Disgrace and Racism

I don't believe Coetzee's novel is truly racist. I think that some people are just looking too deep into it to purposely find racism in the novel. Of course there is going to be themes of race involved since the story takes place in a post apartheid South Africa, but it doesn't necessarily mean that the author is racist. I think the author and the work of fiction the author creates is separated. An author can write from a racist point of view to prove and point and not necessarily be racist himself. In Disgrace I don't believe Coetzee means to specifically means to be racist in his writing. I think he purposely makes the narrator to have an ambiguous view point so the readers themselves apply whatever viewpoint they want from it. I don't truly believe the character David Lurie purposely means to be racist, if anything the author is just trying to project the time period's attitudes in a post apartheid nation. If David Lurie was truly racist I think he would describe the characters of Soraya and Melanie different. I don't believe in any way he has racist attitudes towards them, if anything it's more of a predatory attitude towards women and disregard for law. In the article, Nadine Gordiner criticises the novel by stating “In the novel ‘Disgrace’ there is not one black person who is a real human being,”. I don't agree with this comment because Nadine Gordiner is not considering the time and place of the novel and does not understand what Coetzee is trying to project with the character of David Lurie. I don't believe that Lurie or the narrator describe African Americans as not being real human beings. I think the description of the African American characters is based on the ignorance and strange character of Lurie.