Disgrace - J.M.Coetzee

I don't know how to describe this book. I didn't enjoy it exactly, but I didn't not enjoy it either. It was a bizarre book of self-discovery in one who by rights should be too old to discover a lot about himself. He learns to hate himself and what he has become.

The book starts with an act by him towards a young woman. Not rape, she was willing. But it is then echoed in the rape of his own daughter. After this event he begins to reflect more upon his own actions. He realises an apology from himself. 

It is odd because where society would have accepted a false apology from him at the start of the novel they are unwilling to accept a true apology later on.

David Laurie is made to feel continually awkward and so becomes a recluse. The only people he is able to capably interact with are the dogs which he puts in the incinerator.

Rowen

Clarissa's Review