Disgrace

Rating:
Summary: Sad
Review: I think it's sad that someone would review this book poorly simply because it "makes white people look bad." Someone who understood history would realize that things aren't nearly so cut and dry. Perhaps you should learn some history and you might discover that there are a number of books that make black people look bad. Considering, however, that Eurocentrism has dominated literature for hundreds of years, it is unlikely that the numbers of books on the above mentioned topics are equal.

Rating:
Summary: Waiting for a bombshell....
Review: The read is gripping but all through I was waiting for the sensational ending, which didn't materialize. I wouldn't say the book particularly deals with modern attitudes in South Africa one way or another as many reviewers are raving about, it's simply about a rather non-conformist academic with fairly liberal sexual attitudes. He's a believable fellow with makes him interesting. I got the feeling we are given hints throughout that all is not what it seems, especially around the violent incident at his daughter's farm, that some darker side to the main character would be revealed at the end, but it wasn't, it just fizzles out. In anticipation of this, I couldn't put the book down !!! So I have to say I enjoyed it.

Rating:
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 story that is difficult to forget. The characters are rich and portray deep, though extreme emotions, rationale and impulse. Though quite understated and subtle, the writing is nevertheless rich in so 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 52 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 realest that he is no longer alluring, he sought the convenient service 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 her 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. In all of those, he learnt that love is two-sided, a matter of give and take. In this novel one makes sense of the universally acknowledged fact that a man can understand who he is only when he comes to terms with his past.

Similar disturbing but riveting tiles are: DISCIPLES OF FORTUNE, CRY THE BELOVED COUNTRY

Rating:
Summary: appropriate title
Review: disgrace is a disgrace. even more of a disgrace is whoever gave it an award

Rating:
Summary: the master
Review: in reviewing this book, i could wax philosophical about coetzees treatment of the post-colonial society of south africa and its effects on the relationship between man and daughter, man and society, black and white, man and beast, etc... but unfortunately, the themes in this novel run so deep and are so vast that i would simply be doing coetzee an injustice. when reading this novel, the reader cannot help but compare the themes that pervade it to a gigantic iceberg floating in the sea. not much is visible on the surface, but you know that a behemoth lurks under the waves, obscured by dark waters. such is the nature of coetzees prose. not since hemingway has a writer squeezed so much meaning from every word he commits to the page.
i suppose all i can say in reference to this book and to coetzee in general is to read him. you may not understand all of what hes getting at (i seriously doubt that more than a few on our planet do, and i certainly am not one of them), but you will have become a better person for attempting, and perhaps that is the purpose of reading in the first place.

Rating:
Summary: Great writing, good story, bad ending
Review: I gave up fiction long time ago. There are not enough good writers that keep me interested in a story until it's conclusion. Coetzee proved me that they are still writers out there that can make me appreciate language as a means for entertainment and not just about conveying information.
I don't believe the story is anything special. I've seen worst in real life. People compromising their professional ethic and livelihood for sex, the rather extreme view of rape from a woman's perspective (although I don't think any sane person can be that extreme), one person's view about people and animal ethics and racial tensions that exist not just in South Africa but anywhere (move back the calendar 40 or 50 years and the farm incident could have happen in the southern US but with a more realistic ending for the perpetrators). The writing made it special and I'm thankful for it.
Why did Coetzee left the story where it did? Why not give us a conclusion? I felt a little cheated. Like if the author decided that there is nothing more to say. I felt that there should be more to it. Coetzee can you finish the story please?


Rating:
Summary: Not Sure How to Feel
Review: The book kept me until the end. its oddness and meandering was somehow a painful beauty like a symphony of broken instruments that somehow makes you cry because it hits just the right notes to make you feel something. The way it was written made you feel as if you were right there in the pocket of the main character, David. After the intial disgust with him, you begin to love and respect him especially since he proves himself to be human and real.

But the story has a note of futility. of the situation. and that is the real sadness- that people push on and struggle even though it seems like things are just getting worse. More importantly i think it changed my attitude about the violence in S.A. So often do we only think of the violence inflected upon the black Africans but there was violence against the white Africans also and that is just as much wrong and i never felt that way before.

In a way this story has helped me see the situation in Palestine/Israel in a new light. How Israelis must feel living in danger and have violence being threatened against them even though their regime is doing something fundamentally wrong. Who do we hold repsonsible for the actions of history and a governmental body? And how should they be punished? This is a serious question in a world where the alst remanants of colonialism is disintegrating.

But the book left me sad and confused and maybe that was the point. I felt if I had been stranded in the African wilderness. and sometimes i could not udnerstand why the daughter of David had the attitude she had and did the things she did after the violent incident. Why did both David and his daughter react so differently? Was it merely a generational gap? The father is part of the old thinking and the daughter is riddled with guilt of what the odler generation did that she will lay down as a sacrifice for people to take their vengeance?

Rating:
Summary: Excellent prose, disturbing and depressing as well
Review: I could hardly put this book down. It was my introduction
to the work of Coetzee. As soon as I was done, I went and
bought Life and Times of M K. There was a chapter in Disgrace
which affected me so much that it was difficult to sleep that
night. I lack the literary background to understand the references to Byron, however. The people Coetzee writes
about are flawed but have a conscience. To be white in South
Africa these days and to have a conscience means to be troubled
by that country's past or at least trying to come to terms
with it and perhaps trying a bit to redress those sins.
Coetzee's prose is compact and seemingly every sentence packs
a punch. I wish I had read him sooner! To me he is the next
step up from, say, Graham Greene.