Disgrace

Emerging from the dissident calibrations of literary voices joined together in the culture of protest against the apartheid regime, the distinctive writing of novelist, critic and academic J M Coetzee has become identified as one of the most finely tuned among contemporary Southern African writers. From the local recognition accorded his earliest novel Dusklands to the international acclaim with which his rewriting of Defoe's Robinson Crusoe story, Foe was received, Coetzee has dedicated himself to transforming South African writing from a blunt weapon of struggle to a delicate and incisive instrument of reflective liberation.

Disgrace takes as its complex central character 52-year-old English professor David Lurie whose preoccupation with Romantic poetry--and romancing his students--threatens to turn him into a "a moral dinosaur". Called to account by the University for a passionate but brief affair with a student who is ambivalent about his embraces, David refuses to apologise, drawing on poetry before what he regards as political correctness in his claim that his "case rests on the rights of desire." Seeking refuge with his quietly progressive daughter Lucie on her isolated small holding, David finds that the violent dilemmas of the new South Africa are inescapable when the tentative emotional truce between errant father and daughter is ripped apart by a traumatic event that forces Lucie to an appalling disgrace. Pitching the moral code of political correctness against the values of Romantic poetry in its evocation of personal relationships, this novel is skillful--almost cunning--in its exploration of David's refusal to be accountable and his daughter's determination to make her entire life a process of accountability. Their personal dilemmas cast increasingly foreshortened shadows against the rising concerns of the emancipated community, and become a subtle metaphor for the historical unaccountability of one culture to another.

The ecstatic critical reception with which Disgrace has been received has insisted that its excellence lies in its ability to encompass the universality of the human condition. Nothing could be farther from the truth, or do the novel--and its author--a greater disservice. The real brilliance of this stylish book lies in its ability to capture and render accountable--without preaching--the specific universality of the condition of whiteness and white consciousness. Disgrace is foremost a confrontation with history that few writers would have the resources to sustain. Coetzee's vision is unforgiving--but not bleak. Against the self-piteous complaints of all declining cultures and communities who bemoan the loss of privileges that were never theirs to take, Coetzee's vision of an unredeemed white consciousness holds out--to those who reach towards an understanding of their position in history by starting again, with nothing--the possibility of "a moderate bliss." --Rachel Holmes

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Thought-provoking study of accountability and blame - Rated
Not an uplifting book, this one. But one that hits deep, and makes you think hard. In the end, I suppose it's all about accountability and blame - not comfortable things to think about at any time, but in post-apartheid South Africa, particularly difficult. How does one define and/or justify exploitation? I don't know. I shall have to read the book again, now that I know the questions I want to ask.

Thought provoking but largely frustrating - Rated
I have just finished reading Disgrace and I am in two minds about whether or not I liked it. The style of writing is undoubtedly superb and the author clearly scholarly. However, like the previous reviewer, I found myself increasingly irritated with Lurie's daughter and her unfathomable refusal to deal with her horrifying ordeal. She would neither lay down and die or get up and walk, which, after any life changing trauma, one ultimately has to do. Her perpetual inertia became wearing and in fact, in the end, really quite boring. Having said this, the interplay between Lucy and Petrus was very thought-provoking. Although Petrus was a shadowy character, his inexorable rise to dominance over Lucy was marked and profound. Perhaps a typical post-apartheid role reversal? However, what did the affair between Lurie and the student have to do with anything, other than perhaps be a weak attempt to force Lurie to look at himself. Also, why did Lurie sleep with Bev Shaw? I didn't think it made much sense (but then I'm not a man)! My overall impression was that this novel was interesting, beautifully written and thought-provoking, which are all good things of course, but I found it stumbled over the obstacles of tedium and a distinct lack of apparent adequate motivating factors in the characters.

Limited sympathies - Rated
Lurie is a hard character to like or to sympathise with, who often acts willfuly without seeming to care for or consider the consequences of his actions. Nor does he have the humour or self effacement to let him get away with it. And yet there is something there that means he is not wholly repellent. He cares for his daughter, who is determined to shut him out emotionally.

The characters are complex and it is not always easy to follow what is driving them. The relationship, if there is one, between Lurie's daughter and Petrus is ambiguous.

I enjoyed reading the book and the writing is pacy, but I was left confused by the ending and unsure of what it all meant.

Conflicted response - Rated
I really enjoyed the beginning of this novel with its lucid and stylish way of dealing with the themes of ageing, sexual desire, freedom and moral responsibility through the story of middle-aged David Lurie and his failed conquests and their consequences for his career. However after the attack on the farm, I became increasingly irritated by his daughter Lucy. Whilst Coetzee demonstrates a fascinating and highly sympathetic insight into male sexuality through Lurie, who, unlike so many reviewers I actually found a rather likeable and multilayered character whose development throughout the story was both interesting and enjoyable, he shows a complete lack of understanding of women through Lucy's behaviour.

I found Lucy impossible to relate to. I failed to understand why she not only refused to report the rape she suffered, but also why she so masochistically chose to remain on the farm, haunted by the memory of her attack, whilst allowing one of the rapists to roam free right on her doorstep. Moreover I was infuriated by her sickeningly submissive justification of the rapists'actions by instead holding herself accountable as some sort of twisted scape goat for the contemporary consquences of a history of white oppressive rule. A history of racial oppression does not justify rape even if it explains its motivations. To top it all off, she then decides to marry her neighbour (who is related to and protecting said rapist) in the irrational hope that it will ensure her safety in continuing to live on the farm, a decision which makes even less sense than the others.

In all his philsophising about accountability, Coetzee seems to have completely glossed over the accountability of the rapists for their crime. He seems to be suggesting that the rape is indirectly a justified comeupance for white colonial rule and on a more symbolic, personal level for Lurie's lack of sexual self control. Whilst part of me can appreciate the point Coetzee seems to be making about how you can't oppress people and then be surprised when they bite back by threatening your safety with crime, the cold and unforgiving way in which he conveys this is so unpalatable that for me it was both aggravating and sadly ineffective.

For a more sympathetic (and moving) novel which deals with the same ideas but far far more effectively, try Alan Paton's Cry the Beloved Country. Rather than positing a solution to the problems of a post-apartheid society which involves whites being expected to submissively tolerate crime and abuse, as Coetzee does (implying no real improvement to race relations as it is merely the tolerance of intolerance), Paton suggests the possibility of progression through racial unity, joint efforts and increased understanding. As far as I'm concerned this is a genuine picture of tolerance.

The worse book ever published - Rated
The characters may be compelling but the story is crude and you read all of it hopeing it will get better and it doesnt. Waste of time. Worst book ever published. They must have been on drugs to get the nobel prize