Essay: Cape Town Fringe: Manenberg Avenue is where It’s Happening

As we open the book and read the first pages, the word, or references to the word ‘sex’ is used and mentioned multiple times. Then we read the rest of the book and we see that it is (one of) the main theme(s) obviously. Disgrace is a book, whether or not chocked-full of sex. It is, at the other side, rare till unfindable that we encounter any passionate lovemaking, any sign of beautiful descriptions of a woman’s body before going to the ‘bedroom-scene’. No, nothing in this book according to the theme ‘sex’ is mutual or free-willing. We can see the theme ‘sex’ more as a dominant method, more likely ‘rape’. Lucy’s rape for example; she’s raped in a way of filling in a space. David Lurie’s pursuit for ‘his’ prostitute and his (sexual) relationship with Melanie, the 20 year-old student of David’s class ‘Romantic poets’. Yet, a rather gross passage in my opinion, the invitation of Bev towards David to make love. I think we all are agreed when saying that the most passages in the book of this theme are a disgrace (the title of the book is instantly well chosen by the author..)! In my opinion, Coetzee develops this theme from least gross to despicable. So is the first encounter of this theme the fact that David Lurie always goes to a prostitute on Thursday, she is called Soraya. This is fairly reasonable. I can’t imagine a 52 year-old man, who lives alone, not going to a prostitute when he has time. Described by a quote in the book: ‘For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well. On Thursday afternoons he drives to Green Point. Punctually at two p.m. he presses the buzzer at the entrance to Windsor Mansions, speaks his name, and enters. Waiting for him at the door of No. 113 is Soraya’ (Coetzee, 1999, chapter 1, paragraph 1). Then, it’s going worse. When Soraya and David cross faces on the street, she with her children, the prostitute leaves her apartment and all contact and agreements with David are over. He meets a 20 year-old student of his class, Melanie. He invites her for a drink, and they end up further than a hug, they get an affair. A 50 year-old and a 20 year-old… They sleep with each other, but she seems standing a rather bit more passive against that, like she does not want it (that’s rape by the way). Described with a quote from the book: ‘Not rape, not quite that, but undesired nevertheless, undesired to the core. As though she had decided to go slack, die within herself for the duration, like a rabbit when the jaws of the fox close on its neck. So that everything done to her might be done, as it were, far away’ (Coetzee, 1999, chapter 3, paragraph 67). This affair does not last long, she meets David on one day, saying that she can’t do the exam, she s together with her boyfriend that time. She unsubscribes herself from the university and David gets an official complaint. He also quits the school and goes to his sister’s farm in Salem. Then comes the next level of disgrace in the book. David and Lucy are working one day, when tree men encounter them. David knows something is wrong and rushes to the inside of the house. He gets knocked down and they set him on fire. He does manage to save himself, but the damage is rather big. At that point Lucy gets raped by the men. She wants to give a declaration, but does not say a thing about being raped, it’s like she wants to forget it.. Later, it seems that one of the rapers is a nephew of Petrus, the helping hand of Lucy. Eventually, for me the most gross passage, is that after euthanizing the dogs, Bev Shaw and David make love to each other (i find it gross, just for the fact that Bev gets described as a fat, untended, shabby lady. Who wants to sleep with that? But that is none of my business..). Described by a quote from the book: ‘Two blankets, one pink, one grey, smuggled from her home by a woman who in the last hour has probably bathed and powdered and anointed herself in readiness; who has, for all he knows, been powdering and anointing herself every Sunday, and storing blankets in the cabinet, just in case. Who thinks, because he comes from the big city, because there is scandal attached to his name, that he makes love to many women and expects to be made love to by every woman who crosses his path. […] Bev. Never did he dream he would sleep with a Bev.’ (Coetzee, 1999, chapter 17, paragraph 26 ‘till 27). They get an affair after this. This affair ends when David returns to Cape Town. He gets to hear that Lucy is pregnant, as result of the rape, and he is furious. She does want to keep the kid, together with Petrus. The two of them marry and see the marriage as a safe agreement, so nothing bad will happen to the kid or Lucy.