This is a must read Thanks to Europa Editions for giving me the privilege of being an early reader in exchange for an honest review Kindle Edition I was never that woman fiction Lucy I was never her I don t believe any woman is her She is the product of male fantasy The angelic victim who accepts her rape as a natural part of the order of things Who takes the punishment for colonialism upon her own body and happily bears the child that results from it Who chooses to live amid her assailants and share her life with them If the message of atonement andeconciliation had been framed in any other way.
Lucy Lurie is deeply sunk in PTSD following a gang rape at her father s farmhouse in the Western Cape She becomes obsessed with the author John Coetzee who has made a name for himself by writing Disgrace a celebrated novel that revolves around the attack on her Lucy lives the life of a celibate hermit making periodic forays into the outside world in her attempts to find and confront Coetzee The Lucy of Coetzee s fictional imaginings is a passive peaceful creature almost entirely lacking in agency She is the lacuna in Coetzee s novel the missing piece of the puzzle Lucy Lurie is no one s lacuna Her attempts to claw back her life her voice and her agency may be messy and misguided but she won t be silenced Her rape is not a metaphor This is her story Lacuna Author Fiona SnyckersThe concept behind Fiona Snyckers s award winning Lacuna s intriguing a feminist perspective on J M Coetzee s controversial Disgrace Snyckers takes Coetzee s character Lucy Lurie daughter of protagonist David and victim of gang rape and turns her into Lacuna s narrator It s an approach that recalls similar retellings like Jean Rhys s Wide Sargasso Sea Snyckers response to Disgrace rests on a particular interpretation of Lucy s role in the narrative one in which her rape operates almost entirely as metaphor Lacuna s Lucy s also been raped but her experience s appropriated by an imagined version of Coetzee Coetzee produces a hugely successful book that makes Lucy both notorious and desperate for revenge Snyckers s topic s clearly important especially in the context of South Africa frequently labelled rape capital of the world A number of Snyckers s choices worked well to highlight difficulties faced by women like Lucy for instance Lucy s portrayal as unlikeable and unreliable an indirect comment on how often female rape victims are pressured to conform to gendered stereotypes to be taken seriously But for me Snyckers s over ambitious novel raised some puzzling questions Coetzee s Lucy s a lesbian setting up a possible link between her ordeal and corrective rape another major problem in South Africa So why is Snyckers s Lucy firmly heterosexual Snyckers positions Lucy as the lacuna or gap in Coetzee s text sidestepping another of Coetzee s characters David s student Melanie Again why Melanie s a far marginalised figure than Lucy Melanie s a woman of colour the dark to Lucy s light and her date rape by David deliberately mirrors Lucy s assault In Disgrace these parallel occurrences of sexual violence seem crucial they resist readings that fall back on racist assumptions about Black men attacking white women and bring into play issues around power and colonialism spaces in which white men like David have routinely assumed women of colour are there for the taking Disgrace s a very slippery text still an object of debate over twenty years post publication Are the female victims of trauma who recur in Coetzee s novels voiceless Or have they been silenced Is Coetzee really usingape as metaphor or is he critiquing gender inequality and the centrality of sexual violence in South African society Lacuna appears to gloss over Disgrace s complexities and ambiguities It attempts to address weighty issues around abuse of power and white privilege but I didn t feel it dealt with them in any real depth In addition I was uncomfortable with the understanding of feminism here predominantly white and overwhelmingly heterosexual. Lacuna wallaceana Thanks to Edelweiss and publisher Europa Editions for an arc Kindle Edition If you could autofiction fiction and write it with an unreliable narrator then Fiona Snyckers LACUNA could fit neatly into that genre This story supposes that Booker winner J. Lacunate M Coetzee wrote DISGRACE as a factually flawed true story The rape victim Lucy Lurie is the lacuna the silenced voice of Coetzee s prize winning narrative In response LACUNA is Lucy Lurie s feminist retelling of her rape and how she deals with her subsequent trauma Lucy s personal anger toward and campaign against Coetzee figures prominently in her story she identifies LACUNA as her intertextual conversation with Coetzee s original work He turned my rape into a spectacle and me into a public figure Lucy attests that her rape was an ordeal that she suffered alone and her post trauma is not the way that he portrayed it as a metaphor for post apartheid South Africa If John Coetzee s story is fountain pen on vellum mine is menstrual blood on toilet paper You don t have to be a close reader to note that Lucy s references to DISGRACE are often counterfactual She even altered by three the number of men who raped her LACUNA is supposed to be told two years after Coetzee s1999 DISGRACE but Lucy s retelling includes social media and other implications of contemporary life In DISGRACE Lucy had the baby but in LACUNA she terminated the pregnancy By doing this Lucy reinforces that her rape was a vicious attack upon her body not an allegory You can t declare the country free and ready to move on from apartheid on the back of a woman who has been raped Your analogy itself is oppressive Moreover Lucy is reclaiming her agency by narrating LACUNA in her own furious voice by turns ironic angry passionate removed and witty Even Coetzee s biographical information is feigned in LACUNA He was already a celebrated author of many books prior to DISGRACE and had accumulated a feast of literary prizes But Lucy redefines his life the way she felt he had done to hers via DISGRACE She describes him as a previously unpublished writer attempting for years to complete an unfinished book Then when her rape became widespread news he appropriated it as a convenient plot device to finish his manuscript He published DISGRACE on the back of her tragedy and became a breakthrough success Lucy is obsessed with finding Coetzee and confronting him personally even as she learns that he absconded to Australia. Lacuna wallaceana There are multiple layers to this intertextual dialogue between DISGRACE and LACUNA But here in Snyckers novel Lucy proclaims I am nobody s lacuna and finally becomes the main character in her story placing Coetzee as the minor one the patriarch who is complicit in the abuse of women By the end I had to remind myself that Coetzee is of course no villain DISGRACE is entirely fictional and if not for Lucy s opposing story the reader would not have to pause and remember that Fiona Snyckers wrote one heck of an audacious complex feminist novel I can t wait to see what she will do next Kindle Edition It would be hard to love this novel than I did It captivated me for the way it plays off of Coetzee s Disgrace and for the way it sometimes reflects sometimesefutes that novel s core premises. Lacunaria There is just one other book I m aware of in this genre of literary criticism presented as a novel The Meursault Investigation a novel by Kamel Daoud which is a critique as fiction of Camus s The Stranger I wish there were I feel as if I ve spent time with an extraordinary writer who also loves reading and who understands how literary language works It made my brain light up in entirely new ways Marvelously entertaining for all you nerdy people out there like me You know who you are. Lacunal Disgrace by Coetzee was a mighty interesting read to me primarily for its flaws Now whether these flaws are the author Coetzee s fault or the fault of the protagonist is an interesting question It s an interesting question when reading Lacuna too As in the source novel the protagonist here has some unpleasant views and she is dead wrong about so many things including what she says about the novel Disgrace and what she says about the author Coetzee the Coetzee in the novel doesn t correspond with theeal author in some significant ways. Young adult launching resources The rape scene in Disgrace outraged me for a completely out of the box reason it required me to believe that the protagonist was locked inside of a bathroom and therefore powerless to help his daughter when she is gang raped on the other side of the door Huh Since when do bathrooms lock on the outside This critical flaw at the center of the most critical scene of the novel left me wondering about just what is and isn teal in the entire novel of Disgrace. Lacunary and it left me than ready to read Lacuna a novel about an equally flawed protagonist who also gets so many things wrong Updating to include a link to Steven G Kellman s masterful meticulous review of Lacuna for the LA Review of Books Unreliable Witness On Fiona Snyckers s Lacuna Kellman s review delves deep into the layers of obfuscations and misrepresentations in this novel One of the things I loved most about it was trying to find the resting point for its many diversions either from the truth of Coetzee s novel or the truth of Coetzee s life both of which are deliberately playfully altered in Snyckers s novel Kindle Edition Over 20 years ago Iead J. Lacuna Chick lita M Coetzee s masterwork Disgrace which earned him the Nobel Prize I Literature The book set in post apartheid South Africa is incantatory and unflinching Its most memorable scene is the brutal gang rape by black men of Lucy Lurie a white woman The rape is a metaphor of the old order and a necessary action for the new order to begin black men and a white woman who work side by side to farm the land together In effect Lucy takes upon her body the sins of apartheid like some dungaree wearing lamb of God I begin my review with a look back to J. Lacunaria M Coetzee because It s importance to know the basics to fully appreciate the inventiveness and audacity of Fiona Synckers In this mustead book she brings Lucy Lurie to life and provides her with a voice that desperately wants to assert its own agency and story Lucy in this novel is a fiction of a fiction She is the fictional junior colleague of J. Book lacuna M Coetzee who was a professor first who shares her name with the fictional Lucy Lurie of Disgrace She is for all intents and purposes the lacuna the missing piece of the novel She is also one of the most unreliable narrators of all time trying out various stories and then discarding them for other presumably truer stories. Acurazine It is the questions that the fictional Lucy Lurie asks that are the most fascinating Should a brutal rape ever be a metaphorical device that leads to redemption Isn t patriarchy as dangerous in its own way as racism especially when the patriarchy enables powerful white males to diminish the horror of rape even if the intentions on doing so seem noble How do we navigate a world of privilege where those of us with means get therapy and those of us without get silenced For that matter how do we navigate law and social media that twist words and shape opinions Most of all how do we reach a point of self care when we stand up and say I will not be violated or appropriated I will tell my own truth Lacuna is a thought provoking novel that doesn t hold back and whichaises vital questions about the lacuna the gaps in our society In addition to Disgrace it also has wisps of Moby Dick as Ahab goes in search of the White Whale in the person of J. Lacuna kindle reader M Coetzee I am now eager to read Disgrace again to find out how my perception of this central scene has or maybe has not transformed For those of us who love insightful books that spark our mind I could have accepted it If it had been represented in any other way besides theape of a woman That s what places it beyond the pale. Lacuna booker M Coetzee and I love the shadowed link made by the cover art while simultaneously opening up all kinds of lacunae and questions in the mind of the reader as fissures gape between JM Coetzee and the John Coetzee of the novel who has only written Disgrace two years ago in a contemporary present complete with Cinder Tinder social media and BLM I have to say here that I haven t read Disgrace and am now part pushed to do so to see if Lucy s reading is one that I also see in the book And that it might be makes me also feel I don t want to read it It is of course the case that primarily male authors have long used rape as sexualised metaphor for especially military action just think of Shakespeare s Henry V off the top of my head where the language is all about penetration submission occupation and so on So it is both literary tradition and also an innovation to use rape as a metaphor for the violent upheaval of apartheid in South Africa but it s perhaps one that only a male author might have conceived Indeed one of the points this book makes is the well known one of how the world looks different through gendered eyes What complicates this narrative in a dense and rich way is that Lucy is far from reliable and the narrative consists as much of her acknowledged fantasies as it does of any kind of literary reality whatever that means in a piece of fiction We re never quite sure if she really is the Lucy Lurie upon whom the character in Disgrace was based or whether she s a rape victim or survivor and the book interrogates those terms suffering from PTSD attaching herself to a piece of relevant fiction as a way of channeling her trauma her voice and her rage And to add another twist Lucy finally gets called out by a Black sociologist who points out Lucy s white privilege in being able to afford a therapist lock herself away in her house and talk about self care I thought the world held no further terrors for me I was wrong It turns out that the prospect of losing one s privilege is the biggest terror of all She is wrong She must be wrong because it is inconvenient for me if she is right I force the impulse down I make myself stop trying toaise objections to exceptionalise myself to legitimise my pain I stop talking altogether and listen This is not something I am good at I have spent so much time trying to make my voice heard that my ears are out of practice. Lacunar infarct The wonderful irony is that Lucy who has been filling the lacuna in Coetzee s book is also speaking over women whose racial or economic status is perceived to be race or is economics lesser than hers It s a sobering moment and a challenging one for both the character and the reader however much we are attentive to intersectionality Overall then a fascinating book for me which functions partly as literary criticism while also being an absolutely contemporary story ofape trauma mental health privilege and a surprising dark humour at times To end on a quotation this is Lucy s response when the Black sociologist tells her to write a novel of her own Oh no I couldn t do that It would make people uncomfortable No one would want toead it Coetzee s story would stand head and shoulders above it His story is a clean coherent narrative It is powerful and iconic Mine is an uncontrolled emotion dump lacking in structure and framework If John Coetzee s story is a fountain pen on vellum mine is menstrual blood on toilet paper Bold outspoken and yes challenging at times but isn t that what literature is for Many thanks to Europa Editions for an ARC via NetGalley Kindle Edition Fiona Snyckers is the author of the Trinity series of novels and the Sisterz series of mobile novels She has also published various short stories. Lacunas significado Fiona loves to interact with fellow readers and writers about the writing process books in general family life and of course cats Fiona Snyckers is the author of the Trinity series of novels and the Sisterz series of mobile novels She has also published various short stories. Lacunate Fiona loves to interact with fellow readers and writers about the writing process books in general family life and of course cats site_link There shall be no novels which are really about other novels No modern versions reworkings sequels or prequels Instead every writer is to be issued with a sampler in coloured wools to hang over the fireplace It reads Knit Your Own Stuff. Lacuna wills Julian Barnes Flaubert s Parrot Kindle Edition Head scratching feminist take on Disgrace is emasculated by its hyper metatextuality a fictionalised account of the fictional real life inspiration for a famous fictional novel deemed to outline the prevaling reality about gender and race in South Africa Intentional fallacy unreliable narration New Criticism post colonialism cultural mis appropriation are all meekly trotted out Coetzee himself John here is perhaps the least believable element in a novel ostensibly about literary truth Kindle Edition Lucy Lurie Lacuna s unreliable narrator is outraged at John Coetzee s arrogation of her rape for the purpose of making a point about life in South Africa post apartheid in his award winning book Disgrace Coetzee not only used her experience but purportedly wrote fiction using her real name reawakening her PTSD and igniting her determination to meet him face to face demanding an apology Fiona Snyckers has delivered a roundhouse punch of literary criticism in the form of a novel taking liberty with facts and time sequences to make her own point Perceptive with flashes of humor indirectly poking fun at Coetzee s renown vegan ism the twists encountered are jaw dropping and sometimes hilarious Reading or rereading Disgrace affords a deeper understanding and appreciation Kindle Edition Lucana by Fiona Snyckers is clever humorous thought provoking and deeply satisfying Although it deals at length with narrator Lucy Lurie s obsession with John Coetzee whose celebrated novel Disgrace centres on her gang rape at her father s farmhouse the novel is not about him It s Lucy s story as she deals with PTSD and tries to make sense of what happened and get her life back on track It s not easy and she s the consummate unreliable narrator which together with an unexpected twist kept me guessing throughout Fiona s comments on literature rape as a metaphor patriarchy feminism race academia law and countless other matters are relevant incisive and stimulating She s also funny particularly around issues of veganism online dating sex and hipsters While it adds to the experience to have read JM Coetzee s Disgrace before picking up Lacuna but I don t think it s essential I do on the other hand absolutely urge Coetzee to read Lacuna Kindle Edition I am untrustworthy states Lucy Lurie the first person narrator of Lacuna a highly unique engrossing and thought provoking novel by Fiona Snyckers In this novel Snyckers takes the character of Lucy from J M Coetzee s prize post Apartheid novel Disgrace and fills in the spaces the lacuna that Coetzee left out. Chick Lit lacunae I read Disgrace when it came out over twenty years ago and in preparation for reading Lacuna I refreshed my memory of the novel and I also re watched the 2008 film starring John Malkovich While I believe that activity enriched my enjoyment of Lacuna it is not necessary to understanding and appreciating Snyckers masterful and unusual novel. Lacuna Chick little Make no mistake this is a novel about rape Where Disgrace used Lucy s rape as a metaphor for South Africa Lucy s rape is THE main subject of Lacuna though there are also other timely topics addressed such as Who is allowed to write fiction about what topics Snyckers has created a unique narrator in Lucy she s reliably unreliable constantly keeping the reader uncertain about what is fact and what is fantasy This shifting and off balance point of view perfectly illustrates the confusion contradictions and often chaos that surround the communication and politics of rape. Lacunal Lucy says When an unreliable narrator is your only window into a story you have to take some of what he she says on trust Snyckers propulsive prose and intersectional insights call into question Lucy s experience as a white woman compared to others experiences of violence oppression and injustice I read this novel in two sittings and I will be thinking about it for a long time: Kindle lacunar infarct The book touches on the theme of appropriation can anyone other than the victim commandeer and relay a story Or as J. Ebook launch covers M Coetzee himself once said is a book the property of the readers once it is launched Interestingly Ms Synyckers is guilty of the same transgression in her reimaging of J, Book lacunae M Coetzee s writing decisions and in his depicture but that perhaps is part of the complicated themes she takes on. Fiction lacuna What a dizzying smart rich and troubling book this is Meta and postmodernist it functions as a critical reading of Disgrace by J: Book lacuna She was educated at Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand She lives in Johannesburg with her husband three children and four cats: Lacuna word clue She was educated at Rhodes University and the University of the Witwatersrand She lives in Johannesburg with her husband three children and four cats. PDF lacuna coil Thanks to Europa Editions for a review copy of this wonderful and important novel Kindle Edition.
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