Disgrace
LC Class | PR9369.3.C58 D5 1999b |
Disgrace is a novel by J. M. Coetzee, published in 1999. It won the Booker Prize.[1] The writer was also awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature four years after its publication.
Plot
David Lurie is a white South African professor of English who loses everything: his reputation, his job, his peace of mind, his dreams of artistic success, and finally even his ability to protect his own daughter. He is twice-divorced and dissatisfied with his job as a 'communications' lecturer, teaching a class in
Dismissed from his teaching position, he takes refuge on his lesbian daughter Lucy's farm in the
Lucy becomes apathetic and agoraphobic after the attack. David presses her to report the full circumstances to the police, but she does not. Lucy does not want to, and in fact does not, discuss the attack with David until much later. The relationship between Lucy and David begins to show strain as the two recover from the attack in different ways. Lurie begins work with Bev Shaw, a friend of Lucy's, who keeps an animal shelter and frequently euthanizes animals, which David then disposes of. Shaw has an affair with Lurie, despite David finding her physically unattractive. Meanwhile, David suspects Petrus being complicit in the attack. This suspicion is strengthened when one of the attackers, a young man named Pollux, attends one of Petrus's parties and is claimed by Petrus as a kinsman. Lucy refuses to take action against Pollux, and she and David simply leave the party. As the relationship between Lucy and David deteriorates, David decides to discontinue living with his daughter and return to Cape Town.
Returning home to his house in Cape Town, David finds that his house has been broken into during his long absence. He attempts to attend a theatre performance starring Melanie, but is harassed into leaving by the same boyfriend who had earlier threatened him. He also attempts to apologize to Melanie's father, leading to an awkward meeting with Melanie's younger sister, which rekindles David's internal passion and lust. David finally meets with Melanie's father, who makes him stay for dinner. Melanie's father insists that his forgiveness is irrelevant: Lurie must follow his own path to redemption.
At the novel's end, Lurie returns to Lucy's farm. Lucy has become pregnant by one of the rapists, but ignores advice to terminate the pregnancy. Pollux ultimately comes to live with Petrus, and spies on Lucy bathing. When David catches Pollux doing this, Lucy forces David to desist from any retribution. David surmises that ultimately, Lucy will be forced into marrying Petrus and giving him her land, and it appears that Lucy is resigned to this contingency. Lurie returns to working with Shaw, where Lurie has been keeping a resilient stray from being euthanised. The novel concludes as Lurie "gives him up" to Bev Shaw's euthanasia.
Reception
Critical Reception
Upon release, the book was generally well-received among the British press.
Awards and Lists
The book continued to receive acclaim among many critics lists after and during its time of release. According to The Greatest Books, a site that aggregates book lists, it is the "The 220th greatest book of all time".
Interpretation
In the new South Africa, violence is unleashed in new ways, and Lurie and his daughter become victims, yet the main character is no hero; on the contrary, he commits violence in his own way as is clearly seen in Lurie's disregard for the feelings of his student as he manipulates her into having sexual relations with him. This characterization of violence by both the 'white' and the 'black' man parallels feelings in post-apartheid South Africa where evil does not belong to the 'other' alone. By resisting the relegation of each group into positive and negative poles Coetzee portrays the whole range of human capabilities and emotions.
The novel takes its inspiration from South Africa's contemporary social and political conflict, and offers a bleak look at a country in transition. This theme of transition is represented in various forms throughout the novel, in David's loss of authority, loss of sexuality and in the change in power dynamics of groups that were once solely dominant or subordinate.[11]
Sarah Ruden suggests that:
As in all of his mature novels, Coetzee here deals with the theme of exploitation. His favorite approach has been to explore the innocuous-seeming use of another person to fill one's gentler emotional needs.[12]
This is a story of both regional and universal significance. The central character is a confusing person, at once an intellectual snob who is contemptuous of others and also a person who commits outrageous mistakes. His story is also local; he is a white South African male in a world where such men no longer hold the power they once did. He is forced to rethink his entire world at an age when he believes he is too old to change and, in fact, should have a right not to.[13] This theme, about the challenges of aging both on an individual and societal level, leads to a line, "No country, this, for old men", an ironic reference to the opening line of the W. B. Yeats poem, "Sailing to Byzantium". Furthermore, Lurie calls his preference for younger women a "right of desire", a quote taken up by South African writer André Brink for his novel "The Rights of Desire".
By the end of the novel, though, Lurie seems to mature beyond his exploitative view of women. In recognizing the right of Lucy to choose her course in life, he finally puts "their strained relationship on a more equal footing" — the first time in his relationships with women.[14] His pursuit of a sexual relationship with Bev Shaw also marks something of a path toward personal salvation, "by annihilating his sexual vanity and his sense of superiority."[15]
This is Coetzee's second book (after
Another important theme in the novel is the difficulty or impossibility of communication and the limits of language. Although Lurie teaches communications at Cape Town Technical University and is a scholar of poetry, language often fails him. Coetzee writes:
Although he devotes hours of each day to his new discipline, he finds its first premise, as enunciated in the Communications 101 handbook, preposterous: 'Human society has created language in order that we may communicate our thoughts, feelings, and intentions to each other.' His own opinion, which he does not air, is that the origins of speech lie in song, and the origins of song in the need to fill out with sound the overlarge and rather empty human soul.[19]
A film adaptation of Disgrace starring John Malkovich had its world premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2008, where it won the International Critics' Award.
References
- ^ "Disgrace | The Booker Prizes". thebookerprizes.com.
- ^ ""Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee". Salon. 1999-11-05. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
- ^ Hall, Kate. "Relationships in disgrace". Overland literary journal. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
- ^ Newspapers. Retrieved 16 January 2024.
- ^ Adam Mars-Jones (1999-11-25). "Guardian review of Disgrace". London: Books.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
- ^ a b "Disgrace". BookBrowse. 2023-10-04. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
- ^ "Disgrace". Complete Review. 2023-10-04. Retrieved 2023-10-04.
- ^ "Disgrace". The Greatest Books. 2024-02-16. Retrieved 2024-02-16.
- ^ Robert McCrum (2006-10-09). "The Observer poll of novels". London: Books.guardian.co.uk. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
- ^
"100 'most inspiring' novels revealed by BBC Arts". BBC News. 2019-11-05. Retrieved 2019-11-10.
The reveal kickstarts the BBC's year-long celebration of literature.
- ^ the complete review – all rights reserved. "Complete Review of Books". Complete-review.com. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
- ^ Ruden, Sarah (August 16, 2000). "Disgrace. By J. M. Coetzee – Review – book review, Christian Century". Findarticles.com. Archived from the original on December 31, 2004.
- ^ Lindsey, Peggy (July 9, 2002). "Disgrace – Review". Mostly Fiction Review. Mostlyfiction.com. Retrieved June 6, 2006.
- ^ Mary LeBlanc, in "Hushed Resolve, Reticence, and Rape in J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace", Philosophy and Literature, Vol. 41, No. 1 (April 2017), 158-68, emphasizes the importance of this recognition on David Lurie's part.
- ^ Lowry, Elizabeth (1999-10-14). "Like a Dog · LRB 14 October 1999". London Review of Books. Retrieved 2019-12-25.
- ^ "A Moderated Bliss". Issuu.com. 2010-12-07. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
- ^ "Salon Books Review". Salon.com. 1999-11-05. Retrieved 2011-06-06.
- ^ "After the Fall". archive.nytimes.com.
- ISBN 0-670-88731-5.
External links
- "Postmetaphysical Literature: Reflections on J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace"; in Perspectives on Political Science 33, 1 (Winter 2004), 4–9.
- "A Moderated Bliss": J. M. Coetzee's 'Disgrace' as Existential Maturation"; in J. M. Coetzee: Critical Perspectives. Edited by Kailash C. Baral. New Delhi: Pencraft, 2008. 161–169.
- Disgrace (film) on IMDB
- Roy, Pinaki. "Lurie's Lurid Quest: A Brief Re-reading of J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace". Gender and Commonwealth Studies (ISBN 978-93-5225-029-5). Eds. Kunda, A., and A. Bhattacharyya. Kolkata: Books Way, 2015. pp. 21–30.