Book Review: Disgrace by J. M. Coetzee

1985 Riot, South Africa, photography by United Nations Photo on Flickr

Evie Robinson explores masculine violence in Coetzee’s Booker Prize-winning novel.

J.M Coetzee’s Disgrace is an incredibly conflicting novel. Set against the backdrop of post-Apartheid South Africa, it provides a commentary on what it means to be human in a country where the balance of power is shifting seismically. Coetzee addresses the problem of masculinity and male violence, drawing out the racial implications of this within the political context of the novel. From start to finish, it was a deeply uncomfortable read; but that is why I think this novel is so important. 

 The most striking aspect of Coetzee’s novel is his protagonist, David Lurie. He is a polarising character and I found it difficult – especially as a female reader – to warm to him. Lurie’s life revolves around his interactions with women. The novel opens with Lurie eliciting the services of an escort; he attempts to form a romantic relationship with her despite discovering that she has a family and children outside her occupation. Lurie proceeds to start an affair with one of his students. Whilst Lurie’s student Melani Isaacs does not reject his advances, he certainly seems to take advantage of her vulnerability; he offers her alcohol at his house, and at no stage does he stop to consider what she might be thinking.

The narrative is told from Laurie’s perspective; he continually sexualises Melani and we are never given her side of the story. Lurie seems to completely disregard Melani’s feelings when he seduces her, focusing solely on fulfilling his own desires. Lurie’s overarching confidence and egotism does not diminish when he is called to a disciplinary hearing. He plays a game of words with the university committee, acknowledging his “guilt” but refusing to explicitly confess his wrongdoings. Instead of facing up to what he has done, Lurie resigns from his teaching position and retreats to stay with his daughter at her secluded farmhouse in the Eastern Cape. By this point in the novel, Coetzee has established his main character as deeply unlikeable. But when three black men rape Lurie’s daughter and attempt to set Lurie himself on fire in a brutal attack, should we feel sorry for him?

The attack is horrific and puts a significant strain on Lurie and his daughter’s relationship, as they deal with the trauma in different ways. Lurie presses Lucy to report every detail of the attack to the police and demands for the assailants to be caught, whilst Lucie becomes apathetic. She feels unsafe in her home but is adamant that she cannot leave. I noticed the differences between Lurie and Lucy stemming from gender become increasingly clear in the aftermath of the attack. Lucy and her friend Bev Shaw – the owner of a local animal shelter – both insist that Lurie cannot begin to understand the attack on Lucy, simply because he is a man. Lurie continually probes Lucy with questions, arguably ignorant of the shame that Lucy is feeling after being raped – perhaps because he too is used to violating women. Lurie’s manipulation and derogatory treatment of women is also a form of male violence; albeit different and – on the surface – less horrific.

I expected (perhaps naively) to warm to Lurie by the end of the novel, but it was evident that he did not regret any of his choices and he continues to feel a distinct lack of remorse for his affair. He picks women up from the streets to sleep with them, regarding them only in terms of physical appearance and sexuality, and when he goes to “apologise” to Melani’s family he articulates thoughts of desire towards her younger sister.

Considering Disgrace within its political context is even more problematic. Lucy reflects on the attack and decides that it is full of hatred, but that this hatred was not personal to her. Without excusing the brutality of the men’s act, perhaps we can examine their attack as having a symbolic significance. They are attacking the white establishment for its abhorrent oppression of their culture for so many years; and Lucy is the victim because to them she represents this oppressive force. Lurie also recognises the sense of retribution in the attack. He considers why the attackers choose to shoot the dogs that Lucy is looking after on her farm, and concludes that as black men they were taught to fear dogs during the Apartheid as a symbol of white power and oppression. 

At times, I felt like I was reading two separate novels. The action very quickly moves from Lurie’s affair with Melani to the vicious attack on him and his daughter; two plot lines which initially seem unrelated. But as I reflected on the novel, I found myself drawing more connections. Perhaps what links these two stories is a difference in the way that these forms of masculinity manifest themselves, whether that is explicitly violent or more discreetly exploitative. I am compelled to think that as a white male, Lurie has the privilege of manifesting masculine violence in a way that is not possible for the black men who perpetrate the attack. Nevertheless, in both situations a position of power is abused. Coetzee points his reader in a multitude of often contradictory directions, in order to decide what it means to live in a state of disgrace.