Disgrace

This book. My gf loved it, so I thought I'd give it a go, since she'd been on a roll lately. So I read it. This man can write.

The novel begins as our main character, David Lurie, a professor, is having a meeting with his favoured escort. He feels great affection for her. When he sees her around town with her sons, things become awkward, and she leaves the escort service and refuses to see him. So then he turns to one of his students. This ends up costing him his job, so he goes to stay with his lesbian daughter in the country. Horrible things ensue–rape, animal butchery, strained relations with his child. Even the ending isn't exactly what one would call happy.

Coetzee is South African, and this book came out in 1999, I believe. It deals with racism, sexual politics, sexism, and animal welfare issues. Quite a heady mix for a little book just over 300 pages (a very fast-paced 300 pages too). I'm always pleased and a little surprised when a man is sensitive to these issues, particularly in regards to sexism. Tough and angering things happen in this book, and I don't find the answers satisfactory; but that is perhaps a good thing.

Lurie is actually a dynamic character, even if he doesn't necessarily realize it about himself. He begins having seriously horrible expectations of women. That doesn't miraculously change, and part of why he does is that he beings to feel mortatlity creeping in. But he starts becoming more open, more aware of the humanity of the normal women, the woman who is not a nubile young thing. He becomes more aware of the need for mercy and concern for animals. He becomes aware of the racial tension that exists in every day life. He becomes a little less of a douche. Although, that being said, Coetzee is such a good writer that I didn't hate David even when he was being a tool. Because, like most tools, he's not JUST a tool. He's a complex human being who resists change and yet somehow finds himself changing, even if he doesn't realize it or admit to it.

Terrifyingly, however, one of the characters reminded me of my boss's father. shudder