J. M. Coetzee: Disgrace
A story set in South Africa, in two very different locations: the urban and the rural. After being accused of raping his student and denounced by everyone he knows, David Lurie, a university professor decides to live with his daughter on her farm. When he thinks things are starting to look up and he is moving on with his life, they get attacked by three young boys who rape his daughter, who, later on, refuses to press charges and instead decides to lay low till the storm passes. With a very nice prose and a thrilling rhythm, the book does not lack layers that we keep unfolding one after the other as we follow David's story. Moral, racial and sexual issues are all intertwined in a very complicated set, where we fail to understand why it is easier to make a scandal out of a professor-student affair in the city while, what can only be described as a violent and cruel sexual assault is hushed up and distorted in the countryside. And does the rape carry in itself a historical and racial background? Is David's daughter paying the price of her color? All this related to dogs, where they stand between white and black people, the relationship of fear they share with human beings, and finally a state of disgrace that spares no one.
A story set in South Africa, in two very different locations: the urban and the rural. After being accused of raping his student and denounced by everyone he knows, David Lurie, a university professor decides to live with his daughter on her farm. When he thinks things are starting to look up and he is moving on with his life, they get attacked by three young boys who rape his daughter, who, later on, refuses to press charges and instead decides to lay low till the storm passes. With a very nice prose and a thrilling rhythm, the book does not lack layers that we keep unfolding one after the other as we follow David's story. Moral, racial and sexual issues are all intertwined in a very complicated set, where we fail to understand why it is easier to make a scandal out of a professor-student affair in the city while, what can only be described as a violent and cruel sexual assault is hushed up and distorted in the countryside. And does the rape carry in itself a historical and racial background? Is David's daughter paying the price of her color? All this related to dogs, where they stand between white and black people, the relationship of fear they share with human beings, and finally a state of disgrace that spares no one.
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