Disgrace
November 13th 2006 08:08
'Disgrace' is a rather slim and bleak novel about post-apartheid South Africa, personal redemption, shame and the acceptance of pain. It won the 1999 Booker Prize, and caused somewhat of an uproar in it's home country - with charges being levelled against the author for his supposed damaging of the new South Africa's image. Controversy and prize aside, this is a powerful and unsettling novel.
I'm not familiar with J. M. Coetzee's other works. He has won the Booker prize before, back in 1983, and he is regarded as one of South Africa's foremost modern authors of worthy literature. If such a reputation was to be based on this novel alone, I wouldn't really argue against it. It's a fucking good book, and one that could probably bear a few re-reads in order to grasp all it's subtleties and explorations of troubled themes.
David Lurie is a unexceptional communication professor in his early 50s. He is twice-divorced and a bit of a skirt-chaser. It is his skirt-chasing that leads to the initial disgrace of the book's title... he becomes involved with a student and it all goes bad and he remains unrepentent when society calls for his dismissal. David accepts any and all punishment for where his desires have led him, but refuses to apologise. And so he leaves his profession altogether and heads for the country to visit his daughter.
His daughter, Lucy, runs some dog kennels, and is thoroughly at home in the new apartheid-free South Africa. David willingly falls in with her and helps out in this earthly and unfamiliar new world, slowly travelling towards a kind of redemption... a journey that is smashed to pieces when Lucy and David are brutally attacked at her farm.
I won't pretend that I understand everything that happened in this book. Like I said before, it's sometimes subtle in the way it explores it's themes - at least, more subtle than I am used to. I did, however, grasp the disturbing atmosphere that pervades the book throughout and David's eventual journey's end was more satisfying than anything I imagined was coming, and was (thankfully, realistically) as bitter as all that came before it.
This is a book about the seemingly unsolvable troubles of a fucked up country, and the unbending and imagined integrity of it's protagonist and the place in this world he must find for himself. The disgrace of the title is thick and layered and whilst the prose is very well written and easy to read, the meat of the book underneath is somewhat less easy to take. Unforgettable.
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Comment by nagster
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I'd read Coetzee's The Master of Petersberg thought and it's very very disappointing.
Comment by Luke
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Comment by Damo
Comment by Luke
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Comment by Damo
To be honest I hadn't heard of the book until this year. My wife was asked to audition for a small part a couple of months ago, but I am not if she will get it.
Comment by Luke
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Comment by Damo
auditions are a fickle business, lots of people try out and they could choose anyone. My wife was trying out for the part of an accademic at a university. I hadn't heard of the book before then so i did a bit of checking.
Comment by katyzzz
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So biblical[your name] but you still used the f word, was there no other better substitute?
I would normally pass on by, but, unlike anyone else you answered All my questions so I hope with just a little encouragement you might continue with your improving use of language. Spain can put these things so succinctly and powerfully.
A good theme, I noticed you'd been sitting there for a while so thought I'd pay you a visit.
katyzzz mspaintart
Comment by Luke
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Comment by Anonymous
Great book by the way.