Letter from Murray Wesson:
In "The Trouble with JM Coetzee" [in the Hilary 2004 issue of the Oxonian Review] Gertrude Makhaya raises a number of important points about Disgrace, of which I would like to comment on two in particular.
The first is the possibility that David Lurie, the character through whose eyes Disgrace is narrated, is Coetzee, or that Coetzee is hiding behind Lurie to propagate distasteful views about South Africa. If one wants to find Coetzee in his own fiction, then the obvious place to look is not Disgrace, but Elizabeth Costello. Furthermore, Disgrace invites us to view Lurie critically. Throughout much of the novel he is presented as a selfish individual, who does not appreciate the harm that he does. Only gradually does he gain an imaginative insight into the suffering of others. Disgrace does not, in other words, invite us to endorse all of Lurie's views.
Secondly, Makhaya raises the concern that, in Disgrace, Coetzee is purposefully fuelling racist white fears about black savagery, most notably through his depiction of an attack upon Lurie and his daughter, Lucy, by three black men, during which Lucy is raped. We should recall, however, that, in the first part of the novel, Lurie rapes one his students, a young women of mixed-race. The black rapists might care little about the consequences of their actions, but neither does Lurie. Once again, this makes it difficult to argue that Coetzee is promoting the view that blacks are intrinsically savage, whereas whites are not.
That is not to say, however, that Disgrace is uncontroversial. Elizabeth Lowry has argued that Lurie's paternalistic relationships with women of mixed-race can be identified with British colonialism. By the end of the novel, however, a new patriarch has emerged in the form of Petrus, Lucy's black business partner, who appears to have facilitated her rape. In this way, Disgrace is pessimistic, for it suggests that, once patterns of violent disregard for individual life are established, they are unlikely to be broken by political transition. Makhaya is right to point us in the direction of this important discussion. But it should not be conducted on terms that elide Disgrace's complexity, or which accuse Coetzee of simple racism.
Response from Gertrude Makhaya:
I did not wish to accuse Coetzee of racism (simple or otherwise). Rather, I attempted to present an honest discussion on a particular reception of Disgrace in the context of the end of apartheid. I also mentioned the way in which Coetzee's reticence (to which he is entitled) combines with his identity in a way that has created uneasiness in a society still coming to terms with its abnormal past. Elizabeth Costello may see the writer as a dutiful secretary of the invisible, open to all voices, but in healing societies those who mess with old wounds invite some scrutiny.
In Disgrace, we witness the apparent failure of political change to result in a damaged society's peaceful transformation and reconciliation. We are presented with the ambiguous violation of a black (mixed-race) woman by a white man in a position of power; and later with the brutal rape of the man's daughter by newly free black men. Is this, in the words of the young man in Youth, force replied to with greater force? Indeed, Petrus does emerge as a new patriarch, more interested in getting his hands on 'white wealth' than reconciliation and true equality. He fits too well in the distorted picture of the new SA of high crime levels and land reform, one hostile to whites. The challenges facing the society are undeniable, as would be expected of a country in transition, but so are genuine efforts at community and mutual understanding. Neither a miracle nor a disgrace.
Errata
In the article The Trouble with JM Coetzee published in our Hilary Term issue, JM Coetzee’s novel Life and Times of Michael K is twice referred to as The Life and Times of Michael K. Also, Life and Times of Michael K was first published in 1983, not 1974, the date Coetzee published Dusklands. Many thanks to Patrick Denman Flanery for pointing out these mistakes.
