Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee
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VINTAGE READING GROUP: DISGRACE BY J. M. COETZEE STARTING POINTS FOR YOUR DISCUSSION 1. Consider the role of dogs in Disgrace. How are they used to represent the vicious lawlessness of the landscape? What does Lurie's relationship with the young, injured dog at the end of the book suggest to you? 2. ‘…a woman’s beauty does not belong to her alone. It is part of the bounty she brings into the world. She has a duty to share it.’ Consider the role of women in Disgrace. At various points they are objects of sexual desire, of punitive violence, and of earthy strength. Is it fair to describe Disgrace as sexist? 3. David Lurie is a particularly unappealing character. Yet after the attack, his abiding concern is for those more vulnerable than him: his daughter, Lucy, and the unwanted animals. How far do you sympathise with his situation? 4. ‘He sighs. The young in one another’s arms, heedless, engrossed in the sensual music. No country, this, for old men. He seems to be spending a lot of time sighing. Regret: a regrettable note on which to go out.’ What do you think J.M. Coetzee is trying to say about growing old? 5. Consider the stark beauty of Coetzee’s prose compared to the brutality of the events that take place. Is it possible to describe Disgrace as a ‘beautiful’ novel? 6. The essential Coetzeean concern is with the battle between the individual and forces beyond his control. Of escaping his times to live a simpler form of existence. Disgrace seems to take the view that political change will do nothing to eliminate the essential human condition. What do you see as the relationship between politics and the individual as represented here? ABOUT THE BOOK Disgrace tells the story of a white academic and his long, self-imposed, fall from grace in post-apartheid South Africa. Having spent years teaching Romantic Poetry at the University of Cape Town, David Lurie finds himself outdated and old, no longer representative of the new South Africa growing up all around him. He is 52, divorced twice, and no-longer attractive. Increasingly desperate to find some beauty in the world, he has an affair with a nubile young student. But when the relationship turns sour, Lurie is denounced and brought before an employment tribunal. Obstinate to the end, he refuses to repent publicly, preferring to retire, and make himself a martyr for all that has passed. Hoping that a spell of fresh air and honest work will silence the disquieting sense of loss which is beginning to engulf him, Lurie retreats to stay with his daughter, Lucy, on a ranch in the heart of the rural veldt. But they are victims of a vicious attack and suddenly all the transformations are brought firmly, inexorably, home. As he struggles to recover from the shock and find his place in this new country, Lurie comes to realise that age, like the progression of history, is not something which can be fought forever, that time waits for no man. Disgrace is a novel about growing old disgracefully, because to grow old is a disgrace. It is about being left behind by history and finding oneself completely isolated in your home country. To read it is to take a journey into post-apartheid South Africa, and the very real heart of darkness which resides there. Written with the near biblical simplicity of prose which runs throughout Coetzee’s fiction, Disgrace exhibits perfectly a unity between style and subject matter. It is beautifully written, quietly understated, poetic and evocative. With its unique and powerful narrative and sense of untamed regret in untameable conditions it is a work of almost unbelievable synchronicity. QUOTES ‘By this late point in the century the journey to a heart of narrative darkness has become a safe literary destination, almost a cliché. Disgrace …explore[s] the furthest reaches of what it means to be human; it is at the frontier of world literature’ The Sunday Telegraph ‘A harsh story, told in prose of spare, steely beauty… exhilarating...It confirms Coetzee's claim to be considered one of the best novelists alive’ The Sunday Times ‘Coetzee captures with appalling skill the white dilemma in South Africa’ Justin Cartwright, The Daily Telegraph ‘Coetzee’s prose is chaste and lyrical…it is a relief to encounter writing as quietly stylish as this' Paul Bailey, The Independent ‘A masterpiece…perhaps the best novel to carry off the Booker in a decade.’ Boyd Tonkin, The Independent ‘It is in exploring weakness and defeat that Coetzee captures the divine spark in man.’ Nobel Prize for Literature Press Release, 2003 ABOUT THE AUTHOR John Maxwell Coetzee is one of the foremost authors of our generation. In a career that has spanned four decades, he has published eleven works of fiction, many collections of essays, and two works of fictionalised biography. He was the first of only two authors to win the Booker Prize twice – for Life and Times of Michael K in 1983 and Disgrace in 1999 – and in 2003 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 7 th February, 1942, to a lawyer father and school teacher mother, Coetzee graduated from the University in Cape Town with degrees in English and Mathematics. Having relocated to London, he worked for a time as a programmer for IBM and then moved to the US to complete a Ph.D. in Linguistics. Having written his thesis on computer stylistic analysis of the works of Samuel Beckett, Coetzee took up a position as a Lecturer at the State University of New York. However, in 1971, when he sought permanent residence in the US, his application was denied due to his involvement in anti-Vietnam war protests. He then returned to South Africa where he lectured in Literature at the University of Cape Town through to his retirement in 2002. That year he relocated to Adelaide, Australia, where he is an honorary research fellow at the University of Adelaide. He became an Australian citizen in 2006. Famously reclusive, Coetzee is a man who avoids the spotlight. Rain Malan, a South African journalist describes him as ‘a man of almost monkish self-discipline and dedication. He does not drink, smoke or eat meat. He cycles vast distances to keep fit and spends at least an hour at his writing-desk each morning, seven days a week.’ Like Samuel Beckett, John Coetzee seldom gives interviews. Coetzee has a difficult relationship with his homeland. The landscape of South Africa runs throughout his fiction, weaving and winding in and out of his characters lives. Yet repeatedly he has left the country, and sought citizenship abroad. He refuses to speak about the political situation in his home country but many of his books deal with the stark inhumanity of racial relations in South Africa. He appears to see the problems as entrenched and impossible. In Disgrace , his most nakedly political book, there is a clue to his opinion, and it is extraordinarily despairing. Lucy, contemplating the wreckage of her life, says that she is prepared to start again, ‘with no cards, no weapons, no property rights, no dignity’. ‘Like a dog,’ Lurie says. ‘Yes, like a dog.’ But whether this is Coetzee speaking, or the voice of his characters, is impossible to determine. A film adaptation of Disgrace, starring John Malkovich as David Lurie, was released in 2008. AUTHOR INTERVIEW ‘Whites in South Africa are in shock. At the deepest level, many still haven’t understood or accepted that life cannot go on as it did before’ J.M. Coetzee, 25th October 1999, New Statesman Disgrace reminded me of Alan Paton’s Cry, the Beloved Country . It is as though they are carrying on a conversation across the years, one pre-apartheid, and the other post-apartheid. In each of them you have the terrible impossibility and the hesitant optimism, the struggle against forces greater than the individual, yet the individual, personal life being the only way of living. Was this conscious? J.M. Coetzee: No, this was not a unity I was trying to make. But they are both about South Africa, separated by many years of history; if they relate to each other, then it is because of this. You have always been focused on the relationship between the individual and great powers beyond his control. Yet for many years books were subject to censorship in South Africa. How do you feel censorship has impacted on you as a writer? J.M. Coetzee: I have an interesting story there. The relationship between censor and writer is both intensely intimate and yet undesired, like having a stranger’s eye upon you. When I began publishing in South Africa in the 1970s there was an official censorship bureau which sought to demonstrate and maintain the power of the state, and to preserve the moral integrity and purity of South African society. Essentially, its task was to maintain the dichotomy between good and evil, white and black. However, in 1994, following the end of Apartheid, the national archives were opened up. And in 2007 I received a phone call to say that they had come across the internal censors reports on some of my books and would I like to see them. “Of course,” I replied. The contents of the reports held few surprises. There were 13 passages of In The Heart of the Country which were found to be questionable, mostly dealing with sex across the racial divide. Waiting for the Barbarians had 22 .