The Graces of Disgrace

This article explores aspects of what JM Coetzee might mean by ‘grace’ in his novel Disgrace (1999). It suggests that the primary definition of grace in the novel is the traditional one of ‘love,’ but more importantly, selfless love. As a result, the novel’s focus is on the close association between the physical and the spiritual, particularly in David Lurie’s ‘spiritual’ journey. At the foundation of this exploration lie the three writers about whom Lurie has written books as well as the bible and its associated ‘sacred history’ (heilsgeschichte). Boito the opera creator, Richard of St Victor the medieval mystic, and William Wordsworth, in their own different ways can be seen as influences on the definition of grace and love in the novel. The argument concludes by suggesting that Lurie comes to see that neither physical love, nor art, nor even the love of animals is an entirely adequate means of grace. Only the isolated, pared-down self, willing to take the Other into itself, might experience grace, but in Coetzee’s world, there is no certainty.