9. Disgrace Coetzee

This was actually the last book that was added to my list as a recommendation from my boss. I am very grateful she suggested it - and I'm not just sucking up here! So far this is probably one of the best books I have read not just in the challenge but ever.

The blurb on the back of the book talks a lot about how this demonstrates the black/white dilemma that has shaped South Africa over the last thirty years, but to me I'm not sure that is really what this book is about. Yes, there is the shift in power between black and white and how the power shifts through violence and intimidation, but to me the power of this book is a much simpler concept. At what point do children become equal to their parents?

There is a point in everyone's lives when the realisation suddenly dawns on you that your parents aren't omnipotent, which is usually during your early teens. But at what point does it become clear that your parents are also human? In Disgrace Coetzee presents this idea of what it means to be human and further what it means to be in a parent-child relationship with such sad brilliance.

The role of the father here is key and he strikes me as a someone who is failing to come to terms with a world that is progressing so much faster than he is willing. His old-school belligerence lands him in trouble at work, leading him to seek solace in his daughters arms, where even there he struggles with what life has become.

To me the most intriguing part of the novel is in the way in which Coetzee develops this relationship between the father and the daughter. This is where I see the issue of "power" being examined, rather than in terms of purely colour. The fathers failed attempts to get his daughter to follow his advice is a dramatic change in the power balance and illustrates that part in our life whereby the sudden realisation that while our parents are our parents they are also human and our equals

This is definitely, definitely one to read.