Disgrace
J M Coetzee
"I read Disgrace just because it's gotten so much press. It was the second book of Coetzee's to win the Booker Prize; he's now the only person who's ever won it twice. It is a very harsh and depressing and uncompromising book, and it takes you on an incredible emotional journey through two people's suffering; and it does it mostly through dialog, which is very difficult, and it does it - it's a journey of two people who are not very sympathetic, and they're selfish, they're mulish, they don't explain themselves clearly.
Disgrace is a story of a college professor, David, in Capetown; and he's been cashiered from his job for seducing a young student. He figures he'll go stay with his grown daughter for a while. No sooner does he get there than the farm is attacked and ransacked by three young black men, two men and a boy; and they gang rape the daughter Lucy, they douse David with alcohol and set him on fire, they steal everything of value from the house and they shoot the dog that Lucy had been boarding to make extra money. Lucy's a difficult young woman. She won't prosecute the offenders, and she won't report the rape; and that's because she fears that the accusers live nearby. The book is about how she and her father come to terms with that shame, with the disgrace of the title.
It sounds crazy that this would work as a piece of literature, but Coetzee makes it work, and that's why this book is so amazing and so miraculous. I don't really have a criticism of this book except that people should know when they start it that it will be - especially for a woman - it's an incredibly painful read. I would give Disgrace five stars."
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