He has long ceased to be surprised at the range of ignorance of his students. Post-Christian, posthistorical, postliterate, they might as well have been hatched from eggs yesterday. So he does not expect them to know about fallen angels or where Byron might have read of them. What he does expect is a round of goodnatured guesses which, with luck, he can guide toward the mark. But today he is met with silence, a dogged silence that organizes itself palpably around the stranger in their midst. They will not speak, they will not play his game, as long as a stranger is there to listen and judge and mock.A very powerful book centering on disgrace in the lives of a father and grown daughter. The story takes place in South Africa and confronts an amazing array of issues and emotions. The central figure is a male professor who must face his disgrace following an affair at his university. The theme of disgrace continues in the post-apartheid era when he involves himself with his daughter and an abused animal shelter. This is a gut-wrenching read at times, but shines when it illuminates what remains of human humility after suffering severe disgrace.
The author won the Booker prize for this novel and later received the Nobel prize for literature. I concur that he is a fabulous writer. His writing is both sparse and powerful. In simple, direct sentences he creates a complex illustration of humans suffering disgrace and coping with life as it moves forward. The book left me thinking about life at its bare essentials.
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