78 Materiality and the Modern Cosmopolitan Novel
Coetzee achieves this by employing sophisticated stylistic tech-
niques that manipulate the reader so as to encourage a self-reflex-
ive form of empathy of the kind Emmanuel Levinas formulates in
Totality and Infinity. However, it should be pointed out at this stage
that this does not mean I shall attempt to spell out in positive and
definitive terms an ethical code that Coetzee espouses in his works.
Indeed, it would not be appropriate to reduce Coetzee’s fiction to
a singular ethical message, particularly given the often-ambiguous
and opaque nature of the characters and voices that inhabit his fic-
tion. What I shall contend, however, is that Coetzee’s overt inclu-
sion of other living creatures within the discussion of power, and
the presentation of power as being necessarily corporeal (having its
basis in physical violence and coercion), signify a deliberate attempt
to expand the parameters within which ethical thought commonly
takes place. Furthermore, I argue that it is this profound aspiration
toward a system of bona fide universal care that marks Coetzee’s
approach to ethics as being, if not definitively cosmopolitan, then
something from which cosmopolitan ethics could learn a great
deal.
As I shall argue that Coetzee’s ethical attentiveness is situated
within a material framework, it is first necessary to explain the
ways in which the term “material” is used in the current chapter.
Although it does not feature strongly in the discussion, the word
“material” is used a few times in the previous chapter in refer-
ence to the physical nature of the human experience, with partic-
ular emphasis on the physical contingency of any lived historical
moment—the quotidian matters of having access to food, water,
and shelter, for example. Such an application clearly shares much
with the Marxian tradition, which observes history through the
lens of humanity’s physical relationship with the environment,
particularly as developed through processes of labor. However, as
Raymond Williams maintains, not all uses of the term “material”
or “materiality” are Marxian or adhere to an ideological (especially
socialist) agenda.^2 Williams also takes pains to collapse the per-
ceived dichotomy between “human” and “nature” that has been
used by many self-proclaimed materialist scholars and argues that
it is “wholly unreasonable to speak of ‘nature’ as distinct from