Disgrace

Courtesy of Netflix last week, we watched Disgrace. This is the cinematic adoption of J.M. Coetzee's book by the same name which I read more than a year ago.

It's a harsh read. I think that sums it up. The reader - this reader - felt compelled to endure through to the end just out of curiosity. There was little ground to hope for deliverance or even consolation. The fact that the quality of Coetzee's writing is without parallel was sufficient motivation.

I rented the DVD out of a similar curiosity: how could a novel, however well-written, which depicts the inexorable downward slide of a man into loss and powerlessness be possibly converted into a cinematic presentation? Without comprising the integrity of the book? I mean, it's far, far easier to put aside a book for a day, or week, or longer than it is to walk out of a movie theater; the latter exit is a permanent rejection. A book you presumably own and can reopen when your mood is more favorable.

How could such a film be financed? How could a screen play which faithfully conformed to the book possibly be cinematic? The answer is, nothing much was changed other than flipping the sequence of the last two scenes to provide sort of a up-beat finale. It is still not a feel-good date movie.

What is Disgrace about? It is about a 50-year old man's boredom with the monotony of his life; how that monotony leads to his shameful self-absorbed behavior; how he accepts his shame unquestioningly and without regard to consequences; how the consequences of accepting that shame lead him downward to an inevitable closure of self-nullification.

No suicides occur. Just bleak endurance which promises only to lead to an annihilation of self.

As a novel, its basic technique is style indirect libre or "third-person attached". That means the character of disgraced academic David Lurie is not telling his own story, as such, but is the focal consciousness of the narrative. His thoughts inflect our responses to the action, whereas the tension between his internal life and the implied viewpoint of the author give it much of its crackle as narrative.
Professor Lurie, played by John Malvovich in the movie, has been confronted for seducing one of his students, a 20-year old Ms Isaacs. He was outed by the student's jilted boyfriend. Lurie's attitude interests me. Coetzee, as narrator, describes that attitude as Lurie walks into his hearing a week later:

He does not feel nervous, On the contrary, he feels quite sure of himself. His heart beats evenly, he has slept well. Vanity, he thinks, the dangerous vanity of the gambler; vanity and self-righteousness. He is going into this in the wrong spirit. But he does not care.

He does not challenge the composition of the hearing panel when asked:

I have no challenge in a legal sense...I have reservations of a philosophical kind, but I suppose they are out of bounds .... I have no fear of the committee. I have no fear of the observer.

After he is presented with the two charges, Lurie abruptly responds:

That is the sum of it? Those are the charges .... I am sure the members of this committee have better things to do with their time than to rehash a story over which there will be no dispute. I plead guilty to both charges. Pass sentence, and let us get on with our lives ....

The committee is uneasy with this statement of non-engagement, but Lurie persists:

I don't need representation. I can represent myself perfectly well. Do I understand that, despite the plea I have entered, we must continue with the hearing?

I have stated my position. I am guilty.

Guilty of what?

Guilty of what I have been charged with .... of everything Ms Isaacs avers .....

I do not need to read Ms Isaacs's statement. I accept it. I know of no reason why Ms Isaacs would lie.

... No. There are more important things in life than being prudent.

He refuses counselling:

No, I have not sought counselling nor do I intend to seek it. I am a grown man. I am not receptive to being counselled. I am beyond the reach of counselling ... I have made my plea. Is there any reason why this debate should go on?

After the hearing committee deliberates in private, it reconvenes as a panel. Various members register objections to Lurie's "fundamentally evasive" responses: he "says he accepts the charges. Yet when we try to pin him down on what he actually accepts, all we get is subtle mockery...that suggests that he accepts the charges only in name. In a case with overtones like this one, the wider community is entitled" to ensure Lurie is "crystal clear on what" he "is being censured for ..... The question is whether Professor Lurie is crystal clear in his mind."

Exactly. You have expressed exactly what I wanted to say. What goes on in my mind is my business, not yours. Frankly, what you want from me is not a response but a confession. Well I make no confession. I put forward a plea, as is my right. Guilty as charged. That is my plea. That is as far as I am prepared to go.

Threatened with the stiffest and most punitive sanctions available to the committee, Lurie responds,

Why? What do I need to reflect on?

... Then what do you advise me to do? Remove the 'subtle mockery' from my tone? Shed tears of contrition? Will that be enough to save me?

.... Why? Why is it so important that I subscribe to a statement?

 .... You mean, will I humble myself and ask for clemency?

An admission that you were wrong.

I have admitted that. Freely. I am guilty of the charges brought against me.

There is a difference between pleading guilty to a charge and admitting that you were wrong and you know that.

And will that satisfy you: an admission that I was wrong?
..... I have said the words for you, now you want more, you want me to demonstrate their sincerity. That is preposterous. That is beyond the scope of the law. I have had enough. Let us go back to playing it by the book. I plead guilty. That is as far as I am prepared to go.

What more can Lurie say? He knew when he was conducting himself as he did with the student, Isaacs, that he was acting in a self-destructive manner. He did what he did. He accepts whatever consequences come his way. He wants to get on with the next part of his life. He was a bored academician. He could have resigned his position without doing the student. That would have been more productive. But he has committed no crime with this 20-year old; just infringed upon professional ethics. He loses his pension, but not his person. He is not going to accept shame from his peers. Coetzee will not allow Lurie to be debased in front of his peers. But he will force his readers to witness the Lurie's progressive self-abasement for the remainder of the book.

Why am I so attached to this fictional David Lurie character?