Disgrace

Disgrace J.M. Coetzee 9.5/10

Disgrace is a masterpiece. The 200 pages are sparsely written, terse and trying. One can hardly muster sympathy for the apathetic and unprincipled protagonist (Lurie) as his distanced, uninvolved life is slowly stripped from him. Disgrace is the story of a man who had almost nothing, and loses that.

Lurie lives a solitary, passionless life as a professor of communications at a Cape Town, South Africa university. "Because he has no respect for the material he teaches, he makes no impression on his students...Their indifference galls him more than he will admit." Lurie merely goes through the motions of life, living without purpose and only moderated joy.

Characters in disgrace are believable and complex - from his lesbian daughter living alone in the countryside to Bev Shaw, the animal lover whose veterinary clinics primary responsibility is the disposal of unwanted animals. The irritatingly indifferent Lurie changes only in miniscule measures - measures unknown and unnoticed by the stalwart professor who repeatedly claims that at his age, it's too late for change, too late for growth.

Lurie loses everything and rebuilds himself in the African countryside, but it's clear that nothing has really changed. Lurie is different now, but the world is the same and the political environment that has brought about the society he's a part of doesn't change simply because we grow. Even his relationships are established - the roles each member plays are established and too firm-set to change. Disgrace is not an uplifting book, but is excellently written and intriguing...and that's what I look for in a book.