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However, his, by accident, though insistent, seduction of a female student in his class, who is not really all that willing, is, not surprisingly, turned back on him as a case of sexual harassment. But they are well sketched for the author's purpose. Lurie accepts that there comes a time for us all.Perhaps one would want more character development in the book; there is little of their backgrounds provided. Little does Lurie realize that he is now on a path where gritty realities will come crashing into his life far exceeding the unpleasantness of violating petty sexual correctness rules. However, Lucy recognizes that harmony with the land and one's neighbors comes at a cost. In the subsequent hearing, his quick admission of guilt is actually quite offensive to college officials, especially the women in attendance.
No doubt life is rather bleak in the author's world, yet somehow accepting and dealing with gritty reality is strengthening, perhaps ennobling. This short novel begins as a story of personal excess, even disgrace, but quickly becomes much more. David Lurie is a fifty-two-year-old, twice-divorced, academic teaching poetry at a small college in South Africa, who sees his life and career ebbing away. Forced to manage Lucy's affairs while she recovers, Lurie is astounded by her lack of vindictiveness and willingness to remain.
Not only is there physical devastation and personal injuries, but more significant is the physic damage and the shattering of personal and social illusions. Simmering racial tensions suddenly intrude as he is stunned by the brutal assault by three black men on Lucy's holdings and on them both. In fact, its Lurie's work at Bev's makeshift clinic that has a transforming impact on him. This is a book that will stay with one for quite a while.
It is gut-wrenching to inject the drug, while a dog, seemingly aware of what is happening, licks his hand. In what begins as only a short visit, he is quite surprised to find his daughter Lucy eking out a minimal living by growing and selling vegetables and flowers and boarding dogs on little more than a large patch of dirt, hardly a farm. Euthanasia is a reality at the clinic. Still a reasonably good-looking man, he partly counters his boredom, even disgust, at teaching indifferent students by keeping sexuality as an important part of his life, usually via paid services.
Her neighbor Bev Shaw, who attempts to help broken down animals, mirrors that same toughness and acceptance. Africa. To expectations that he admit that his behavior was inappropriate, even deviant, and then seek counseling, he contends that sexual desire is only natural and "enriching." And that gets him dismissed, which he almost seems to welcome. He is startled by the isolation, the harshness of conditions, the dirt, and the danger of living in rural S.
Her poppa's protestations have no effect on her decision to stay put on her farmstead, next to a black neighbor who openly shelters one of her attackers. After getting raped by three natives, the whining, whimpering and now impregnated daughter accepts her fate as punishment for her country's past treatment of blacks. How nice. I'm going to toss your way some images that stayed with me after reading this novel: a middle-aged horny professor (a promising start but it all goes to hell from here), his fat frumpy daughter, desolate depressing landscape, dead mangled dogs, brutal rape and assault. If this is the new South Africa, then it is well on its way to joining its neigbor Zimbabwe as a Whites-free Paradise. and Byron's mistress' unrequited love and you end up with a sorry mess indeed -- all told in a rather insipid prose style. Add to this jumble Herr Professor's mandolin-orchestrated opera about Byron (). What's most pathetic about this novel, however, is its pernicious underlying theme: the White Man's Guilt.
Worth reading though. I guess that's just for me, not everybody. This book makes you think about life and it's consequences. It reminds you that not everything is cut into perfect little squares like you imagined when you started out.
A facinating story. Disgrace gives the reader a good understanding of the complex issue of race in South Africa and in the human heart.
A superb book that simply cannot be put down. On one level, about the demise and education of a narcissistic professor who sexually harrasses a student. On another level an allegory about the raping of South Africa and the rage and violence that finally provoked.
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