"Disgrace" (1999) by J. M. Coetzee

This novel requires much deeper consideration than a short FB/IG post can manage and the following sharing inevitably includes spoilers. In a world where we no longer talk about right and wrong but wrong and wronger, where do morals lie? In the absence of clear boundaries, what is honour? What is disgrace? For people like us who have the comfort of sipping tea whilst casually writing this book review in a peaceful free society, these are probably the last things you think about unless you are put in humiliating circumstances - in one sense we live very dignified lives. Now consider post-apartheid South Africa. Here we have a society where, after lifting inhumane racial segregation, certain blacks seek retaliation on the whites for years of discrimination and repression and the whites find themselves losing privileges. In "Disgrace", J. M. Coetzee gives the readers one distressing perspective on the severity of the situation. David Lurie is a white professor in communication teaching Romantic literature classes who finds himself failing to get away with a casual affair with a black student. This is an obnoxious character who chooses to maintain his vanity and stubborn old-time pride by relinquishing a fair investigation, accepts "disgrace" and moves to live with his daughter, Lucy, who, representing the new world, recently breaks up with her lesbian lover and lives by taking care of a farm in the rural areas. There David discovers Lucy voluntarily takes on a submissive position within the community, predominantly black, and thinks nothing of losing privileges, property and possessions. One day, they were burgled, brutally attacked and Lucy was gang raped - for the second time as it was later revealed. David angrily demands justice but Lucy does not want to touch the wound and decides to keep the child, moves on and accepts "disgrace" as fate. Whilst the tone and language of the text evolves along with the development of the character of David from a bigoted old man to a more passionate parent who starts to look at life with a different light after picking up the profession of euthanising damaged animals (animal rights is also a direct theme and recurring metaphorical motif), the novel is largely emotionally unresolved and the readers are left in a desolated state that is perhaps, sadly, representative of the state of affairs. This is an unsettling book to read which offers no indication of hope or optimism. It clearly does not serve a crowd-pleasing agenda, but "Disgrace" is a remarkable survey of the darker side of human nature and commentary on the difficult art of human symbiosis.