One fine morning I was going through the list of books in -"1001 books you must read before you die" by Peter Boxall and Peter Ackroyd. The one author whose titles were frequent in the list is J.M.Coetzee ,the booker-prize winning author from South Africa. In the library later, I searched for his books and settled for the least voluminous of all his novels available....'Disgrace'. 'Disgrace' tells the story of a Professor of communications in a South-African university and his difficulties in conveying himself to the world around...the story in the later part smoothly transcends to another aspect of his relationship with his daughter and the limitations the relationship confronts due to difference of styles and choices of time and people..
The most interesting fact about the book is it's open-endedness....the main characters of the story are not obligated in a way or the other to justify their choices, actions, mistakes or their plans for the coming days. Hopes and doubts co-exist here like any normal life.....the book doesn't hold any sort of idealism which makes it more likely to relate to..the change of life, or life-style for that matter.. shows the adaptibility of men in contemporary world.....the novel also is written with a lyricism of its own. This narration is dark in some ways...strangely positive in others.
The novel has a short-story kind of ending,too.....
I haven't yet read the book, will try it. Thanks!
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