After reading one third of Disgrace by J.M Coetzee I have a lot of thoughts and feelings about main character, David Lurie. His character is quite interesting but I also found myself quite disturbed at times.
He is a communications professor at Cape Town Technical University. David is a very bold individual who doesn’t seem to care what others think about him. He was also a very lonely man who turned to prostitutes as he enjoyed being with them. David begins with having sexual contact with Soraya who was a prostitute with Discreet Escorts. Soraya and David would spend 90 minutes of Thursday afternoons every week. To him, that was enough time to have physical contact with a money, as well as fulfil his sexual desires. I have always felt that when there is a major age gap between two individuals who are involved with each other there is a universal reaction of disgust, as it seems socially wrong. In most cases, it seems that when older man are attracted to younger women they are trying to locate their inner youth, or sometimes refusing to accept their age. However, I feel with David this is different. David simple enjoys indulging himself in woman, as he finds them incredible intriguing. For this reason, I do not like him as a character.
When Soraya leaves the escort company, he hires a detective to find all the information he could about her. To me, this is incredible inappropriate and creepy! I have also had a similar situation happen to me.. This portion of the book unfortunately painted an uncomfortable picture in my head as it brought back unwanted memories and I really felt for Soraya.
When he no longer has any contact with Soraya, he turns to one of his students for his intimacy needs. He first notices Melanie at the universities gardens where he invites her for dinner, wine and music in his home. If I was Melanie, this would be a huge warning sign. A professor who is in his 50s should not be asking his 20 something student to come over to his home for dinner. I think Melanie quickly realizes her choice was a mistake when he began his ways of seduction by quoting Shakespeare. However, he does not stop there. He ends up locating her address and phone number in the University records. At this point, I am not a very big fan of David.
Before, he seemed like a lonely, middle aged man who wanted to fulfil his sexual desires by getting in contact with prostitutes. However, when he began to have sexual desires for his student that made me feel very uncomfortable, especially when I am in a position to attend university next year.
Hannah Simpson - 4U English Blog 