JM Coetzee

[Jessica]

I read Disgrace, and thought it was excellent. Harrowing, but insightful about contemporary South Africa, among other things. I certainly never felt, reading it, that I was meant to feel stupid or that it was particularly obscure.

[Kate]

Dear posters,

Enough heated words. I have deleted the posts on this thread that I felt reflected this site as being inflammatory. If you want to criticize someone for not reading something, do it by email, not here. There are perfectly polite ways to state your feelings, e.g., "For me, it was worth reading to the end because I got x,y and z out of it."

I understand getting frustrated with people for not appreciating, or even given a chance to, books I love, and vice versa. Just please, please, while you are here, if you disagree do it politely.

[Gary]

>I think this means "we don't understand a word, so
>maybe he's smarter than we are, since we bought
>his book and he didn't pay us to do it."


What does this mean?

[Jessica]

That's why I was wondering about the basis for the speculation that people who admire Coetzee (who may or may not be "writerly") think he's a "genius" because they don't understand his writing. This struck me as having nothing to do with discussing Coetzee as a writer, but instead was about casting aspersions on the veracity and comprehension of readers who like him.

Again, I'll say that I found Disgrace to be a wrenching story about the deep, deep rifts in South African society, that may be impossible to ever set right, and the dysfunction that has been sowed by generations of apartheid. None of this was in a particularly difficult style of writing, and was quite compact.

[Ann M]

I found Disgrace to be unfocused and not the least bit compelling, which is odd, given the subject matter. In the hands of say, Doris Lessing, another South African, that story line would have gone nuclear. I'm not planning to read any more of his work.