Disgrace

Rating:
Summary: Harsh, but real
Review: Wonderfully written. Coetzee's economy of words sets the realistic tone for this troubling tale. At first glance it may appear that the writer uses the middle-aged white David Lurie to illustrate was has gone wrong with the recent dismantling of apartheid and the heightened sensitivity to sexual harassment. A sort of, "Look! Now see what you've done! Weren't we better off before?"

However, that's not the case. The author's true voice is through his daughter, who realizes that the new South Africa is fundamentally different, and that's just the way it is.

Rating:
Summary: A disgrace to modern literature
Review: How disgraceful it is for this book to have received a Booker. The Lurie character's blatant lack of regard for women and his utter misunderstanding of sexuality is a disgrace. If such a book can receive such high acclaim today, then feminism still has far to go. I am saddened that other reviewers failed to express any concern for the portrayal of women in this book. Even the charater Lucy was troubling. Her actions did not seem consistent with her ideals. Further, I did not find the prose compelling.

Rating:
Summary: The New South Africa
Review: The new post apartheid era is presented through the relationship of an aging casanova, David Lurie with his daughter Lucy and their contact with a newly "freed" black man Petrus. David, white and a ladies' man, is a university lecturer until he had an affair with a student, which lead to his sojourn at his daughter's farm. Petrus is a helper at the farm, but Lucy is quick to point out to his father that he is free to go and stay as he pleases. The culminating point came when a violent attack occurred against David and his daughter at the farm by two black men and a boy "apprentice". This lead to a sharp friction between the father and daughter: the former with his upbringing of the old South Africa and the later conditioned by the new South Africa environment. The difference is simply unreconcilable. David with his belief in the rule of law, wants to bring the attackers to justice while Lucy simply wants to accept it, some sort of a sacrifice for the atonement for past sins.

Petrus, the government assisted black man, who has his idea of what he is entitled to in the new era. He has designs on Lucy's farm and has an amoral outlook on crime and punishment. Rape is a non-issue with him. He is the new South Africa and he intends to reap it to the full.

This book, through the personalities of the three characters, seek to paint the future of the new post apartheid South Africa. A fading out of the principles which had governed the country in the past and the dawn of a new generation of whites and blacks who will live together. But in what environment, circumstances or conditions? A pathetic white generation, amid a black culture of decline, retardation and amorality. This is what this book tells you.

Rating:
Summary: Change brings pain, loss...
Review: Curious to know about life in the 'new' South Africa, and still eager to read those books that transport me to a form of life not my own, I sat down to read this recent Booker Prize-winning novel; it made a deep and abiding impression on me, because it is so replete with moments of exquisite pain and almost bridegroom tenderness. Other reviewers have supplied a synopsis of the plot, so I will resist the lure to summarize for the umpteenth time, but I do want to say that the protagonist is a complex man with complex motives, making him one of the most fascinating and engaging characters I have "encountered" in a very long time -- moody, introspective, seemingly recalcitrant, capable of love and concern, even if at a distance, and not at all unaffected by the momentous societal shifts taking place all around his fragile frame.

Rating:
Summary: Reviewer Required Form Field #2
Review: Nothing personal to the reviewers below but Coetzee's book speaks for itself. It's called literature, and there's more up for grabs than a tricky plot. If the Booker peeps aren't good enough for you, hunt and peck below and hopefully screw up a clean and disturbing read.

Rating:
Summary: How to Like a Book but Dislike the Main Character
Review: This book was difficult for me in that, for the first time in a long while, I couldn't stand the main character. The book focuses on a man who is self-centered, seemingly oblivious to the pain and discomfort he causes others, and deeply flawed. At the same time, his deep love for his daughter is moving, as is his recognition of his own weaknesses.

Coetzee does a wonderful job of taking us deep into the dark underbelly of South Africa. He also helps us dissect one man - professor, father, divorcee - who lives there. The book is a very quick read despite its heavy subject matter. Don't read this book expecting to be uplifted. Indeed, I'm not sure just what part of the book to feel most dispirited about - the main character's inability to improve himself, the situation his daughter finds herself in (but it's her own fault! how could she make so many poor choices?!?!) or the state of South Africa (at least as portrayed in the novel).

And yet - despite my deep reservations about almost all the characters in the book (there are no good guys here, really) - I couldn't stop reading, and I felt very strongly about the characters. There is a skill, a craft in making a reader despise a character so much. And this makes me believe that the book has succeeded, for what more can we ask of a book than to make us feel?

Rating:
Summary: Reader beware
Review: A very good book - but be advised that the subject matter is quite disturbing. The first time around, I was unprepared and had to put the book away for another day. I did pick it up later and finish - and it was definitely worth it!

Rating:
Summary: A Rumination on Grace and Dis-Grace
Review: J.M. Coetzee's Disgrace is a wonderful novel, wonderful on so many levels, in so many ways. Wonderful in that it is a thought-provoking rumination on the nature of sin and disgrace, on the fall from grace, on redemption and grace. Wonderful in that Coetzee is able to communicate so much with so few words, but without writing in a style one would term "spare", for the writing here is rich, rich with evocative images, with depth.

Many here have said that they couldn't like David Lurie, the protagonist. I neither liked nor disliked him, but found his story fascinating. He just is not "likeable", yet I admired his honesty with himself and about himself. He is not a "nice" person, but he never pretends to be, not even to himself. He is a South African professor who, after his relationship with a high-class prostitute must end, takes up with one of his students. That relationship ends and he ultimately loses his job because of it. He is shunned, yet others are drawn to his story, fascinated by his fall from grace. He moves to the country to live with Lucy, his grown daughter. While there, he works with doomed animals, dogs and cats. He comes to respect people he was initially disgusted with. His situation gives him no room to reject others simply by their appearance. His fall from grace has given him that.

When he and his daughter are brutally attacked, Coetzee forces us to ponder again on the nature of disgrace. Does it make sense for a man to be shunned based on his affair with another consenting adult, when rapists escape any sort of punishment? Are both crimes equal, sides of the same coin? What is grace? Who has it? Is it found in an Eden lost forever, an Eden people keep seeking, never finding?

I found Disgrace a fascinating, highly readable study of human nature, human reactions, human situations, human prejudices. There is so much more to the novel than what I have covered here--the state of present day South African, racism, hypocrisy, animal rights--all in a short, well written book. Highly recommended.

Rating:
Summary: Well written
Review: This book is rather disappointing. Although it is beautifully written with a language that is fresh and subtle, the story is at best tragic and evocative, at worst unbelievable and depressing.

I recommend this book for its writing. It is a pleasure to read. The atmosphere and the characterization is brilliant. Just dont take the actual plot too seriously - the end is confusingly unmeaningful.

Rating:
Summary: Well-written book with detestable main character
Review: "Disgrace" is well-written. "Disgrace" is subtle, thought-provoking, and skillfully plotted. "Disgrace" effectively portrayed post-Apartheid South Africa as a land full of danger, contradiction, and confusion, as a place all burnt up. "Disgrace" contains meaningful symbolism that snakes its way through its pages. "...

"Disgrace" certainly earned its Booker Prize.

I hated its protagonist, David Lurie. Like some Phillip Roth character, he's a self-absorbed, hurtful, egoistic bastard who tromps all over others, fully cognizant of his effect on others but strangely detached from the results. Coetzee makes us follow Lurie, we have to inhabit his mind. And it's an ugly place to be. Basically, Lurie loves himself only as an obsessed self-hater can. It's like his ego feeds off of the damage he does to others around him.

As a result, I had a hard time liking the book on a personal level. But I recognize the book's greatness, I realize that Lurie's character is essential to the story, makes the book as haunting as it is...