I don’t know if there is such a thing as the perfect time of day to finish a book; but as I read the last words of Disgrace, the sun dipping into oblivion beyond the block of flats to the west, I felt the deep satisfaction that comes from having just finished a good book. If it weren’t ironic in this context, I might almost have said “enriched”.
J.M. Coetzee’s 1999 Booker Prize-winning novel is vividly beautiful; without trying to stir up a sensation, it weaves in moral dilemmas and acts of revenge. One act of oppression cannot be avenged by another — this truth, obviously, doesn’t come home to us in such simple terms — but when Coetzee addresses it in this masterful piece of work, it is difficult not to try and make sense of it.
David Lurie, a white professor in Cape Town, succumbs to the demands of the flesh and indulges in an affair with one of his students, Melanie Isaacs. Things go downhill thereafter as he is forced to resign from his post at the University, and he seeks refuge with his daughter, Lucy, who lives on a farm, trying to adapt to a lifestyle he hasn’t quite been able to understand.
An unfortunate event follows, leading him to turn protector instead of finding the peace and care he had hoped for, and Lucy’s actions in the aftermath lead him to question if they are her own way of trying to teach him a lesson, to make him understand what his impulsive acts of lust might have meant to the young woman whose life he must have changed forever.
There isn’t much room for contrition or apology. While Lurie does visit Melanie’s parents to explain his side of the story and apologise for the trouble he might have caused them, he isn’t quite prepared to consider that he might be in the wrong. He pins the reason of his acts down to desire — as much a part of human nature as that of animals. However, he is forced to question his beliefs off and on with the events shaping Lucy’s life.
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