DISGRACE: A Review
Disgrace is not a happy book. In fact, its about downright depressing. Starting with the regrettable loss of a companion, if a prostitute can be considered one, it quickly progresses to explore the contentious issue of professor-student affairs, which ultimately leaves the said professer, Lurie, in a state of ridicule, forced, or rather, willingly as the book seems to suggest, to leave his position and seek refuge with his daughter, Lucy.
Away from the city and the politics of the university, Lurie almost seems to come upon a fresh start, helping his daughter with the chores of the farm and volunteering at a nearby animal shelter. Almost, because just as the reader gets to breathe a sigh of relief over the end of the first scandal, he is left to wonder if Lurie's new life, euthanising dogs and disposing of their corpes, as well as bedding the shelter's female owner, a "dumpy, bustling woman" having "no breasts to speak of" and "almost waistless, like a squat little tub" is a step forward instead of one backward. Yet before Lurie, and the reader, can fully adapt to the new lifestyle, the second scandal crashes upon them as Lucy is raped, Lurie, assaulted and their house, robbed by three black strangers.
Apparently, in post-aparthied South Africa, whites are the new slaves.
Despite the heavy issues explored in the book, the prose is smooth and light enough to keep the story going. At times, the reader is almost sympathetic towards Lurie, wishing a reprive for the self-rightous, unapologetic "servant of Eros". But Coetzee, the book's Nobel Prize winning author, is unrelenting, and Lurie's fall from grace is rapid and unassuming, leaving the reader with a lingering sense of desperation and hopelessness.
