Of Bryon, Euthanasia and Katy. Review on Disgrace - J M Coetzee

This book I read has won the booker prize. When I started reading it I thought what the hell did the judges see in this book! when I finished reading it,i knew wat they saw. So simple and elegantly written with romantic poetry adding colour to the already colourful potrayal of Prof. David and his daughter, Lucy.

Now for the story: Prof David teaches romantic poetry at the Cape Town University. Apart from wordsworth and bryon, he has another side to his life:his love of women. Some times, he doubts whether he is a womanizer himself!a sort of casanova during his youth and still with some magic left, he is able to woo girls. You are right, girls. And thats what lands him in trouble. His ego does not allow him to confess his guilt and he finds himself thrown out of the university. Then he goes to his daughter, lucy. She owns a piece of land somewhere in southafrica and he tries to move in with her.he finds it tough to adjust to her lifestyle but adjusts himself to the surroundings.

But fate has other plans. His daughter is raped by three natives and david is also injured. And his already shattered life is torn to pieces. He understands how fate has hit him back with something from which he learns to give up his ego and is ready to make compromises in his life and he calmly accepts the fact that it was high time he left his daughter to be alone and lead her own life and not push her into whatever he wants her to do. He also learns that u cannot judge a book by its cover and then life moves on......

What struck me in this book was its simple narration. Its really superb. And the way Coetzee has woven his characters, hats off to you! he doesnt go into details about each and every scene instead keeps us informed of whatever is required.also towards the end, the overlapping of david's real life and his proposed opera is also very good.

Sometimes the author loses his track (lucy acceptin her neighbour's proposal as an agreement and david 's insistence of knowing what the three guys did to lucy). This could have been avoided. On the whole, a beautiful novel which makes us realise that there is a limit to our involvement in other's life and kids do not remain as kids ever.