JM Coetzee

[UpasnaK]

Hi,

Has anyone read disgrace? What do you guys think of it. Would love to hear some diverse opinions about it.

Also do you people know of any site where i can find good critica material on it to read?

[Eric Cioe]

Hello,

I picked up Coetzee's Waiting for the Barbarians a few weeks ago. I've always been at least a little interested in the guy because he taught at my university for a number of years, and left just before I got here.

I thought the book was ok, but I can see why he was picked as a Nobel Prize winner recently in that this book has a pretty big focus on human rights. To me, most of what was written was pretty good prose, if not exactly gorgeous, but when he went into his human rights shtick, the prose broke down a lot and became more like a manifesto.

Did anyone else leave this book with that stale taste in the mouth?

[sofia82]

It is a great manifesto of HUman Rights as you said, and moreover, a great manifesto of how the colonization emerged.
About the prose, it is really good, although i read the transaltion i got disappointed but when i read the original english text i got what is the significant feature of this book. And i write my MA thesis on this book, too.

[KyleBennett]

I picked up Disgrace from a charity shop, and it took me no longer than two sittings to read it! It's such an interesting and enthralling book. Dark and meaningful to it's core.

It's a short book, almost a novella?, but there are a mutlitude of themes. From the onset the discussion starts with old age, a massive topic on its own, in particular the problem of not being desired because of old age, but still having a sexual drive.

From this the discussion then leads on to prostitution, the role of the woman, teaching, south Africa, homosexuality, race, the struggle of life, death, rape...

A myriad of themes but all are tacitly and concisely dealt with, leaving the reader with an abundant of angles to read from, consequently meaning that you could read the book more than twice.

Coetzee is also with Disgrace exercising his masterly storytelling skills. I couldn't put the book down, so many unanswered questions, so much intrigue, so much to lose yourself with within the story.

There are much more critical sides of this work...

Let's discuss!

[wessexgirl]

Keep a look out, as Disgrace is one of the shortlisted Best of the Booker novels, and I think the winner is announced tomorrow, (10th July). I haven't read it, I've only skimmed through it when putting it on display. It looks interesting, and judging from general response, I think it may surprise us and win. Then again though, Midnight's Children won the 25th anniversary prize, and is probably favourite to take the 40th anniversary award too.

[Pecksie]

I enjoyed it a lot. In fact, I'd say that Coetzee is one of the few well-deserved Nobel Prizes in Literature of the last few years, and would be so even if he had written Disgrace and Age of Iron only. ;)

Disgrace is a taut, moving, entirely believable novel. The part that takes place on the farm was just so masterful...

[fightstarved]

Pronounced 'kut-SEE-uh', believe it or not.

I grabbed a collection of his essays from the library last month for no reason other than I was looking for some Faulkner letters and the collection came up in a related search (the collection happens to contain an essay about Faulkner and his biographers). I've had a few of his books on my disgustingly large to-be-read list for a while, but the essays have left such a positive impression that I'm likely going to be taking something of his out from the library when I'm finished with my current fare.

I think I'm going to start with Disgrace, but I made this thread for recommendations of his fiction as well as to get a consensus on his writing.

Discuss JM Coetzee.