Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

Introduction

Disgrace is a novel by John Maxwell Coetzee, published in English in 1999 and translated into French in 2001. Disgrace is a masterpiece of contemporary literature that has received the prestigious Booker Prize in 1999. He did much to the literary prestige of JM Coetzee and the obtaining by him of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003.

This novel describes very dark with extreme coldness of a South African post- apartheid , in which there is no justice, giving way to the horrors of all kinds, under cover of a powerless government. The author uses very little description; it focuses primarily on the characters, their relationships, their actions and their moods.

Synopsis

Disgrace is the story of David Lurie, a professor at the University of Cape Town in South Africa, twice divorced, who has an affair with one of his students, Melanie Isaacs. This comes to know David and password promptly before a disciplinary commission. Without even waiting for the judgment, David decides to leave everything he has to seek refuge with her daughter, Lucy. David participates in the life of the farm taking care of dogs collected by the market. It is a quick occupation by working with Bev Shaw, a friend of Lucy who treats injured animals and euthanasia desperate cases. Unfortunately, David and his daughter will face the horrors of everyday life in contemporary South Africa: rape, violence.

Analysis

Winner of the Booker Prize in 1999—an event that made Coetzee the first author to win that award twice—Disgrace presents the elegiac story of a professional and personal disaster in the life of a scholar during his transition from middle age to old age. The novel features a third-person narrator limited to the thoughts of the protagonist, David Lurie; however, at times the narrative voice seems to speak directly from Lurie's consciousness, as if he were speaking about himself, and to himself, in the third person.

Lurie is twice divorced, with one adult daughter living on a farm in Grahamstown. At 52, he is satisfied to live alone and make weekly visits to a prostitute for sexual release until the day he sees her in town with her two children. When he calls her at her home rather than her place of employment, she terminates their relationship. At loose ends, David is soon attracted to a beautiful young woman who is enrolled in his literature class, and his better judgment cannot restrain him from pursuing an affair with her. For her part, she is too young and inexperienced to know how to handle the attentions of an older man who is also her professor, and after entering into the affair, she resorts to the passive-aggressive defense of sending her boyfriend to intimidate Lurie. His handling of the situation soon lands him before an inquiry board, accused of sexual harassment. As the scandal intensifies, Lurie resigns his position and loses his pension rather than plead guilty and apologize.

He goes to visit his daughter, Lucy, while sorting out what to ...