http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disgrace
chey: i'm a start this one, i'm tempted not to give coetzee the time necessary, but the guy won the nobel, so that legitimates this whole enterprise. is the novel racist, sexist? david lurie, the main character, is an aging lothario who sleeps with several women through the course of the book always with pretty demeaning language (in the first person).
yoyo: yep, and the women are never developed beyond being victims or persecutors, despite the fact that female characters outnumber the males.
chey: but this is not a new critique of the book. however, in doing our thourough research of the work beforehand, we saw that the amazon, salon, and other reviews had no problem with this stuff. so let's get down to the heart exactly about what was so offensive.
yoyo: thorough research. totally. offensive: women/blacks used only to drive home political points while a misogynistic (and possibly racist) main character garners all the available sympathy/insight (however paltry the supplies of both may be...)
chey: but does this make it really offensive. if it was just some black on white rape porn, would it be all that much different? moreover, if it was told in the 3rd person, would it then be ok. it is offensive and difficult for me to read exactly because we not only have to read about an offensive man, we have to essentially be him in adopting the 1st person. every time he says "i", we say, "i..."
yoyo: i think that's a totally valid point. we want to justify his actions because we feel them as if they were our own. my prob is justifying my criticism of this book, which i loathed, against lolita, which i loved. i think maybe HH was so much more self aware, and was so clearly and unambigously a monster?
chey: so it is the ambiguity that makes you see the sexist/racist in yourself, even if only projected onto you by the book? i think the thing is pretty despicable, it's like reading porn at several spots; it describes essentially a facist politics, a politics of evil, a lack of remorse, so many things that we accuse leaders of endorsing.
yoyo: i'm not clear on what you mean here. can you explain more?
chey: it is a philosophy of agression, and repression. the women have no voice. when lurie, the professor is accused of sleeping with a student, he doesn't admit guilt, no because he is not willing to admit that he did it, but because he refuses to see anything wrong with that equation.
yoyo: TOTALLY. but how did that show you sexist/racist stuff in yrself?
chey: i'm just saying that it does by proxy whether we like it or not because every time we read the word, "i..", it is as if we are speaking, we adopt lurie's character as our own whether we like it or not, we commit his crimes, we, for lack of a better metaphor, are the baby jesus.
yoyo: it's like... i understand how he makes you experience being sexist/racist, but did it illuminate any s/r that you hadn't noticed in yrself before? do you know what i mean? like, did you finish it and go, 'well, i never expected to be called out on THAT value' or whatever?
chey: no, i already knew i was kind of sexist....for all those other folks who had no idea, i don't think they take that step away from the text and realize that it's fucked up to be getting off on a borderline child rape scene.
yoyo: yeah. i think that sort of identification really lingers w you, too, even if on a conscious level you are going"i don't agree w this. this guy's a fuck." and he really beats you over the head w it. chey was reading the part where Lurie fucks his unwilling student, and midway thru he was like "DUDE WE GET IT!" but Coetzee had to really linger over the scene and go on for a good bit longer.
chey: so the other reading is that through the course of the novel, the character is disgraced, his daughter is raped, his face is burned, he loses his professorship, his living, and possibly his daughter's farm.........so bad things come to those who are too careless to identify their fascist politics.
yoyo: i like that last bit. even in that reading, it's sexist bc why shld lucy have to be raped and lose her farm just so that this guy can be punished? and what about the student and her family who are traumatized - is that ultimately redeemed by his push towards a better life? also, another reading wld be that all this shit falls on a guy who didn't do anything wrong, bc the world is set up to favor women and blacks now as retribution for crimes that were never really committed...
chey: so fucked up on a bunch of levels......but politics aside......is the language and structure and ideas, etc. nobel-worthy. coetzee has a great attention for detail, and he certainly gets inside lurie's head, if no one else's.
yoyo: yeah, but as fun as it is to read for the first few chapeters, technique-wise, after that i found it a bit repetitious - the playing w near-synonyms, the tendency to describe a few sensory details and then a snarky opinion, the long lectures david gives about whatever the fuck. it felt like the same format over and over again.
chey: true. should the nobel committee have been more responsible for supporting his politics -- that s africa is now an unsafe place for mr. white man?
yoyo: i'd have been happier w a book that noted that it's not a safe place for mr/ms white man, that's fair, but gave a more balanced view of why that might be. and also touched on how it's not exactly a safe place for mr/ms black man either. that's another grating thing... the black characters seemed so priviliged and unlikable.
chey: true. but what if s africa is really unsafe and effed up? if disgrace brings light to the deficiencies of the post-apartaid gov't, is that a good thing, or does it necessarily have to be seen as racist, or is it all in the way it was done?
yoyo: i think it's all in the way that it was done. i didn't feel that it showed anything about the gov't, really, except in the vaguest most tangential way. as for the nobel - i have a hard time believing that this was the best written book that year, or the one that explored the most troublesome or important political issue.
chey: personally, i think coetzee is confused, he knows his politics, he knows what he is doing could be seen as sexist/racist, but goes through with it anyway bc 1. he agrees with lurie on some level and 2. he gets off on it. that's enough for me to see him as detestable.
yoyo: well said. i'm not sure what to add to that.
chey: i would say that if you had a story of some bigot who was obviously a bigot, it wouldn't be that different........only in our postmodern age can we take a bigoted book and look at it so "objectively" that any authorial intention is thrown out the window; if this is what it means to "read text as text", i ain't for it.
yoyo: yeah, it feels a lot backlash-y to me. I sort of imagine the most patriarchal member of the committee being like, "we're doing something for ME this year!" you know? like the old white dudes get their turn again (in a blatant way, as opposed to having to be sneaky about it)
chey: well i think coetzee might have had his turn coming due to his other books. were his politics at the forefront in those? i think the apt comparison here is to "storytelling" by todd solondz -- which has a bunch of ugly detestable scenes, including a rape scene, but it's a black comedy, and it plays like one; disgrace, on the other hand, does not play for irony -- it reads entirely like drama.
yoyo: hee. way to keep yr one sentence going waaaay after yr minute is up. i think you nailed it... it reads like drama. i'm so sleepy.
3 comments:
"it's sexist bc why shld lucy have to be raped and lose her farm just so that this guy can be punished? and what about the student and her family who are traumatized - is that ultimately redeemed by his push towards a better life?"
She doesn't have to be. The important thing is how he deals with this.
Despite Lurie's "not rape, not quite that" line it is made clear to the reader that this was rape by any other name (rape of a black girl by the white protagonist). Why should that be redeemed by his "push towards a better life"? I agree it would be sexist if it was.
"also, another reading wld be that all this shit falls on a guy who didn't do anything wrong, bc the world is set up to favor women and blacks now as retribution for crimes that were never really committed..."
Didn't do anything wrong? He's a twice divorcee at 52 who believes that a womans beauty does not belong to her alone. After raping his student he sees nothing wrong with
"true. should the nobel committee have been more responsible for supporting his politics -- that s africa is now an unsafe place for mr. white man?"
His politics? This assumes that Lurie is Coetzee. If you are going to look for Coetzee's politics a better place would be Elizabeth Costello or Youth. It would help ot know that Coetzee apposed apartheid and have some knowledge of his previous novels before damning him as a racist (Life & Times of Michael K and Waiting for the Barbarians are both allergories about South Africa).
"i'd have been happier w a book that noted that it's not a safe place for mr/ms white man, that's fair, but gave a more balanced view of why that might be. and also touched on how it's not exactly a safe place for mr/ms black man either. that's another grating thing... the black characters seemed so priviliged and unlikable."
Yeah, I picked up this book wanting a history of the Philippine Insurrection. I was most dissapointed.
"personally, i think coetzee is confused, he knows his politics, he knows what he is doing could be seen as sexist/racist, but goes through with it anyway bc 1. he agrees with lurie on some level and 2. he gets off on it. that's enough for me to see him as detestable."
Why must he agree with Lurie? If the protagonist was an ardent monetarist would you readily ascribe his views to Coetzee. Then you imply that Coetzee derives enjoyment from propping up Lurie's racist and sexist views. It is nigh on impossible for anyone to identify with Lurie and see themselves in a positive.
"well i think coetzee might have had his turn coming due to his other books. were his politics at the forefront in those?"
Yes, they were politcal and highly allegorical. I would suggest reading them.
snap. the empire strikes back--commonwealth of the british empire that is. just race-bating (kind of like "just kidding", but more sinister), but seriously i agree with steph's main thrust--coetzee is not at all identifying with lurie and neither has he invited the reader to do so. although i don't think coetzee has quite put lurie in the pillory for the reader to kick, lurie's flaws are laid bare and it is hard to imagine a reader who would hold him up as admirable. also, the bloggers' reading that lurie "moves toward a better life" is seriously flawed--lurie is crushed by his choices in the end. it is a book about disgrace, not redemption. the only flaw in steph's response is his suggestion that lurie's ingenue is black, this is never stated in the book nor strongly implied.
Thanks for the comments! Good points all around. A few responses:
1. Leaving aside Coetzee as a person or Coetzee-as-Lurie, I think it's fair to ask if this is a racist or sexist work. I still believe that it is, based on the unlikability/savagery of the blacks, and they way that the women are consistently violated and degraded in a way that serves the purpose of offering the opportunity for growth/enlightenment in the white male lead. To wish for sympathetic black characters, or female characters who aren't raped/degraded or portrayed as harpies isn't to wish for something irrelevant to the plot. These elements would have strengthened the book, not only by offering the reader more points of view but also simply by being realistic. We are often confronted by people who don't slip easily into our worldview; to develop Lurie in a world where everything serves to reflect on his declining privilege (and accompanying inability to cope)is a disservice to the reader and kind of a cop out.
2. It's possible to be sympathetic to Lurie simply because he is the central character, we experience the world through his eyes and want to root for him. If we do identify w him, to some degree, we have a novel about a whole generation of men lost in the changed climate of South Africa, watching their legacies be destroyed. If we don't, we have a novel about a jackass who suffers a lot at the hands of people not noticeably more sympathetic that he is. There's no poignancy and no relevance...
And, if it is just that, then Lurie doesn't get nearly the unambiguous comeuppance that he deserves. He loses a job he hates, a social life/position he apparently cares nothing for. He's burned but not BURNT, being ultimately disfigured only on his ear, and he takes satisfaction from the removal that the bandages/healing process give him from society. He makes real progress on his beloved operrata, and while it doesn't come to anything, he still receives the satisfaction of working on it. He absolves himself, as far as possible, to Melanie's family, and feels satisfied by that. He tries to protect Lucy, and is allowed the satisfaction of believing that it's her own stubborness that keeps her in danger, that he knows the better path. In short, he is not knocked around like a true scapegoat, it's not like this is a Thomas Hardy novel that we are reading.
In short, I simply cannot see it as a text in which the main character is either fully unsympathetic or fully punished. Which is fine, it's interesting, it's complex... but given the unambiguity of everyone else in the book (aggressor or victim, never both like Lurie), given that they seem to be merely plot devices for the story of this man, it's a racist work, and a sexist work. Any work that touches on themes of race and sex, yet gives so little attention to developing the perspective of women or people of color, to my mind, is a racist/sexist piece of writing. Including this one.
3. It honestly never occurred to me that Melanie might be black, but that's a very astute and interesting reading. It wld explain Lurie's interest in her name ("the dark one")... Interesting point.
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