#27: Disgrace by J.M. Coetzee

While it is by no stretch of the imagination a light summer read, Disgrace flew by rather quickly. This is the first novel I’ve read by Coetzee and had no expectations going in. What I received was a book full of small, yet incredibly poignant words that seemed to embed themselves between the eyeballs. The story takes pace in South Africa, a country of which I am quite unfamiliar, but Coetzee uses his efficient writing style to make it seem like a place not so far away. As for everything else in the book, the narrative is both heartbreaking and thoughtful. Unsettling would be another way to put it. And after the whole thing was through, all I could think was “well, that’s that”.

Side note: This review has taken me three days and two drafts to write. I’ve thought about the book a lot since I finished it on Friday, which I’m sure is common among its readers. I just hope I took from it all that I could.