Elizabeth Costello
Reading the chapter again and relishing the text.
On novel: It is a way to piece together the past, to understand the present and where things are headed.
I agree with this. The novel is as much about the present (or the past) as it is about what the future is going to be like. This centering of the future is important, something I have missed in my own thinking.
I had a similar feeling reading about Bali's kingdom in Gail Omvedt's book. The past is relevant in the way it enters our present issues. A sense of history. One gets this feeling within the pages of Coetzee, a writer who creatively uses his position (geographic) to talk about the world, his world. Picking up the Costello book felt like speaking to an old friend after some time. The freshness of going over the ideas again.
Varun Patil's work on Bengaluru seeks to understand politics of land-related processes. I note the importance of land when writing about cities.
On beliefs and writing: She (the character in Coetzee) uses the analogy of a battery, to be put in to get the job done. Get the job done this week!