Metaphysical Exile

Nobel Prize-winning novelist J.M. Coetzee's "Jesus" fictions constitute a trilogy of novels that have appeared over the last decade. They stand out from his earlier work in their difficulty, and in the central role they accord philosophy--in part through their interest in specific themes in which philosophy is interested, in part through their critical engagement with philosophy as a mode of intellectual activity, with a very particular role to play in the broadercultural concerns of modern Western Europe. Robert Pippin presents the first detailed interpretation of J.M. Coetzee's "Jesus" trilogy as a whole. In order to understand them, hetreats the three fictions as a philosophical fable, in the tradition of Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, Rousseau's Emile, or Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the trilogy's mythical setting, everyone is an exile, removed from their homeland and transported to a strange new place, with most of their memories of their homeland erased. Pippin treats these fictions as philosophical explorations of the implications of a deeper kind of spiritualhomelessness--a version that characterizes late modern life itself--and he sees the theme of forgetting as a figure for modern historical amnesia and indifference to reflection and self-knowledge. This state of exile is interpreted as metaphysical aswell as geographical.Pippin's insightful, careful reading of Coetzee suggests the limitations of traditional philosophical treatments of themes like eros, beauty, social order, art, family, non-discursive forms of intelligibility, self-deception, and death. And he wrings from the trilogy its intertextuality, and many references to the Christian Bible, Plato, Cervantes, Goethe, Kleist, and Wittgenstein, among others. Throughout, Pippin expresses the potential of literatureto be a profound form of philosophical reflection.

“Coetzee's three Jesus novels have provoked much bafflement and consternation, but Pippin's lucid and probing appraisal makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of their complexities and appreciation of their importance. The book's style is clear and engaging, and in no way inaccessible to readers without a philosophical background. Pippin writes not as a philosopher who turns to literature for examples but as one who understands literature'ssingular contribution to the problems philosophy addresses.”

"Coetzee's three Jesus novels have provoked much bafflement and consternation, but Pippin's lucid and probing appraisal makes a substantial contribution to our understanding of their complexities and appreciation of their importance. The book's style is clear and engaging, and in no way inaccessible to readers without a philosophical background. Pippin writes not as a philosopher who turns to literature for examples but as one who understandsliterature's singular contribution to the problems philosophy addresses." -- Derek Attridge, University of York"This first book on Coetzee's trilogy of Jesus novels is criticism of the finest order, criticism that creates intimacy with its subject matter, that provides genuine disclosure of a major mind still at the peak of its powers. What results is an exegetical tour de force and something like 'cosmic' philosophy (Heidegger): reflection on first and last things, on art and its value, on human passion, on what it means to be alive with trueunderstanding of the terms of living. Pippin's wise and compelling book sets the benchmark for all future attempts to comprehend Coetzee's Jesus novels and indeed Coetzee's later fiction as a whole." -- Tim Mehigan, TheUniversity of Queensland, Australia"J.M. Coetzee's trilogy of Jesus novels is one of the more enigmatic achievements of contemporary world fiction. In a series of assured readings that are as generous to the reader as they are to the novels, Robert Pippin rises to the challenge, showing how Coetzee manages to be both disarming and philosophically profound." -- David Atwell, University of York

Robert B. Pippin is the Evelyn Stefansson Nef Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He is the author of several books on modern German philosophy, a book on philosophy and literature, Henry James and Modern Moral Life (Cambridge University Press, 2001); a book on modernist art, After the Beautiful (University of Chicago Press, 2013), and five books on film and philosophy. He is a past winner of the MellonDistinguished Achievement Award in the Humanities, a Guggenheim Fellowship, is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, of the American Philosophical Society, and is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences,Leopoldina. His latest books are Hegel's Realm of Shadows: Logic as Metaphysics in The Science of Logic (University of Chicago Press, 2018), and Filmed Thought: Cinema as Reflective Form (University of Chicago Press, 2020).

Nobel Prize-winning novelist J.M. Coetzee's "Jesus" fictions constitute a trilogy of novels that have appeared over the last decade. They stand out from his earlier work in their difficulty, and in the central role they accord philosophy--in part through their interest in specific themes in which philosophy is interested, in part through their critical engagement with philosophy as a mode of intellectual activity, with a very particular role to play in the broadercultural concerns of modern Western Europe. Robert Pippin presents the first detailed interpretation of J.M. Coetzee's "Jesus" trilogy as a whole. In order to understand them, he treats the three fictions as a philosophical fable, in the tradition of Plato's Republic, More's Utopia, Rousseau's Emile, or Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra. In the trilogy's mythical setting, everyone is an exile, removed from their homeland and transported to a strange new place, with most of their memories of theirhomeland erased. Pippin treats these fictions as philosophical explorations of the implications of a deeper kind of spiritual homelessness--a version that characterizes late modern life itself--and he sees the theme of forgetting as a figure for modern historical amnesia and indifference to reflection and self-knowledge. This state ofexile is interpreted as metaphysical as well as geographical.Pippin's insightful, careful reading of Coetzee suggests the limitations of traditional philosophical treatments of themes like eros, beauty, social order, art, family, non-discursive forms of intelligibility, self-deception, and death. And he wrings from the trilogy its intertextuality, and many references to the Christian Bible, Plato, Cervantes, Goethe, Kleist, and Wittgenstein, among others. Throughout, Pippin expresses the potential of literature to be a profound form of philosophicalreflection.

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