This final chapter turns to J. M. Coetzee's Disgrace(1999), a novel that commands a place in any discussion of musical forms in transnational literature through its provocative engagement with opera. The author's first novel to be staged in post-apartheid South Africa, Disgracecalls on music to paint what one critic has called “an anxious, comfortless portrait” of a nation undergoing radical changes (Cooper, 2005, 22). The protagonist, David Lurie, a middle-aged literature professor at the University of Cape Town, falls into “disgrace” when his efforts to seduce an attractive young student misfire and he finds himself charged with sexual harassment. In his highly publicized university hearing, Lurie shows no remorse and stubbornly champions his right to act on desire. The adjudicating committee considers the case as part of a long history of racial oppression in South Africa, particularly because the student in question, Melanie Isaacs, is a woman of color. In keeping with the spirit of the national Truth and Reconciliation process, they demand his apology; his refusal to comply costs him his teaching post. In the wake of the scandal, Lurie withdraws to his daughter Lucy's modest farmstead in the Eastern Cape. Lucy's country lifestyle is the antithesis of his academic life in Cape Town. There, Lurie assists with daily chores while trying to make progress on his current project, an opera about the Romantic poet—and ruthless womanizer—Lord Byron. Ironically, although he has never written music before, Lurie expects it to come more naturally and be more satisfying than academic prose. Needless to say, it is a ridiculous presumption on Lurie's part and the opera does not come together as he had hoped. This chapter argues that the failed opera nonetheless fulfills an important function in the novel. It illustrates the problems of representing others and provokes an evaluation of the place of the English-language novel and other forms of artistic expression in democratic South Africa.

Published five years after the country's first democratic elections, the novel offers an unusual twist on the bildungsroman. It presents a narrative of self-education and emerging social consciousness, but does so through an older protagonist whose arrogance and sense of entitlement alienate readers.