Chapter 1 Summary

In this introductory chapter we meet the main character of the story, David Lurie. He is a fifty-two-year-old divorcee, and a professor of communications at Cape Technical University in Cape Town, South Africa. His previous role was that of a professor of modern languages, but his department was closed down and he was transferred to the communications field. He finds his new position quite boring, and although he completes his job every day, he is disinterested in the field of communications and is not very involved in his students' learning process. David finds the basis of the communications field absurd; he secretly feels that the origins of speech lie in song, and in the empty human soul.

David has been married twice, and has a daughter from his first marriage. In his youth he attracted women very easily with his good looks and...