updated 2mo ago
Disgrace: A Novel
She flicks through them impatiently, as though searching for something that is not there.
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
Now he is sure of it: he does not like this man, does not like his tricks.
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
He does not like women who make no effort to be attractive. It is a resistance he has had to Lucy’s friends before. Nothing to be proud of: a prejudice that has settled in his mind, settled down. His mind has become a refuge for old thoughts, idle, indigent, with nowhere else to go. He ought to chase them out, sweep the premises clean. But he does
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Why should a creature with the shadow of death upon it feel him flinch away as if its touch were abhorrent? So he lets them lick him, if they want to, just as Bev Shaw strokes them and kisses them if they will let her.
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
He saves the honour of corpses because there is no one else stupid enough to do it. That is what he is becoming: stupid, daft, wrongheaded.
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
head on one side,
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
A cool winter’s day, the sun already dipping over red hills dotted with sparse, bleached grass. Poor land, poor soil, he thinks. Exhausted. Good only for goats. Does Lucy really intend to spend her life here? He hopes it is only a phase.
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
A woman in love, wallowing in love; a cat on a roof, howling; complex proteins swirling in the blood, distending the sexual organs, making the palms sweat and voice thicken as the soul hurls its longings to the skies. That is what Soraya and the others were for: to suck the complex proteins out of his blood like snake-venom, leaving him clear-heade
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Wordsworth is writing about the limits of sense-perception. It is a theme we have touched on before. As the sense-organs reach the limit of their powers, their light begins to go out.
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee
But he is a father, that is his fate, and as a father grows older he turns more and more – it cannot be helped – toward his daughter. She becomes his second salvation, the bride of his youth reborn. No wonder, in fairy-stories, queens try to hound their daughters to their death!
from Disgrace: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee