"For a man of his age, fifty-two, divorced, he has, to his mind, solved the problem of sex rather well," opens Coetzee's slim, coolly-narrated novel of a middle-aged, divorced professor at a South Africa university named David Lurie who has, in fact, not solved the problem of sex very well at all. Regular appointments with a prostitute eventually don't suffice to quell his fears of aging, and so he seduces a young student in his class named Melanie, not even realizing how close he comes to destroying the girl. When the affair comes out and David refuses to apologize, he's fired.
From there what has been a claustrophobic, evenly-paced story of academic sterility expands messily outwards...
(Read the rest of the review at my blog)
Kristen, I read your full review and it's amazing! This sounds like an interesting, if uncomfortable book.
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