Recommended Reads: Disgrace

Today's Recommended Read comes from our PR and Marketing Administrator Jessica Reeves, who has been exploring male desire in J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace.

Disgrace is about a university lecturer who is having or perhaps has always been having a mid-life crisis, never able to commit or indeed seem able to mature mentally and accept his advancing years with any dignity. The story covers David’s time spent with a prostitute, his satisfaction with one session per week with this women with no need on his part for anything more intimate.

This is ruined by a chance encounter on a regular shopping trip and David decides to move his attentions over to a student of his; this in turn leads to him resigning from the university and moving in with his daughter who lives in a small-town, rural community which initially he despises. I am really enjoying this book, it’s very charming in its own way although really quite crude at times. I can’t wait to read on and understand the character of David a little more!

J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace, Vintage (2000).