This is a bleak, pessimistic, spare book about the new South
Africa, winner of the 1999 Booker Prize. In a departure from his
usual more allegorical style, Coetzee tells with searing realism
the story of the disgrace of a university professor from Cape Town,
David Lurie, and his subsequent wanderings in search of some sort
of resolution. Lurie has an affair with a student; the student is
impressionable, but far from infatuated with him. Her boyfriend
intervenes and a complaint of sexual harassment is made against
him. He resigns without offering any sort of defence. Coetzee
mounts a searing attack on the kind of political correctness
pervasive in a society which cannot control even the simplest
manifestations of crime, including rape and armed robbery. When
Lurie goes to live with his somewhat hippy daughter in a country
district, the already dark story becomes darker still. He helps at
an animal sanctuary, which becomes a procession of death; virtually
all the animals are put down. Here Coetzee is evoking the prospect
of a holocaust; it is disturbing. But Lurie's impressions of his
daughter's black neighbour and occasional worker, a man who clearly
has designs on her property, are more disturbing still. They are
shot through with ambivalence. While this man is able to offer help
and stability, Lurie also sees him as the face of the new
realities. His daughter must either submit to these or leave. Armed
robbers arrive at the property; they set Lurie alight and rape his
daughter. His daughter's reaction, to Laurie's horror, is a sort of
acceptance. This is Coetzee's point: the whites in South Africa are
going to have to accept new realities or leave the country. These
realities include the debasement of language and the acceptance of
warlordism and naked power. Lurie is an expert on the Romantic
poets and his aspect of the new South Africa, the coarsening of
learning, worries him. His fears are compounded when his daughter
elects to have the child which is the product of the rape. All in
all this is a disturbing book; deeply pessimistic about the
prospects of the new South Africa and disillusioned by the
over-simplifications that have replaced the previous barbarities.
But as with all Coetzee's works, it is beautifully written and
utterly distinctive. Review by JUSTIN CARTWRIGHT Editor's note:
Justin Cartwright is the author of Leading the Cheers, which won
the 1998 Whitbread Novel Award. (Kirkus UK)
After years teaching Romantic poetry at the University of Cape Town, David Lurie, middle-aged and twice divorced has an impulsive affair with a student. The affair sours; he is denounced and summoned before a committee of inquiry. Willing to admit his guilt, but refusing to yield to pressure to repent publicly, he resigns and retreats to daughter Lucy’s isolated smallholding.
For a time, his daughter’s influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power in the country is shifting. He and Lucy become victims of a savage and disturbing attack which brings into relief all the faultlines in their relationship.
General
Is the information for this product incomplete, wrong or inappropriate?
Let us know about it.
Does this product have an incorrect or missing image?
Send us a new image.
Is this product missing categories?
Add more categories.
Review This Product
No reviews yet - be the first to create one!
Welcome to Loot.co.za!
Sign in / Register |Wishlists & Gift Vouchers |Help | Advanced search
