Is it a sin to read the Coetzee novel Disgrace?

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Hi there! I’m (unfortunately) a bit scrupulous, but as I might have to read this novel for a college English class I’m taking, I couldn’t help but wonder. Apparently the main character has an affair, which is obviously a no-no in the Catholic Church.

But if I read the novel, and it gets pretty detailed in the events of the affair, should I stop reading and ask my instructor to let it slide (that’ll be interesting, lol)?
 
I’m currious and I’m really sincere, have you ever read the Bible?
 
Hi, I am not a Catholic and I don’t have a degree in English, but I think you are going to find it difficult to study English literature if you are uncomfortable reading this sort of thing. I am assuming that you must have read some Chaucer (‘A likerous mouth moste han a likerous tayl’), Shakespeare (‘Do you think I meant country matters?’), Donne (‘O my America! my new-found-land’).
 
EmilyAlexandra said:
Hi, I am not a Catholic and I don’t have a degree in English, but I think you are going to find it difficult to study English literature if you are uncomfortable reading this sort of thing.
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Exactly. Sex and cheating are, regrettably, not uncommon in the grand human experience. Literature is a way to express all sorts of things about humanity, that being one of them. It’s unavoidable.
 
Also, sex and cheating are probably not the worst things that one will encounter in English literature. Pulling out Gloucester’s eyes in King Lear is pretty grim. Best skip the whole of Titus Andronicus.
 
I read a synopsis and it sounds like a really depressing book–my sympathies!

Anyway, I always just skip the more graphic bits when I am reading–who needs to know the details, right?

Great literature is full of stories about people doing bad things. What is more important is how the bad thing is portrayed: as a good or evil? Is adultery lauded or condemned?

And these are aspects of considering literary works (not that college teachers necessarily go there): How are good and evil portrayed? What vision of man is portrayed? Etc.

Look at what you can learn about life, what the author is saying and whether you agree or not. For me, that is what literature is about.
 
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Sex and cheating isn’t the worst part of biblical writings either.
 
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