Ever since our last blog assignment, we have been thoroughly analyzing the book, Disgrace by John Maxwell Coetzee. Disgrace is a novel about the events of a South African Professor, David Lurie who committed rather inappropriate and unethical sexual deeds that brought disgust to my eyes as I was reading through the story. The setting of the novel takes place in post-apartheid South Africa.

Throughout this novel, we are offered the chance to hop inside the mind of David Lurie who to others, may seem rather abnormal and inhumane to the social norm, as well as his perspective and theory of communications, which would also aid us in discussing, in this blog, the concept of Truth and Reconciliation (as known as TRC) in the book. Truth and Reconciliation was a concept that Dr. Sean McAlister consistently referred back to when analyzing the book Disgrace with the ASTU G02 class. It is a unique concept that most students would not normally look into. With the help of Coetzee, we were able to insert ourselves into the unusual mind of David Lurie and uncover his perspective on Truth and Reconciliation through his lens. All analyzing would be through the support of my fellow classmates’ blogs, as well as my own view on said concepts.

One of the many significant events that will be able to help us discover his view of TRC is when David Lurie was in court on trial for his crime. When David pleaded guilty to everything Melanie, who was a student of his who he allegedly raped, claimed without even reading her statement, everyone was thrown off guard and confused about the decision David made. In Amanda’s blog, she stated that the lack of emotions and unapologetic actions reflected an insincere “truth” that was revealed, made many people in the court questioned the truthfulness of David’s words. In both Venus’ and Amanda’s blog, they stated that David’s confession in this chapter is vital with the relations of Truth and Reconciliation as it certainly had shown the truth of the event, yet contradicting the ideas of reconciliation, showing no feeling of remorse towards the deed, making it appear unjust even though David pleaded guilty. It is elucidated throughout this chapter that, although the truth had come out, there was a lack of cohesion as many characters did not entirely agree and favour David’s response to the whole trial, and that nothing was really healed or justified with the truth out. The idea of “truth” is also questioned by both Azumi and Venus in their blogs, as there are multiple perspectives and various situations of “truth” that indicates that it is subjective and there is no stable perspective of truth. In Venus’ blog, she stated that in modern society, the truth is distorted and manipulated by controlling images and stereotypes, in which I am in agreement with. In fact, manipulative media information has been around notably longer than modern society, as propaganda from the government was used often during desperate times. In Persepolis, which was a book we read in the first term, and Maus, which was a graphic novel, the concept of propaganda played a crucial role in affecting the minds of the population. We also had a view of how skewed and not necessarily truthful propaganda can truly affect the perspectives of the majority in the book we read in the first term, The Reluctant Fundamentalist a.k.a TRF (not TRC!!), where the book allowed us to envision the perspective of a Pakistani-American businessman named Changez and the difficulties he faced after the 9/11 incident. Another effect of lopsided media is that it creates a (mostly negative) stigmatization and stereotype of certain cultures and harming their reputation.

Ultimately, Disgrace is a book that I believe is worth reading, as it gives you quite a different perspective on an unusual, suppressed opinion and thought processes of a communications professor, but do be aware, as the detailed novel may contain sensitive topics to certain individuals. I have only briefly described parts of my classmates’ blogs. I strongly suggest you to read more of ASTU G02’s own personal blogs, to absorb a better understanding of their thoughts and opinions with the novel.