Underneath the cold, selfish skin, there was a real human being. Somehow I could not help but pity him and feel somewhat complicit. There is more disgrace to come.ĭavid Lurie is a character to be despised - at least, that’s what I wanted to do. The real force of the book comes after this, when Lurie moves away to live with his daughter on her farm. Let him not forget that.Īnd this is just the first thirty pages. To the extent that they are together, if they are together, he is the one who leads, she the one who follows. But if she has got away with much, he has got away with more if she is behaving badly, he has behaved worse. She is behaving badly, getting away with too much she is learning to exploit him and will probably exploit him further. It’s an unpleasant thing to experience, especially when Coetzee inserts cold reason. That sick feeling of guilt and desire radiates from the page. In a way I felt guilty for reading it, like I was somehow involved. It is one of the most painfully compelling sections of a book I’ve ever read. His week becomes “as featureless as a desert.” He seeks to assuage his libido (let alone his ego) by seducing one of his students. Indeed, he feels, if anything, greater tenderness for her.īut she cannot deal with the fact that a client has seen her in her daily life, so she drops him. He is all for double lives, triple lives, lives lived in compartments. He wants to console her, tell her that he understands: He’s caught a glimpse of her outside the hotel room where they met weekly and where, until now, they’ve had a great relationship. The novel opens up when David Lurie’s prostitute stops meeting with him. As an example of how fast this book can move and yet how much goes on in the lines, anything I disclose in this post takes place in the first thirty pages - and so much happens in those thirty pages, so many emotions that affected me viscerally.
Its simplicity on the surface is even more impressive when considering the complexity - all the allusions, all of the conflicted feelings - that is actually going on. I don’t remember getting tied up by a single sentence. But it’s not quick just because it’s short (though it is short) it is a quick read because Coetzee’s writing is sweet and simple. When I finally did begin reading it, I consumed it in less than one day, a busy day at that.ĭisgrace is a very quick read. Though it was short, it took me a long time to open it up and begin to read. When Coetzee won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2003, Disgrace was the first book I bought by him.
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