Found I had two of these!
Winner of the 1999 Booker Prize.

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted to Stubee who requested this. Hope you enjoy!

Thanks retromonkey, looking forward to reading this soon.

Stubee has passed this on to me to read first, while he finishes another book! I hadn't heard of it before but it looks really interesting so i'll start this on the bus home after work!

I found this a bit weird and not quite what i was expecting. Although the story wound through the book and was interesting, a lot of the book was about exploring flawed human beings.

Although I understood the characters at the beginning, I couldn't understand the reasoning for the decisions they made later in the book which were supposed to be based on the history of South Africa and the relations between white and black people. The book seemed to be trying to make a point but in a bit of a pretentious manner.

Once I've read this I'll be sending it out as a bookray, usual rules apply if your interested in joining please PM me with shipping preferences.

- The person before you will PM you for your address, please PM them back with your address
- Please make a journal entry once you've received the book
- Please put the book at the top of your TBR pile but under other rings/rays that arrived first
- Read the book (take your time and enjoy the book, try to finish it within one month)
- When you are close to the end, refer to the journal and PM the next person to get their address
- Once you finish the book, make another journal entry and let us know what you thought
- Please send the book to the next person on the list!
- If you are the last person please do whatever you like - release it into the wild, start another ring/ray or keep it if you want to!... Happy Reading!!

The participants (mailing order):

Flicki - Oldenberg, Niedersachsen, Germany (International)
ACE-W - Blandford Forum, Dorset, UK (UK/EU Pref but can ship Int if required)
garibaldisghost - Nottingham, Nottinghamshire, UK (International)
tootshelling - Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany (International)
MsJoanna - New York, USA (USA Pref)
Isabel-Batteria - San Juan, Puerto Rico, USA (International)
nillabreen - Tewksbury, Massachusetts, USA (International)
CynthiaA - Brantford, Ontario, Canada (International)
cat207 - Newcastle, New South Wales, Australia (Oz Pref)
djbebe - Toowoomba, Queensland, Australia (International) skipped
jellyfish67 - Burnley, UK (International) <--- It's on it's way to here
withoutwings - Prescott Valley, Arizona, USA (Us Pref)

Ok this is my second Coetzee novel and I must say I liked The Life & Times of Michael K more. I found the reasoning behind the characters decision's quite bizarre and as such I think this distracted from my enjoyment of the novel.

I have Flicki's address so this will be send shortly.

EDIT 15/08: Sent!

Hiya! This arrived here! I'm still reading something else, but this will move up to be the next book! Having so little time right now that I hope I'll finish this within a month! But it's a rather short book, so we'll be fine I suppose. :-)

I pretty much liked this book, even though I cannot really tell why. Maybe it is because few initiation stories have protagonists at the age of David Lurie! The story, in fact, was well told and very interesting, even though, as I have to say just as said in the journals before this one, the decisions of the characters are not always easy to follow. I especially wonder how a man can make up a story like Lucy's. Well.

Already have contacted the person next on the list and hope to send the book on asap.

Received today through the post. Many thanks for forwarding this on to me. Have just started reading The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas but will read this next and then get it on it's way.

I found this book surprisingly difficult to put down. It was intense and engaging at the same time as being disturbing and chilling. I got a sense that the starkness of the situations that the main characters found themselves in were in some way a metaphor for the situation in South Africa itself but I don't have enough knowledge of the social history and politics of the country to fully appreciate this aspect of the book.

Thanks for the bookray stubee - this was on my wishlist so that's a wish granted! I have PM'd the next participant for an address.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to garibaldisghost. Enjoy!

Safely arrived yesterday, thanks. I'll read it in the next week or so.

This is my first J M Coetzee book and as there are several others on the 1,001 list (I bought Slow Man the other day) it obviously won't be the last.

If any or all of the others are as easy and enjoyable to read as this one then hurrah!

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

On its way to the next person in the ring ~ tootshelling.

Got it!!

I've got a ring ahead of this one but it should be a quick read.

I'll post updates.
29 December UPDATE - sorry! The ring before this was a killer! I'm done & ready to move it along.
6 January - Nillabreen wants to be skipped...contacting the next in line.

Thanks for sharing!!

This was one of the best books I've read in a long time and will go on my all-time favorites list. Fantastic! As my brother-in-law would say, 'it was a cracker!'

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Off in the post today to msjoanna in NYC.

Enjoy!

This has arrived safely in NYC. Thanks for the lovely postcard tootshelling! Looking forward to reading it.

Update Feb. 25, 2009: I'm nearly finished with this book. It's been a hard book for me to read, so I've needed to switch off with other things. I have the address for the next person and expect to mail the book this weekend. Sorry for taking slightly longer than a month.

The writing was excellent. But the characters were so hopelessly unsympathetic, particularly the narrator. Perhaps that's the point, but I found the book rather painful to read and in the end sort of wished that I'd never picked it up. The narrator, David Lurie, is a womanizing, middle aged professor complete with racial prejudice, misogynistic beliefs, and unending arrogance and self-centered ramblings. There was no redemption to be found in the "fall" or any of the other events in this book.

Perhaps this is a grand philosophical comment on the state of human beings or men generally, but, if so, it was lost on me.

The book goes in the mail tomorrow to Isabel-Batteria.

I started reading it. It has a great introduction. But I found out my husband has the book, so I prefer to read the copy we already have and pass this one along. Thanks, Stubee!!

I received this book a few days ago. I'll start it next. Thank you!

Some people love this book and others don't. At first I couldn't understand why this book was so great, why it won the Booker and why it had so many exuberant blurbs all over it. But after thinking it over for a while, I could see that what the author did was both subtle and strong. He makes you keep asking yourself over and over: why? Why didn't David and Lucy do anything to help themselves? Finally, I answered: because it doesn't matter what they do. Lucy might as well stay put, because she would feel the same inside even if she packed off to Amsterdam. Of course there was no redemption here. That's the point – no redemption is possible. And this, I think, is why I didn't get it for a while: it's completely implausible that no redemption is possible. Implausible or not, that is the author's thesis. Cremating dead dogs is just what David does now. Choices do not matter.

But is it really as straightforward as that? What about Mr. Isaacs? I think the whole book hinges on chapter 19. What is the opposite of disgrace? Grace, obviously, and not in the sense of coordination, in the sense of Biblical grace or similar concepts that exist in many religions. There is no action in the world that you can take to escape from disgrace – there is only the action that you can take in your own mind.

I will mail this book to the next participant within the next few days.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

Sent to CynthiaA

Arrived today. It will be the next book on TBR. Thanks stubee for the ring, and thanks to nillabreen for posting it. :o)

I finished this book two nights ago, and I'm still trying to figure out whether I liked it or not... I didn't like the main character, David Lurie, but I gather that he didn't like himself much either. I did like his daughter, Lucy, which is why I struggled so much with her inability (or unwillingness) to help herself. They both suffered disgrace -- his was self-induced and hers was not. And they both seemed unwilling (in his case) or unable (in hers) to lift themselves out of it. It's always been my opinion, and continues to be my opinion, that anyone can change their own circumstance with proactive behaviour and choices to do that. I don't believe its easy -- but I believe its always possible. This is why, I think, I struggle so hard with the ending of the book. My heart is heavy for these 2 people -- even for David, who I didn't like, and wouldn't like in real life. If I were them, I wouldn't accept disgrace as a permanent state of existance. And it frustrates me that they do.

I know, from reading about the book, that the author intended some parallels between the characters and the political disgrace of South Africa - but honestly, I don't know enough about the situation to comment on that in any way.

So for a book that I didn't "love", it sure made me think hard. And that in itself is worthy of something. Literature that makes people think and rethink, makes us all better for it. I believe that.

Thanks for the bookray, stubee. I have cat207's address and will be shipping the book, by surface post, to Australia, tomorrow.

Arrived in today's mail. Thank you CynthiaA, and stubee - as always. I have got a couple ahead of this one.

Finished this one last night and still not sure what to make of it. Some parts were unputdownable, yet other parts seemed to drag. I did like it better than 'Elizabeth Costello'.

Waiting for an address for djbebe.

djbebe has already read the book, so going in today's mail to jellyfish67.

Guess what! This package popped through my letterbox yesterday - don't know where it's been in between...