Lecture I. The Philosophers and the Animals
Elizabeth Costello is invited to the college at Appleton to give a lecture. The college is the one where her son John works, so he is welcoming her, and next day sees her off to the college hall where all the professors and many other guests are gathered to hear her lecture.
Elizabeth is a famous writer, many of her books have been bestsellers for years. She is much respected and it has been up to her to choose the topic she wants to speak about. To her son it is not a surprise that she has chosen to speak about the animals and their rights.
She starts her lecture on referring to Nazi, and to camps organized during the World War II, in which millions of people have been killed. Elizabeth also dwells on the famous short story of Kafka “A Report to an Academy”. Then she speaks about Thomas Nagel’s essay “What is it like to be a bat?”.
All these allusions she uses as support for her ideas about animals – that people feel free to hurt and harm animals.
After the lecture, a dinner is organized, where a discussion continues. The problems of cleanness and uncleanness of animals are brought up, along with the ideas of vegetarianism. After the dinner Elizabeth goes with John and daughter-in-law Norma to their house. Next day the second lecture is planned.
Lecture II. The Poets and the Animals
In the the evening before going to bed, Norma tries to have a conversation with her husband about his mother’s lecture. She finds the ideas of her mother-in-law too primitive. In the morning before going to the college John finds a letter addressed to her mother, it is from one of the poets who did not come yesterday to the lecture because of his own ideas which do not coincide with the Elizabeth’s. He himself is Jewish, and the way she speaks about the problems of Holocaust he does not support, but nevertheless he respects her for her literary works.
Next lecture Elizabeth gives on images of animals in literary, in three poems particularly: “The Panther” by Rilke, “The Jaguar” and “Second Glance at a Jaguar” by Ted Hughes. Her lecture is mostly based on the images of animals created in these poems. After the lecture John takes her home. Her next, and final one, session of the visit is to be in the form of a debate, her opponent will be professor of philosophy at Appleton – Thomas O’Hearne.
After the debate, which does not take long, John takes his mother home and next morning sees her off to the airport.
