J. M. Coetzee, Disgrace (London: Secker & Warburg 1999)

David Lurie’s reaction to the rape of his daughter and the assault upon himself in her house: ‘The worst, the darkest reading would be that Petrus engaged three strange men to teach Lucy an lession, paying them off with the loot. But he cannot believe that, it would be too simple. The real truth, he suspects, is something far more - he cast around for the word - anthropological, something it would take months to get to the bottom of, months of patient, unhurried conversation with dozens of people, and the offices of an interpreter.’ (p.118.)