Documentos de Académico
Documentos de Profesional
Documentos de Cultura
DISGRACE BY J. M. COETZEE
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 Coetzees
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 clich. Disgraceexplore[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
Coetzees prose is chaste and lyricalit is a relief to encounter writing as quietly
stylish as this' Paul Bailey, The Independent
A masterpieceperhaps 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
Born in Cape Town, South Africa, on 7th 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 havent
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 Patons 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 strangers 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. And yet, the books were
recommended to be published, principally, it seems, because it was believed that
they would not be widely read, that they were too intellectual. It seems absurd that
censorship should only be for the simple. But what was most surprising was the
names of the censors who reported on my books.
They were not Orwellian bureaucrats who wore dull suits and trudged to work in
bland, concrete office buildings where they punched in at 9 and out at 5.30 to trudge
home to their solitary lives. They were my colleagues and contemporaries! One was
the mother of one of my colleagues at the University of Cape Town. I had met with
her many times. Two others were lecturers at the University, one when I was a
student, the other as a colleague of mine. I had been to their houses for barbecues,
shared hotdogs with my censors!
Who would have thought that something like censorship could be so invisible, even
when censors themselves are all around you?
That is amazing. It must be very strange to think back on those times from your life
in Australia. Do you have any desire to return to South Africa?
J.M. Coetzee: No. I dont expect to return to South Africa.
Do you have any lingering desire to write about the South Africa landscape?
Disgrace
Youth
Stranger Shores: Literary Essays 1986-1999
Elizabeth Costello
Slow Man
Inner Workings Literary Essays 2000-2005
Diary of a Bad Year