Metaphor as contagion: Notes on the postscript of JM Coetzee’s Elizabeth Costello

Abstract

This paper engages with the postscript of JM Coetzee’s 2003 novel Elizabeth Costello with the intention of introducing the concept that Coetzee’s late works act as ‘postscripts’ to his previous body of writing. It proposes that every act of writing, as particularly demonstrated in the suspended poetics of metaphor and analogy, is an act of sacrifice, as evinced by Lady Chandos in Coetzee’s Postscript: ‘Always it is not what I say, but something else!’ (Coetzee 2003: 228). The paper observes the deficiency of language, the writer’s attempt nonetheless, and the inevitable resultant ruptures in text and self. The article pursues these ideas through both critical and creative writing.