J.M. Coetzee: Disgrace

[Cocko]

Here's one from 1999:

I was keen to read Coetzee’s Disgrace because of a new Australian-produced adaptation of the novel which recently won the FIPRESCI prize at Toronto Film Festival. From all early reports John Malkovich is fantastic. However, my judgment on the film will have to wait a few weeks. Instead, to the novel.

This Booker Prize winner is certainly a thought-provoking look at a man’s decent into crisis, but I have to admit that Disgrace and I never found a grove. First up, I’m not particularly interested in the well-worn narrative of an aging academic taking advantage of a female student. But, of course, Coetzee is no amateur, rather he spins the narrative in more complex circles, analysing power struggles of post-apartheid South Africa while questioning gender roles in both sexual relationships and parental stereotypes. Nevertheless, I think my ambivalence comes from simply not liking the protagonist David Lurie. Now maybe the reader isn’t meant to like Lurie, but fundamentally I had no deep-held sense of empathy for his situation.

Much has been written about this book, and if the accolades are to be believed, I am probably safe in assuming that I am in the minority. It is not the first time I’ve had differing opinions to the literary elite, my contempt for A Farewell to Arms springs to mind. But what really surprises me about Disgrace is that not only did I not like it all that much, I didn’t dislike it all that much either. Instead, I consider it an above average character study which never attains the same emotive stamp as its first paragraph. I’ll be sure to give some of his other books a go as his is a beautiful writer (as evident in the opening paragraph of Disgrace) and I will say that I enjoyed his 2003 work Elizabeth Costello. I guess there is no accounting for taste.

Here's that first paragraph:

For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well. On Thursday afternoons he drives to Green Point. Punctually at two p.m. he presses the buzzer at the entrance to Windsor Mansions, speaks his name, and enters. Waiting for him at the door of No. 113 is Soraya. He goes straight in through to the bedroom, which is pleasant-smelling and softly lit, and undresses. Soraya emerges from the bathroom, drops her robe, slides into bed beside him. ‘Have you missed me?’ she asks/ ‘I miss you all the time,’ he replies. He strokes her honey-brown body, unmarked by the sun; he stretches her out, kisses her breasts; they make love.

[nnyhav]

Funny, this was the first Coetzee with which I connected, even made my best of '05 reading:


17.12.05 I'd long been puzzled why I hadn't taken to Coetzee, as his background covers many of my interests (except perhaps for computers, more deeply than I, my maths being more heuristic, and my dabbling in linguistics and semiotics more touristic). My long-ago sampling of the early novels, and more recently of the essays in Doubling the Point, did little for me; The Master of Petersburg was better (but not as good as Malcolm Bradbury's To the Hermitage [or Cynthia Ozick's The Messiah of Stolkholm]), but Disgrace is a stand-out (as if that's news). I'm still not tempted to follow up with the Costello papers, but I am prompted to go back to The Life and Times of Michael K., particularly as a companion to recent reading of W.G.Sebald's Vertigo (worthwhile but not as good as what followed).

(I did go back a year later, and while not disappointed, neither was I whelmed over ...)

[Stewart]

Disgrace was the novel, I think, that pushed me to more literary reading. I remember my friend passing it on to me after it had won the Booker in 1999 (at that time I was pretty much reading horror novels), and my first attempt stalled. My second attempt faired better, even if it was a couple of years later, and I really enjoyed it. I've been meaning, for ages, to read more Coetzee and hope to do so soon after picking up Life And Times Of Michael K. some months back.

[nnyhav]

Just happened upon this in checking out NBCC's In Retrospect series (obligatory spoilert):

CRITICAL MASS: In Retrospect: "Disgrace," Coetzee's Masterpiece

[DreamQueen]

Originally Posted by Cocko

...maybe the reader isn’t meant to like Lurie, but fundamentally I had no deep-held sense of empathy for his situation.

Much has been written about this book, and if the accolades are to be believed, I am probably safe in assuming that I am in the minority.

I don't know about that...I and everyone I know who's read this book not only didn't like it, but actively loathed it (well, in most cases anyway).

[Beth]

...and I've wondered if this wasn't Coetzee's intent, to create a character that would push the reader away from empathy for David, enforcing upon us the same sense of dehumanization that operates within the novel. Far from me to say what he ''meant'', but the effect upon me as a reader was to explore the experience of rape from every angle, and in so doing, depersonalizing and stripping the prose of anything that might find a sympathetic vein in a reader.

[fausto]

Loathed it? Why? I thought it was a brilliant book and while I'm not saying everyone should love it as much as I do I'm still curious what makes it deserving of some loathing. Isn't it too strong? Doesn't it say more about you than about the book?

[DreamQueen]

Originally Posted by fausto

Loathed it? Why? I thought it was a brilliant book and while I'm not saying everyone should love it as much as I do I'm still curious what makes it deserving of some loathing. Isn't it too strong? Doesn't it say more about you than about the book?

Why is it that people assume there's something wrong with you if you don't have the same taste in literature as they do? You thinking it's a brilliant book doesn't mean it is; it means you think it is. Hey, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The last time I checked, however, judgment about the quality of any given book was subjective and reflective of the tastes, values, etc of the person reading it, and not some kind of affirmation of a book's essential quality. I reject the idea that books have any kind of essential quality; when people believe that they begin un-self-consciously to spout tautologies like this (from the last Shakespeare class I taught): "I don't like Shakespeare but I respect him"..."Why?" I asked?..."Because he's Shakespeare", the answer.

I loathed Disgrace because I found every character despicable and flat (a hard feat that), the story uninteresting, and Coetzee's sexual politics unpalatable.

It has been suggested that Coetzee made the book difficult on purpose; indeed, he may well have had an agenda. That's fine. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

[Mirabell]

The last time I checked, however, judgment about the quality of any given book was subjective and reflective of the tastes, values, etc of the person reading it,

exactly. which is why Fausto suggested

Doesn't it say more about you than about the book?

whence the outrage, DreamQueen?

[spooooool]

The last time I checked, however, judgment about the quality of any given book was subjective and reflective of the tastes, values, etc of the person reading it, and not some kind of affirmation of a book's essential quality. I reject the idea that books have any kind of essential quality; when people believe that they begin un-self-consciously to spout tautologies like this (from the last Shakespeare class I taught): "I don't like Shakespeare but I respect him"..."Why?" I asked?..."Because he's Shakespeare", the answer.


But - and to speak generally -there are plenty of writers whose work i cannot read, whilst still understanding that what they're doing might be important. That isn't a matter of tautology or essential quality but critical intelligence - and since i fall in love with ideas all the time it doesn't amount to disinvestment either I can say as much of Henry James or Doris Lessing, say - just as readily as i can say why i love him and why i'm forever grateful to the teacher who introduced me to Chaucer at 14 . It's less a matter of the redundancy of the question than who it is giving the answer, maybe

best
Spooooool

[fausto]

Originally Posted by DreamQueen

Why is it that people assume there's something wrong with you if you don't have the same taste in literature as they do? You thinking it's a brilliant book doesn't mean it is; it means you think it is. Hey, I'm glad you enjoyed it.

The last time I checked, however, judgment about the quality of any given book was subjective and reflective of the tastes, values, etc of the person reading it, and not some kind of affirmation of a book's essential quality. I reject the idea that books have any kind of essential quality; when people believe that they begin un-self-consciously to spout tautologies like this (from the last Shakespeare class I taught): "I don't like Shakespeare but I respect him"..."Why?" I asked?..."Because he's Shakespeare", the answer.

I loathed Disgrace because I found every character despicable and flat (a hard feat that), the story uninteresting, and Coetzee's sexual politics unpalatable.

It has been suggested that Coetzee made the book difficult on purpose; indeed, he may well have had an agenda. That's fine. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

Err, yes?

(I would have replied along Mirabell's line but he did).

Just a thing: I didn't say everyone ought to think it brilliant (I even stated the contrary) nor did I question your negative opinion. What I was wondering about was the loathing. I intensely dislike many books and writers but loathe seemed to be such a strong word that I wanted some clarification on the matter -- and no I didn't mean the problem was with you but merely that for such a strong word to be used, the dislike had to go beyond the merely literary if it was heartfelt and not just an overstatement.

[DreamQueen]

Originally Posted by fausto

Err, yes?

(I would have replied along Mirabell's line but he did).

Just a thing: I didn't say everyone ought to think it brilliant (I even stated the contrary) nor did I question your negative opinion. What I was wondering about was the loathing. I intensely dislike many books and writers but loathe seemed to be such a strong word that I wanted some clarification on the matter -- and no I didn't mean the problem was with you but merely that for such a strong word to be used, the dislike had to go beyond the merely literary if it was heartfelt and not just an overstatement.

Ah, I see. I didn't realize you were trying to focus in on one word. No, loathing is not an overstatement. I loathed the book and my reaction was entirely literary. Indeed, I know nothing about Coetzee and have no associations with him or his work, so it can't be anything but literary.

I found every character not just unlikeable, but entirely foul and somehow Coetzee's brilliant writing made the disgusting characters all the more unpalatable. Loathing may be too strong of a word for some but I'm not into sugar-coating my feelings on books. I feel very passionate about books and if I feel like I've wasted time on something I think is trash it really bothers me! I feel like life is much too short for shit and yet every book is a risk (unless it's by David Mitchell).

[Mirabell]

So you're saying that having unlikeable characters despite admittedly "brillant writing" makes a book "trash"?

Interesting.

[saliotthomas]

Originally Posted by Mirabell

So you're saying that having unlikeable characters despite admittedly "brillant writing" makes a book "trash"?

Interesting.

Don't mind her Dreamqueen she's snotty sometime!

[DreamQueen]

Originally Posted by Mirabell

So you're saying that having unlikeable characters despite admittedly "brillant writing" makes a book "trash"?

Interesting.

No, to be more precise, it's not just that the characters were unlikable. It's also that there was nothing at all interesting about the characters. A compelling villain is ace.

[Eric]

I'm afraid I gave up after around 20 pages. Can't find my copy now to re-read it and give it another chance. An Afrikaner academic I correspond with now and again raved about it. But from what I remember, I found that the writing was like that by a cold and clinical fish, who'd been on a creative writing course. ["How to Win the Nobel - in six easy lessons"]

But as I say, I shall one day give it another chance, although I would rather read Greeff, Winterbach or Vladislavic, if I'm going to read South African literature. I'll push Coetzee into the long grass (the long Aussie grass, I suppose, as he lives there now).

[Betelgeused]

I didn't expect to find an enormous number of people criticizing one of Coetzee's finest moments, in my opinion. Well, thank god for diversity.

To me, at the time I read it, Disgrace kind of changed my life. It's brutally human and that means a lot to me. I know the sentence "changed my life" is a bit stronger than it (maybe) should be, but I see it, the book, as an allegory. David Lurie's departure from his town after being brought to ruins, his trip to his daughter's ranch, the subsequent events and the search for an ultimate meaning in life... By the end of the book, the message which I incorporated was something like "Be human, do what you wish. Or do nothing, if you will." And, hell, it shows the power of literature: being able to cause this vortex of emotions - sadness, anger, anguish, happiness, redemption - allmost at the same time.

I also love Disgrace's last words but it would be unethical to post it.

[adaorardor]

Just put up a spoiler warning and post the ending. I love those lines also -- but am still unsure about how to interpret them. How do you read them?

[Jan Mbali]

Also loathed Disgrace. Most of his work seems to be the thin squeezings of tiny sour grapes. He cannot adjust to the new South Africa, not did he want the old. Somewhere in moral limbo. But his universalised "Waiting for the babarians" is surely a classic of world literature and leaves a permament and positive mark on the mind. For the rest, mostly unpleasant stains.

[Eric]

This "Australian" writer doesn't fascinate me at all. Nobel-drooling is too frequent an ailment. Because he won the biggest prize in the world, money-wise, people can forgive him his Afrikaner background and emigré status. People want to like him. I can't. That book, from the little I read, was a mixture, from what I remember, of a rather macho male swagger and the calculations of a cold fish. Maybe his older books are classics, but I stick to what I said a few postings ago. He seems cold. I want to hear a few more detailed women's views on how he handles the female characters. Like Saramago, he appears to specialise in rape fantasies.

Never mind the intent, what about the novel? It isn't a question of "unlikeable characters" in my case, but a negative reaction to "Disgrace" plus a dislike of the author from what he looked like in the photos, where he always comes across as unfeeling and calculating. A photo is not definitive, but he appears to have the lean and publicity-hungry look.

We're about 40-60 here, positive and negative, but I am still not convinced that I want to pick up this book ever again, when there are several other superb South African authors vying for my reading time.

Reviews like this don't exactly help:

Salon Books | "Disgrace" by J.M. Coetzee