Disgrace

I picked this book out of a huge pile I ordered from the library. It won the Booker Prize in 1999, which was the same prize "Possession: A Romance," by A.S. Byatt, won earlier, which piqued my interest. The plot sounded promising- an aging college professor in South Africa becomes involved with one of his students and, through his refusal to defend himself properly (out of a sense of pride), David is discharged from his post in disgrace.

He then goes out into the country to stay with his lesbian daughter Lucy where she is trying to make a life for herself on a farm. It is a dangerous prospect, being a woman, alone, in this environment. Her neighbor, Petrus, claims the land beside her and they work Lucy's plot together. David, our professor, volunteers to help Bev, Lucy's friend, in a make-shift animal hospital, which is a place people bring their animals at the end- whether sick or simply unwanted, to be humanely ushered onto the next life. In this post-apartheid environment, there is still much resentment and anger to be satiated. In a robbery of her home, Lucy is violated horrifically while her father is helpless to save her. In the aftermath, he struggles to understand Lucy's decision to stay in this unsafe environment. She decides to pay whatever tax she must to stay in this place that she feels she belongs.

So, how did I like it? Well, honestly, I felt a bit underwhelmed, though it touched on many topics of importance and had valuable things to say. It was an easy read, with language and a cadence in a simplistic flow that made the pages turn. There were moments of poignancy, but so much in this book felt muted. It grazed on topics, but did not delve into the depth that they seemed to warrant. Is it because the English sensibility is so much more reserved than the American one? Is it because the story is told by a character of little depth himself, which caused the story to feel flatter than it might if told from another character's perspective?

The thread that had the biggest impact on me was the vulnerability of women and their dependence on men, men that can protect them or harm them, which ran throughout the book. Often we are desperate to be "equal" and while I do believe we have the same WORTH as men, that does not mean we are the same or that the balance of power is even. We see the imbalance when the professor presses himself onto a young student (not physical force, but an abuse of his position as a teacher), when Lucy is violated, and when she accepts the protection of her neighbor as a necessity (though this is her decision, to accept it, so, in some ways, she claims her power in that at least). The physical strength men possess and the natural violence that simmers in some, put our Lucy in her place and it hurts. The powerlessness hurts.

There were other aspects of this book that had meaning and I do consider it to have merit, but would I recommend it? Probably not. There are so many books, limited time, and I don't think this one will sit with me beyond the first pages of my next book.