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Summary: mean spirited and poorly written
Review: I respected the Booker Prize - before I read Disgrace. This novel puts cardboard characters into stereotyped situations. What it lacks in insight it makes up in meanness. The language is two-dimensional, at best. Coetzee has captured no single moment of inspiration, genuine insight, or awe. His main thesis seems to be that it is impossible for one soul to ever connect with another, that compassion is an illusion, that communication is unlikely, and that passion is barbaric, reactionary, or pitiable. He seems to think that the best we can hope for as Human beings is loving euthanasia. This sort of book is like the Emperor's New Clothes - it's very fashionable to applaud a book like this, because it makes you seem daring and discerning. After all, a treatise so negative MUST have literary merit, right? Wrong. Real literature illuminates. This book is empty and soulless, both at the level of plot and of language. I do not simply object to the themes of this book - I found the themes so flat and generic as to be worthy of no debate. The DISGRACE is that we are living in an age where, on this eve of the millenium, the Booker Prize saw fit to cheapen all of us by awarding to a book so bankrupt in spirit.
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Summary: Accurate, clear... and dreary
Review: Disgrace has obvious merits. JM Coetzee depicts South Africa and its prevailing mood accurately in clear, sparse prose, without the tedious political posturing that marks a lot of post-Apartheid "white" writing (his literary stature no doubt allows him some leeway). Still, I fail to see what the fuss is about. It lacks the zip and flair one expects from prize-winning novels. Devoid of humour, the book slides forever deeper into an abyss of despair. Finishing it leaves one with a great sense of achievement. Which begs the question: would Disgrace have won the Booker, had it been the work of an unknown author?
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Summary: A phenomenal reading experience.
Review: "Disgrace" is one of the finest, greatest, most heartbraking novels I have ever, ever, read.
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Summary: Coetzee's best novel after 'Waiting for the Barbarians'
Review: After his masterful 'Waiting for the Barbarians', 'Disgrace' is J. M. Coetzee's best novel. Coetzee's prose is, as usual, surgical and full of images, but what captures the reader in this novel is how he is able to portray the extremely complex issues of the new South Africa--the so-called 'Rainbow Nation'--through the experience of a frustrated and 'disgraced' academic. The novel is highly pessimistic, almost nihilistic, but, at the same time, it is one of those few contemporary novels that are necessary to make people think about what changes must be done inside as well as outside. If anybody is looking for a literary introduction to the new South Africa, this is, definitively, the novel to read. It certainly deserved the Booker Prize, and I congratulate J. M. Coetzee for it.
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Summary: Coetzee captures subtleties of complex relationships
Review: This is a masterwork in which the author has grasped the complexities of human relationships with a deft eye towards detail without slipping into stereotypes. The decay of relationships is the principle theme, with the amoral center of the protagonist providing the screen on which to view the entropy of his world through his eyes. Coetzee has created solidly unique characters that will remain with you long after you have finished reading this tour-de-force.
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Summary: Great book -- first time i read this author
Review: terrific book. beautifully written. great character development. very insightful cultural analysis.
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Summary: More than Apartheid
Review: Reading previous reviews, I can't help but think that the author might be disappointed to see so much commentary on apartheid and South Africa in general. The story did touch on these issues (how could it not... it took place there) but the central issues you see dealt with here are in no way exclusive to South Africa. In the case of the professor, you have an aging womanizer dealing with the consequences of stepping just over the line of what is acceptable to a man in his position. He's discovered and readily pleads guilty to the charges brought against him, but refuses to show repentance before a committee of his peers and acts offended that they even suggest it. However, when he is placed in the position of seeing his daughter as the victim of a vile act (although not exactly identical to the one he committed), he is shocked by the callousness of others in their refusal to act in any way repentant. The author packs a lot of substance packed into this engaging short book.
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Summary: The failure of communication and the fall into disgrace
Review: "Disgrace", Coetzee's latest work, probes the psyche of post-Apartheid South Africa. We are introduced to Dr David Lurie, Professor of Communications (at a university that sounds surprisingly like UCT), who is having an affair with a student. When the inevitable scandal breaks, Lurie has the chance to save his career, but chooses not to do so. His failure to communicate sees him fallen into a state of disgrace. He retreats to his daughter's Eastern Cape farm where he becomes immersed in the daily routine of farm life. But the former Professor of Communications is confronted everywhere by his inability to communicate: with his daughter, with his neighbours, with himself. A brutal attack on the farm forces Dr Lurie to confront the demons lurking beneath the surface of his relationships. And in so doing, it shows us something about the country we live in. Coetzee paints an intricate and powerful picture of the tensions and myriad complexities of post-Apartheid South Africa. His language is exact and exacting, his prose pointed and precise. Like Coetzee's previous works, "Disgrace" is an illuminating and compelling commentary on life in contemporary South Africa.
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Summary: Captivating
Review: This is an incredibly insightful story. With its and deep exploration of the relationship between father and daughter, Coetzee successfully brought out a deeply moving story. The characters are rich and portray deep, though extreme emotions, rationale and impulse. Though quite understated and subtle, the writing is nevertheless rich in meaning. There is everything to learn from this book. Coetzee's writing style is superb, the setting is ingenious and the pace of the novel is fast and absorbing.
In this novel, J.M Coetzee's brilliantly tells the story of the 52year old David Lurie, a professor of communications at a Cape Town University, who is twice divorced and went around with the notion that having a woman is no problem. But when he realizes that he is no longer alluring, he sought the convenient services of a prostitute, an arrangement that eventually came to an end, leaving him with no outlet for his virility. David Lurie finally convinced himself that an affair with a young female student was not bad after all and went for it. But then the complaint of sexual harassment turned his academic life upside down as he is fired. The unwritten rules of the society ensured that he longer found a place amongst them.
With that realization, David Lurie travels to the country side to a dangerous and isolated farm to write and spend some time with his daughter who ran an animal refuge and sold produce and flowers. Lucy as she is called is violated by thugs and with that David's disgrace became complete. David suddenly finds himself re-evaluating his life, his ties to people, his relationship with his only daughter, as well as his relationships with women. From that evaluation, he learnt that love is two-sided, a matter of give and take. The fundamental lesson from this novel is that the reader makes sense of the universally acknowledged fact that a person can understand who he/she is only when he comes to terms with his past.
Similar disturbing but riveting tiles are: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY, THE USURPER AND OTHER STORIES
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Summary: 220-page White Suicide Note
Review: This book raises serious questions about the role of literature and culture. Homer wrote great, inspiring literature about the heroic deeds of his people, so did Tolstoy... but then, on the opposite end of the spectrum, along comes J. M. Coetzee, who pens this depressing novel about Whites throwing in the towel and giving themselves up (in every sense of the word) to a lower, debased society.
What makes this even more sad is that all the skill and intelligence Coetzee expends is just used to dig a metaphorical grave for South African Whites. The title operates on several levels. There is the 'disgrace' of the main character, a professor fired for having an affair with a student (although one suspects this was just a pretext by the new affirmative action authorities), there is the 'disgrace' that his daughter suffers when she is raped by several Blacks on her remote farm, where the professor has gone to escape his scandal, and there is the supposed 'disgrace' of former White ownership of the land which inspires acts of cruelty and repossession against the Whites. The disgrace here, however, is that White South Africans gave up the land whose relative prosperity in Africa was based on their control.
The biggest disgrace in the novel is the meekness with which the professor and his daughter submit to increasing Black dominance, as the daughter signs over her land and cohabits as a concubine with the man who probably arranged her gang rape. The highly negative character of this novel also reflects disgrace on the author himself, who has expended enormous talent in writing what is, in effect, a 220-page suicide note for White South Africans, himself included.
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