue with herself

or dialogue with another guest like the African writer or with her sister who's a nun. There are long passages with a lot of logic, you know. But I think that her arguments are like Kudzea's. They're quite clear. What she does is she self-questions the whole time and it's really about the examined life. But we do also get a lot about her own life.

You know, she has a son and daughter. In the first chapter we meet her son. So I think that just so that we don't give an impression that it's all dry arguments about moral and ethical issues, there is very much behind it a life lived. She's 66, as you said, she's written a successful book, you know, around Joyce as Ulysses, but she's reared a son and a daughter. Her son lives in America. He's an academic, and she visits and stays with him and his wife and children. He's a compassionate son, but he is baffled by his mother.

He's absolutely perplexed at what he calls her devotion to this animal business. Shall I just read the very opening of the book? Yeah. Because I feel like that actually sets up the tone, the character and the subject. And before I do that, I will say I totally agree with you that the presentation of long speeches, not just for their own sake,

but as demonstrations of character or characters is one of the tight rope walks that takes place in the novel I think and I found totally fascinating a lot of the time I couldn't work out why I was so gripped by it because it's quite abstract in places but yet at the same time you feel a real person is making the case whether you agree with it or not so John ond yn unig, mae'n teimlo bod person gwirioneddol yn gwneud y cwmpas, p'un a ydych chi'n cytuno â'r ffordd neu ddim. Felly, John, byddaf yn darllen y cychwyn ac yna byddaf yn gofyn i chi adeiladu ar hynny. Mae yna, yn gyntaf, y problem o'r cychwyn, ynglyn â sut i ddod o ble rydym ni, sy'n ddim yn un lle o hyd, i'r ffwrdd fawurf. Mae'n broblem bridio'n syml, broblem gwneud cyfeiriad o brid.

Mae pobl yn llwyddo problemau fel hyn bob dydd. Maen nhw'n eu llwyddo ac, wrth eu llwyddo, maen nhw'n eu pwysio. Gadewch i ni ystyried bod hynny wedi'i wneud, ac mae'n cael ei wneud. Gadewch i ni ddewis bod y brid wedi'i adeiladu a'i croesawu, ac y gallwn ei roi allan o'n fyn. Rydym wedi'i gadael yn yadewch i ni ddewis bod y ffrindiau wedi'u cyflawni a'u croesawu, ac y gallwn eu rhoi allan o'n fynni. Rydyn ni wedi'u gadael o'r terryf yr oedden ni, rydyn ni ym Mhroedd Terryf, lle rydym am fod.

Mae Elizabeth Costello yn ysgrifennydd, wedi'i fwyddo yn 1928, sy'n gwneud ei fod yn 66 mlynedd, yn mynd ar 67. Mae hi wedi ysgrifennu nain llyfrau, dwy ll llyfrau o poemau, llyfr am bywyd byr a llyfr cyfweliadol. Ers ei gyrff, mae hi'n Australaidd. Roedd hi'n ganddyn nhw'n fyw yn Melwyn ac mae hi'n byw yno hyd yn oed, er bod hi wedi gwthio'r flynyddoedd 1951-1963 yn y gwledydd, yng Nghymru a'r Ffranc. Mae hi wedi bod yn gyfweliad ddwy gilydd. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy.

Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddwy. Mae hi'n gweithio ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn.

Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn.

Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn.

Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn. I feel like there must have been. Because how close is this to Kurt Sayer? I think it's very close. Just getting back to her character for a minute, she's a very contrary woman at times. She appears contrary. She doesn't really care about what people think any longer.

And she's quite isolated because of some of the positions she takes, especially in relation to animals. She's also very, very some of the positions she takes, especially in relation to animals. She's also a woman of great humanity. She has a backbone. She doesn't avoid the awkward questions. She's not sure what the answers are,

but she doesn't avoid the awkward questions. And one of the arguments she makes, I think, is for using less reason and maybe more feeling. And that's something you don't really expect from somebody who's arguing philosophical issues. She's arguing for more feeling that, you know, from Descartes on, we've relied too much and we've depended too much on reason rather than feeling or intuition. She's calling for a little bit of that and also for more imagination rather than thought. But yes, I think that, getting back to Kutzea, I think that there's a lot.

Like I said, he delivered some of these lectures. One of the books that Elizabeth Costello takes issue with in the chapter on evil is a book by Paul West where he's writing about the July plotters against Hitler. And she questions whether it is right to represent such evil in fiction, that she asks, is the writer of the book Paul West? And Paul West is a real writer. I didn't actually know that when I was reading the novel.

I only found out when you told me. He is a real writer and it's a real book that he's writing about. So this is a pretty remarkable thing in a novel, for a writer to be writing about uh delivering a lecture a critical lecture about a book where the novelist is in the audience and um and it that whole this is this is such a in many ways i think this is quite a miraculous book because it it is it ought not to work a series of lectures or as a fiction ought not to work. But it does because he is technically such a brilliant writer

and he knows how to give you enough about a character. But also, these are the big questions, the things that she cares about, the problem of evil. She gets into a hot water, she gets terrible accusations of anti-Semitism because she said she basically compares the way we treat animals to the Holocaust. But as you say, Mary, she doesn't care about who she offends. She's got to a certain point in her life

where she's bored with delivering the same. She's been given the same old lectures for years. So she's got to that point now where she is trying to get to the truth. And I think Kurt Sear is a novelist who wants to get to the truth. But you don't get to the truth by having an argument. What arguments do give you, though, is drama. And he manages to build the character around the drama of this 67-year-old woman

being really fucking annoying at an academic lunch or on a cruise ship going to Antarctica or, as you say, in the hotel lobby where she tries to tell Paul West that she's going to diss him and he just totally doesn't... He says nothing. But what I liked about that particular chapter as well, later on we discover she has a very strong position on evil and she says, I don't know if I believe in God,

but I believe in the devil. And she traces it back when she was 19 in university. One night she was picked up by a guy, a sailor or whatever, and went back to his flat and had drinks or whatever, and then wanted not to sleep with him. And he got angry and he beat her up. Yeah, broke her jaw. Broke her jaw and left her in a bed.

Burned her clothes. Yeah, burned her clothes. Tore her clothes. And when he fell asleep, she went back into the room and took her clothes. So it was a... She said that that night evil entered her and that when Paul West wrote about,

and a very graphic detail she talks about, when the plotters were being executed, they were taunted by their hangman first or their executioner, and they were told what was going to happen to them, their bowels would go, a very graphic description of what was going to happen to them.

And she argued that Paul West, by writing that, entered the hangman's mentality and then let the evil loose in his book. And she argues that there are some things beyond evil, like forbidden places, Auschwitz or whatever, she said there are some places that maybe it's best for humanity not to go because the genie gets out of the bottle. So however then she described herself, that's what she does because she forces us to listen to what happens to animals and abattoirs. So by the end of the chapter, she's come around to a sort of reconciliation about where she

stands and she is reconciled to what Paul West has done. And she has, in earlier chapters, what she does is she's reconciled to what Paul West has done. And she has, in earlier chapters, what she does is she's constantly asking people to imagine the lives of others. That's why what she calls, there's a Holocaust every day in the abattoirs and in the farming industry. And she says that it's because of the inability of us

to imagine the lives of others. And she compares to what happened in Germany and Poland, that the people around knew something was going wrong, but because of a willed ignorance and an inability to imagine the lived life of another being has led to this. So she herself asks us to consider that, just like Paul West has asked her to consider the evil. And that discussion about what the limits of art are, what art can represent and what art shouldn't represent, is very current. I mean, I was really struck when I was reading this novel that was written 20 years ago in, as you say, awn, fel rydych chi'n dweud, ffordd digresif, pa mor hynny oedd yn hynod o hynny,

yr hyn yr ydym ni'n ei ymwneud â'n gynlluniau diwylliannol, er bod hynny'n ymwneud â'r syniad oedd, a pha gallwch chi ddweud rhywbeth. Ac os gallwch chi ddweud rhywbeth, wel, pam rydych chi'n ei ddweud? Mae'n rhaid i chi ysgogi. Y ffordd o ddweud wrth gyfeirio pobl sydd ddim yn cytuno â chi. And if you can say anything, well, why are you saying it? You need to interrogate why you're saying it. That form of people's views who you don't agree with. And that's 20 years before.

I mean, that's absolutely where we are at the moment, trying to work out how we deal with this. But what I love about this book is, where do you think he's going to take us next, readers, after the problem of evil in an Amsterdam conference? Your favourite chapter, I'm sure. It's just suddenly you're in a vision of a sort of purgatorial vision. It's like an Italian village where she's waiting to go up

to give what they call a statement. And it turns out that the statement, she discovers, is more of a confession really they want to ask her what her what she believes in and she says i don't believe anything i'm a writer i don't i'm there to record i'm there to record i i'm i'm there to what she'd use the secretary of the invisible the secretary the milosh's line and she has i think she has two goes at seeing if Y llinell Milosh. Y llinell Milosh. Mae hi'n cael dau ddod o gwmpas. Maen nhw'n agor y drws a'i weld rhywfaint o hwyl.

Yn dweud, yw hynny'r hwyl yr oedd Dante'n ei weld? Dwi ddim yn gwybod. Mae'n edrych yn dda iawn. Hefyd, rwy'n cael fy ngwlad o fod yma. Mae'n y mwyaf... O ran y cyfnod o gyfnod o ddiddordeb mewn llyfr, ac eto, oherwydd y ffordd hon o limpidiaeth, neu beth bynnag y byddwch chi'n ei alw'n

gwrthdaro, y proses, y prysigrwydd, nid ydych chi'n rhoi'r llyfr ar draws y ffrindiau a dweud, dyma'r rhyfedd. Mae'n ddiddorol iawn y peth hwn, oherwydd, oherwydd, mae Elizabeth Costello, y llyfrgellydd, yn ystyried ei hun, lle ydw i? Dwy'n credu bod hyn yn ddifrifol, mae'r pergadur hwn yn ddiddorol. Mae'n debyg, mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae'n debyg. Mae' is the famous ape. Ape and the Academy. The report to the Academy. So maybe you should read some. Okay, I was going to say just before that, when you read that opening bit, Andy, it reminded me that it was forecast because he's talking about a bridge we have to cross over.

And of course the final chapter, she's crossing over into the afterlife. We're not sure if it's a dream, but she's at the gates of heaven. It's called At the Gate. So she's standing there and she has to appear before a court of judges and she has to answer for herself.

So it is very much like the gate of heaven. And there's a tribunal of judges who will hear her, what is her belief? And she keeps going back. She fails to tell them what she believes in. But yes, the little bit I was going to read was from an earlier chapter when she's gone to stay with John, her son, in Appleton College, which I suppose is the model for Princeton where he really read. She stays with John and

his wife Norm and their children. And Norm is an academic as well, and they go to hear her lecture. She's given a big award, and they go to hear her lecture. Actually, there's a little bit of a funny bit because John is thinking, the first few chapters are from his point of view, and he's a very sound, compassionate father, and he's caught because Norm, his wife,

does not like Elizabeth Costello. She thinks Norm herself, I think, teaches philosophy. She does. She's an academic philosopher and really finds her mother-in-law's arguments just... Flaky. Yeah. And so she's staying at the house.

The children are eating at a different table because they eat meat, and Norm doesn't want them having to not eat meat that night. But at the gala dinner that night, John is thinking, I wonder how are the university going to organize this? Will it be vegetarian in deference to Elizabeth Costado, or will it be the standard fish or whatever? But anyway, later on, she gives this big lecture about how, and the truth is, and I think this is very true of Kutze as well, she is genuinely wounded and baffled

by humanity's treatment of animals. She does compare it to the Holocaust, and she doesn't apologize for that. And all the language that the Nazis used, she explains that they learned their techniques from the stockyards of Chicago, that the whole model for slaughter in the camps was based on animal slaughter.

But because of this position, she does feel isolated, even with family around her. So this little bit is at the end of the trip, and John is bringing her to the airport the following morning. Seven o'clock, the sun just rising, and he and his mother are on their way to the airport. I'm sorry about Norma, he says. She has been under a lot of strain. I don't think she's in a position to sympathise. Perhaps one could say the same for me. It's been a short visit. I haven't had time to make sense of why you have become so intense about the animal business.

She watches the wipers wagging back and forth. A better explanation, she says, is that I have not told you why and dare not tell you. When I think of the words, they seem so outrageous that they are best spoken into a pillow or into a hole in the ground like King Midas. I don't follow, he said. What is it you can't say? It's that I no longer know where I am. I seem to move around perfectly easy among people, to have perfectly normal relations with them. Is it possible, I ask myself, that all of them are participating in a crime of stupefying proportions? Am I fantasising at all? I must be mad. Yet every day I see the evidences.

The very people I suspect produce the evidence exhibit it, offer it to me corpses fragments of corpses that they have bought for money it is as if I were to visit friends and to make some polite remark

about the lamp in their living room and they were to say yes, it's nice, isn't it? Polish Jewish skin it's made of. We find that's best, the skins of young Polish Jewish virgins. And then I go to the bathroom, and the soap wrapper says, Treblinka, 100% human stearate. Am I dreaming? I say to myself. What kind of house is this? Yet

I'm not dreaming. I look into your eyes, into Norma's, into the children's, and I see only kindness, human kindness. Calm down, I tell myself. You are making a mountain out of a molehill this is life everyone comes to terms with it why can't you? why can't you? she turns on him a tearful face what does she want? he thinks

does she want me to answer her question for her? they are not yet on the expressway. He pulls the car over, switches off the engine, takes his mother in his arms. He inhales the smell of cold cream, of old flesh. There, there, he whispers in her ear. There, there, it will soon be over. Strong stuff.

Not a light read. Well, not a light read, no, that's not one of the funny bits, no. When I told Pat McCabe we were doing that, he said, ah, he said, they'll be dancing in the streets of Galway tonight. We've got a couple of audio clips of Kurt Sayer talking, Yn ystod y dydd, fe wnaeth y dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud,

dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dyma'r dyn wedi'i ddweud, dy through to the end. So I'd like to play something now which is him being interviewed in the year 2000, presumably while he was writing after the success

of Disgrace, which was the second of his novels to win the Booker Prize, but before the publication of Elizabeth Costello and before he'd won the Nobel Prize for Literature, this is Kurt Sayer talking about the satisfactions of writing. Writing in itself as an activity is neither beautiful nor consoling. It's industry. It has its own pleasures, which are the pleasures of total engagement, hard thought, verifiable activity, verifiable results, productiveness. Beauty and consolation belong not to the activity but to the results of that activity. The book you write may or may not be, have beautiful prose. Having

written the book, being able to look back on having completed the book may or may not be consoling, but writing the book is quite different. Work. Yes, it's good work. Because one isn't, in writing, transforming the world into the world as it should be. That would be too much of a task if one undertook it every time. No, I think that grasping the world as it is, putting it within a certain frame, taming it to a certain extent, that is quite enough of an ambition.

What do you think? There's no doubt about it. He's a very disciplined, hardworking man, intensely private, very reserved. And I think, you know, in his own personal life, he has suffered some tragedies throughout his life. So I'm pretty sure he, you know, gives it a lot of thought and is very serious and very aesthetic as well you know he doesn't drink or eat meat he cycles or he used to I don't know

whether he does now why I do like him so much is he is one of the artists who truly lives his work in the sense that his sensitivities pour into the work. I came across an interview, he doesn't give many interviews now, but he gave some in the 90s to David Atwell, a Cotzean scholar who's written a few books, but Doubling the Point is one of his older ones, and I came across this little quote which he put in parenthesis. He was talking about something else, and you can see he uses quite a detached tone. He speaks about one all the time. He doesn't often speak in the personal I. He said, let me add that I, as a person, as a personality,

am overwhelmed by the fact of suffering in the world. My thinking is thrown into confusion and helplessness by the fact of suffering in the world, and thinking is thrown into confusion and helplessness by the fact of suffering in the world, and not only human suffering. These fictional constructions of mine are paltry, ludicrous defenses against being overwhelmed. So I think that he put that in parentheses, and I think that's why he writes. He's overwhelmed by the suffering of the world, and he writes to keep from being overwhelmed. It's a defence against being overwhelmed.

He also is incapable. As you say, he's such a deeply intelligent writer. I don't think any writer that I know of has questioned what fiction is for, what stories are for, are they for consolation? It's all his work and he can't allow himself, it seems to me, to just to be directly identified with a character. He does that thing, as you say, he delivers even in the animal lectures he was using Elizabeth Costello as a sort that thing, as you say, he delivers, even in the animal lectures, he was using Elizabeth Costello as a sort of fictional baffle to keep. I don't think it was he was trying to hide, but I just think he thinks just saying what you think isn't enough.

And I think he was very aware that he's writing a work of literature anyway and he said in some of these interviews as well all writing is autobiographical fiction and non-fiction because it comes out of the self in fact the writer the writing writes the writer he says and one of the you know he writes a lot of essays as well for the New York Review of Books and he's a few collections of essays Stranger Shores and Inner Workings and there's one where he reviews a book by Robert Musil, the Austrian early 20th century, I think it's Five Women or Three Women is the title. One of the things he says is that Musil,

if I can think of it correctly now, Musil uses fiction as a laboratory for the refinement of the soul. Now, I was thinking it could be applied to Katsia. Katsia, yeah. It uses fiction as a laboratory for the refinement of the soul. And Elizabeth Costolo, though she says she doesn't know if she believes in God, she uses the word soul a lot. At the end of the book, we're at the gate of an afterlife.

There's a lot, you know, the frogs have a beingness. There's a lot of reference know, the frogs have a beingness. There's a lot of reference to what could be regarded traditionally as religious themes, but they're secular in his writing, I think. I want to mention the frogs, because that's another, I mean, the book ends with it, well, it doesn't end, you know, you think it's at the end, and then there's a postscript, which we may or may not have time to get to, but it, like I say, it is like such a complicated set of refracting mirrors because he's trying, it seems to me, to say that truth is complex and never simple. Trust the tale, not the teller.

I sound like an obsessive, and I sort of am. I went to see him. I went to see him. He came to the Stole Writers Week in 2006, actually. It was summer's evening and I was driving. My then boyfriend was with me and I was driving into the town and I was just driving along like this. And there he was in the footpath. And I, you know, braked suddenly. And I really, I said, he was walking along in a kind of a grey bomber jacket and he was talking to what looked like a teenage girl.

And it was really astonishing. It was so incongruous to see this man on the street of an ordinary Irish town, a market town in the south of Ireland, the kind of place I've grown up in myself. He was walking along. He was giving a lecture or reading that evening in the hotel, the Glistow Alarms. And it was a big, big conference room, and I wanted to be there early, set a few rows back,

I was full of eagerness and everything, and he read, he was very, very polite and gracious, and he read in a very softly spoken voice. My boyfriend at the time did not like the writing and did not like the man, I could tell, and he was getting increasingly impatient beside me. And, you know, he hadn't read the work or anything. And I was getting very nervous and leaning and, you know, trying to hold on to every word this soft spoken author was saying.

Meanwhile, he was getting edgier and edgier. And I was petrified he would get up and walk out or something. But I still, you know, think about that. about that and I think ah I'm glad I went you know it was one of those moments where it's it's one of those this this novel you know the vocation of the writer one of the things I really enjoyed about this novel is it made me think um the writer Matthew de Bature I um was at an event where I asked him did he enjoy doing events like the one we're doing today in fact, or like the one you attended with Kurt Sayer, and he said, well, the writer is the guy who stays home and does the work, and the author is the guy who goes out and does this crap.

ac mae'n mynd allan a'i wneud y cwmni hwn. Roeddwn i eisiau darllen ychydig o'r ffyrdd, y llyfr yn Africa, sy'n cael ei leoli ar gyfer llyfr cru, lle mae gweithwyr yn cael eu cymryd i fynd allan a chyflwyno'r cyflogwyr ar gyfer llyfr cru, am y ddylun o'r llyfr. Byddwch yn gael eich ticet ac yn cael pum diwrnod o'r trafod passengers on a cruise liner about the state of the novel. So you would buy your ticket and you'd have five days of sailing around with Elizabeth Costolo. And in this case, an African writer called Emmanuel Igudu. And I wanted to read this one paragraph because it reminds me of the section from Sally Rooney's novel that I read at the start of the podcast.

And it's not often that Sally Rooney gets compared to JM Kurtzler but I'm gonna do it. Igudu is in the ballroom on the cruise ship and he's saying to the audience who've paid hundreds of pounds, euro or dollars to attend, how easy do you think it is ladies and gentlemen for this fellow to be true to his essence as Mae'n dda, fi'n ddweud y gwirionedd, i'r ddyn hon fod yn wir i'w haeswr fel ysgrifennydd, pan fydd yna'r holl ymdrinwyr hyn i'w gofyn, mis ar mis, ganlyniadwyr, darllenwyr, crudigion, myfyrwyr, pob un ohonyn nhw, nid yn unig â'u syniadau eu hunain am beth yw ysgrifennu neu y ddylai, beth yw'r is or should be, what Africa is or should be, but also about what being pleased is or should be. Do you think it is possible for this fellow to remain unaffected by all the pressure on him to please others,

to be for them what they think he should be, to produce for them what they think he should produce? i fod i'w gael yr hyn y maen nhw'n credu y dylen nhw ei fod yn ei wneud, i gynhyrchu i'w gael yr hyn y maen nhw'n credu y dylen nhw ei wneud. Yn gyfresol, fe wnes i feddwl, wel, dyna unrhyw creed o'r cyr. Ond wedyn fe wnes i feddwl, nid oes gen i gymarniaeth, dyna beth mae Kurt Sayer yn credu. Roeddwn i eisiau gofyn i'ch ddau. Mae'n iawn. Mae'n iawn. Mae'n iawn. Dyna beth mae Kurt Sayer yn meddwl. Roeddwn i eisiau gofyn i'ch ddau ohonoch. Rydych chi wedi siarad am

ystyried y sylwadau bywydol o Elizabeth Costello. Rydyn ni'n gwybod bod rhai ohonyn nhw sylwadau bywydol Kurt Sayer. Ond, ydynt i gyd yn sylwadau bywydol Kurt Sayer? Ydy hi'n broksi syml i'w ddweud? Ydyn ni'n gwybod bod rhai ohonyn nhw sylwadau bywydol Kurt Sayer. Ond, ydynt i'n gwybod bod rhai ohonyn nhw

sylwadau bywydol Kurt Sayer. Mae'n dweud ei fod yn dweud she a simple proxy for him? I think that he has indicated in interviews that her concerns are his concerns. But for instance, that discussion about evil, you know, she started out at one position and she worked her way through. And he said in another interview, fiction is not free expression. you, fiction is not free expression. It's dialogic. It means that the writer is awakening the counter voices within himself, the counter voices. So he's writing to know what he thinks. John Didion said this, I write to know what I think. But he never starts out, I think most writers would feel this. We write to know what we want to say, we're writing towards something. Fiction and non-fiction, you start out and you're writing towards something, some it, and we don't know exactly what it is, and in the teasing out

of that, and that's what Elizabeth Costa is doing, she's having an argument with self, she's having an argument with others, and it's what C i think does and what a lot of writers doing they're writing to get to something you know um i used to think it was you know writing to put your finger on the nub of thing is and the nub of something to get to the heart of something but i think actually certainly when i think about it i think it's um it's to write towards consciousness to be more conscious and in a way that's to write towards consciousness, to be more conscious. And in a way, that's what she is doing. She's being more conscious about suffering or what's the purpose. By the end of that story in the very last chapter at the gate, she's asking, was it worthwhile being a writer at all? Is art any good? And Katsaya has that argument a lot. What is the point of writing? What's the point of art?

At one point, she says, I think it might be in the African chapter with the African writer, if I had a choice between writing all those novels and doing good, I would choose doing good. I would like to, before we have to wind up in about five minutes, but I would like to say a little bit Byddwn i eisiau, o'r cyntaf, byddwn ni'n gorfod ymlaen yn ychydig o fain, ond byddwn i eisiau ddweud ychydig am adnoddau Curseya. Byddwn hefyd eisiau chwarae hyn.

Dyma sbeth bach iawn a gafodd Curseya ar y dîm ar gyfer gael y Prifysgol Nobel ar gyfer llythyrwyr. Yn y ddŵr, roedd yn cyhoeddi sbeth o'r Llywodraeth Nobel eithaf esoterig. Felly roedd pobl yn cael eu cymryd i mewn i ddarllen ail unrhyw beth arall. Yn hytrach, roedd ganddyn nhw'r ddau. Your Royal Highnesses, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished Guests, Friends. The other day, suddenly, out of the blue, while we were talking about something completely different, my partner Dorothy, my friend and companion

burst out as follows on the other hand she said, on the other hand how proud your mother would have been what a pity she isn't still alive

and your father too how proud they would have been of you. Even prouder than of my son the doctor, I said. Even prouder than of my son the professor. Even prouder. If my mother was still alive, I said, she would be 99 and a half. She would probably have senile dementia. She would not know what was going on around her.

But of course, I missed the point. Dorothy was right. My mother would have been bursting with pride, my son the Nobel Prize winner. And for whom, anyway, do we do the things that lead to Nobel Prizes if not for our mothers? lead to Nobel Prizes, if not for our mothers. Mommy, mommy.

Mommy, mommy, I won a prize. That's wonderful, my dear. Now eat your carrots before they get cold. Why must our mothers be 99 and long in the grave before we can come running home with a prize that will make up for all the trouble we have been to them. To Alfred Nobel, 107 years in the grave, and to the foundation that so faithfully administers his will and that has created this magnificent evening for us, my heartfelt gratitude. To my parents

how sorry I am that you cannot be here thank you applause can I read this a little bit do you want to just tell us what you've got for us because it seems like a nice note to end on. Yeah. Katsaya wrote three books,

Boyhood, Youth and Summertime, which are variously called memoir and fiction. He himself said they hover between memoir and fiction. Some call them autobiographical fiction, fictional autobiography and so on. But this is probably my favorite one, and he's written it about his childhood. He grew up in Cape Town, South Africa.

His father was a lawyer who was struck off for malpractice and fought in the Second World War in Italy, and his mother was a very loving mother, perhaps what nowadays we might call a smother mother, a little bit like Beckett's mother in some of the sense in that she invested a lot in her two sons and loved them dearly and was very forward for them. But he loves her dearly, but he often uses her.

The thing about these memoir books is he was searingly honest, brutally honest. We don't know if every single thing is true because it's harbors between memoir and fiction. But in this, he describes he had to write an essay in school one day. He's maybe 10 or 12, about what he did this morning. And he lied in it. He said he polished his shoes. But his mother does everything for him. But he lied about it and felt very guilty afterwards. He is a liar and he is cold-hearted too. A liar to the world in general, cold-hearted towards his mother.

It pains his mother, he can see, that he is steadily growing away from her. Nevertheless, he hardens his heart and will not relent. His only excuse is that he is merciless to himself too. He lies, but he does not lie to himself. When are you going to die, he asks her one day, challenging her, surprised at his own daring. I am not going to die, at his own daring. I am not going to die, she replies. She speaks gaily, but there is something false in her gaiety. What if you get cancer? You can only get cancer if you are hit on the breast. I won't get cancer. I live forever. I won't die. He knows why she is saying this. She is saying it for him and his brother so that they will not worry. It is a silly thing to say but he is grateful to her for it. He cannot imagine her

dying. She is the firmest thing in his life. She is the rock on which he stands. Without her he would be nothing. She guards her breasts carefully in case they are knocked. His very first memory y mae'n sefyll. Be'i ddim, byddai'n ddim. Mae'n gofalu ei broedau'n ddysg, os ydyn nhw ddim. Mae'i gofnod cyntaf, cyn i'r dog, cyn i'r sgwrap o bapur, fod o'i broedau bwyd. Mae'n sgwpio bod wedi'u llwyddo pan oedd yn bren, wedi'u gwrthi gyda'i ffisau. Mae'n dda iawn. Rwy'n hoffi ddweud, un o'r p one of the wonderful things about Batlist which we've seen really demonstrated this evening

is the magic when a writer reads the work of a writer they love Mary you read both those passages so beautifully I think I think I think

Kurt Sayer should outsource his readings to you. That's all we've got time for, I'm afraid. I want to just thank Mary for choosing such a, I think, a wonderful, challenging, ultimately deeply rewarding book. I hope we've captured some of the flavour of it.

It is in no sense a dry academic recycling of philosophical themes. It's a real novel and one that will live with readers for a long, long time. I also want to thank the amazing Galway Festival team, Paul Fye, the director, Kirstie Warren, Jacinta Dyer, and Tracy Ferguson, who've looked after us, invited us, and looked after us brilliantly. Thank you. It's amazing to be here. Andy? Yeah, for more from Galway International Arts Festival, you can check out their podcast, First Thought, and that's available on all major podcast platforms. And then after you've done that, you can download all 145 previous episodes of Backlisted.

145! I know. Plus follow links, clips and suggestions for further reading by visiting our website at backlisted.fm. We're always pleased if you contact us on Twitter and on Facebook and now in sound and pictures on Instagram too. You can also share your love by directly supporting us on Twitter and on Facebook and now in sound and pictures on Instagram too. You can also show your love by directly supporting us on Patreon at www.patreon.com forward slash backlisted. We aim to survive without paid-for advertising

and your generosity helps us to do that. All the patrons who subscribe get to hear backlisted episodes early and for the price of two pints of Guinness at Moran's on the Weir lot listeners get two extra lot lists a month that's two extra podcasts a month our very own academic lecture series where we three get to deliver lessons on the books, films and music

that we've been consuming for the benefit and moral improvement of our listeners Well thank you Mary Costolo for bringing us Elizabeth Cost i chi Mary Costello am ddod â ni Elizabeth Costello. Mae un E Costello y ddim ni wedi'i glywed o, ond os oedd E Costello i recordio cerdd, rwy'n credu y byddai'n hwn. John, a ydych chi am ddweud diolch? Slwm y ffordd ag es i, hawa.

Diolch a diolch. Good night. Thank you and good night. If you prefer to listen to Backlisted without adverts, you can sign up to our Patreon. It's www.patreon.com forward slash backlisted. As well as getting the show early, you get a whole two extra episodes of what we call Locklisted, which is Andy, me and Nicky talking about the books, music and films we've enjoyed in the previous fortnight.