Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel

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102 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel


journey. In other words, the residual cynicism and irreverence we
observe in the “reformed” Lurie compel the reader to perceive the
character’s ethical change as something that is entirely peculiar to
his circumstances and lived experience, rather than as a prescriptive
or generalizable transformation. The narrator therefore avoids pre-
senting a didactic “blueprint” for the kind of ontological redemption
we witness in Lurie by foregrounding the singularity of the individ-
ual being who physically lives through trials of ethical substance.
Furthermore, these “flaws” also act as distancing mechanisms
that, following Levinas’s theory, are of great ethical import in any
transcendental empathic engagement between self and Other.^46 A s
alluded to above, Levinas stresses the necessity of distance between
self and Other in the development of a philosophically conscious
and self-reflexive ethical system. “A calling into question of the
same,” he writes, “which cannot occur within the egoist spontaneity
of the same is brought about by the other. We name this calling into
question of my spontaneity by the presence of the Other ethics.”^47
Otherness is therefore a prerequisite for Levinas for transcendent
ethics because it undermines the very notion of homogeneity.
In a similar vein, in maintaining an awareness of our distance and
difference from Lurie, Coetzee encourages us to cultivate a regard for
the character that is at once intimate and slightly estranged—a qual-
ity that Levinas would consider to be of crucial import to the kind of
universal conciliatory awareness the novel provokes. To gain a more
substantial understanding of Lurie’s transformation, it is necessary
to elaborate further upon the character’s outlook at different stages
of the narrative. Like the Magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians ,
Lurie has spent most of his life in an oppressively patriarchal and
racist social order that is designed to favor him. However, with the
reforms put in place at the end of Apartheid, he must come to terms
with a life that is not guaranteed automatic privilege. Furthermore,
the establishment of legal bodies, such as the controversial Truth and
Reconciliation Committee (TRC), contribute to an oblique sense
of vulnerability and menace. Although never mentioned directly,
the TRC hearings are subtly evoked in the proceedings to which
Lurie is himself subjected after being accused of sexual harassment.
Standing against what he sees as the “puritanical times,” in which

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