Encountering Disgrace: Reading and Teaching Coetzee's Novel Book

Well this was a wonderful introduction to a writer. Some days have passed since I finished reading this and I think now is the perfect time to write some words on the book. First, such a beautiful title, I know it might be unimportant to some, but I appreciated the name of this book especially the first part, the second part peaked my interest as well I'll admit.

Samuel R Delany is considered one of the best science fiction writers, has been published and writing since the 1950s so that's seven decades, a quite impressive feat and of course has won lots of awards and acclaim for his work. Introducing yourself to a writer via a memoir can be a risk I think, what happens if I hate the person or find them annoying and never read the books? It can also be cautionary and good if the person turns out to be a self-professed bigot/racist/sexist/transphobe/homophobe. This book however, was a great meeting point.

From New York city, Delany narrates of the city and his childhood. An intelligent, dyslexic (a condition that what wasn't commonly known then and the writer would only find out later in his adulthood), gifted and sociable child. Delany recounts his inventive worlds and people and the wonders of a rich imagination, his relations with his family and friends, school and later youth and Black and queer life in the fifties and early sixties.

One of the things I've learnt from this book is that very very few things are really new, and true to its promise in the title there's quite a number of passages filled with sex. So a warning for those that do not like reading explicitly sexual material.

It's always fascinating to me when I read books set in western countries prior Stonewall and during a time when there were few to none legal frameworks to protect queer individuals in these countries against violence and abuse driven by intolerance and hatred. I recognize the familiarity in the risk, uncertainty, vulnerability and exposure and it was incredible reading Delany tell of this world that existed prior to the great sweeping revolutionary change that was Stonewall and the setbacks they would encounter later. That isn't to say no violence or abuse exists today, but it was great reading that place and time very well written and described, as well as the way such a state shapes not only queer people but a society in general.

"Whether male, female, working or middle class, the first direct sense of political power comes from apprehension of massed bodies. That I'd felt it and was frightened by it means that others had felt it too. The myth said we, as isolated perverts, were only beings of desire, manifestations of the subject (yes, gone awry, turned from it's true object, but for all that, even more purely subjective)"

This book definitely informed, and put in words half formed thoughts in a voice that was intimate, almost fraternal, not condescending or attempting to be instructive that gave the reading experience a feeling of communion. Of course Delany also writes of his writing and the process and I was awed by his talent and the work he put, and this book covers a whole range of subjects and cannot be condensed, but what a wonderful gift it was.