Disgrace: J.M.Coetzee

This was such a potent book, it starts off distasteful enough, but then that last line in the book had me sobbing. The story centers on a professor, David, who develops a passion for one of his students. It is difficult to determine what happened, if he lured her in or if she too was interested in the older man. The affair ends spectacularly when the girl's boyfriend attacks David's property. Then her parents find out and David loses his job. For a break he decides to visit his daughter and write a book on his favorite author- Byron. Within the week he spends with his daughter they are attacked. Three natives, two men and a boy try to catch him on fire, rape David's daughter, steal everything valuable and after shooting their six dogs they steal the car. David is furious, but the daughter, Lucy, doesn't want anyone to know she was raped. David is certain the hired hand, who is also native, ordered the attack and was conveniently gone the day it happened. Later David and Lucy attend a party Petrus has to celebrate Lucy giving him some land and the boy attacker is there. He is part of Petrus' family and David then knows it was an elaborate plan to get Lucy to leave so he could have the land. David goes back home and realizes there is nothing there for him, his house was also broken into and all valuables taken, even the food, while he was gone. He calls Lucy to see how she is doing and she doesn't sound right so he goes back and finds she is pregnant from one of the attackers. David asks why she didn't get an abortion and she states that she can't go through that again. He finds out she had already had an abortion once before and he realizes he doesn't know his daughter at all. He is frustrated by how naive and trusting she is to these people she lives near and how they are taking advantage of her. David goes back to Petrus and asks what happens now that she is carrying a child that is his relation. Petrus says he will "marry" her, he already has two wives. He acts unfazed by David's anger. David tells Lucy what Petrus said, still indignant, but Lucy said she would take him up on the offer. She would give him her land as long as she could keep the house in return for her protection from the rapists. Later he finds the boy peeping through the window at Lucy and smacks him around, but Lucy comes to his rescue. The last scene is of David at the shelter where he volunteers; he had become friends with a maimed dog and admitted he hadn't felt such kinship with an animal before. Then he puts him down- the woman he works with says " I thought you would save him for another week, are you giving him up? He replies “yes, I am giving him up". That line speaks volumes, it is as though he has finally given up on his daughter whom he doesn't understand or agree with her decisions- she seems to be so persistent in doing the opposite of what her father wants to prove it is her life, that she has destroyed everything she loved. He also seems to be saying he is giving up, giving up on the Bryon book, giving up on life since he was spending money he didn't have and wasn't worried about the bills catching up.