So good it hurts.

I would like to say I loved this book, but that would be wrong. It is a disturbing and compelling tale of two rapes. The lead character is unlikeable, this may be a bleak story but I couldn't put it down.

loved it from beginning to end.. I really like his books.

How could I even begin to provide a sypnosis for this novel, it is about everything, its about life. Always making the "must read before you die" lists, now i know it is with perfectly good reason for it is beautiful and wholly poignant.

Even if you object to the somewhat, erm, lurid (sorry)figure of David Lurie, the lecturer who leches, you cannot help but be seduced by Coetzee's exquisite prose. This is the tale of a man 'punished' for his actions and his daughter 'punished', it would seem, purely for being a single white female in South Africa.