The Childhood of Jesus: A Novel by J. M. Coetzee (PDF)

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Ebook Info

  • Published: 2013
  • Number of pages: 280 pages
  • Format: PDF
  • File Size: 0.93 MB
  • Authors: J. M. Coetzee

Description

From the Nobel Prize–winning author of Waiting for the Barbarians, The Life & Times of Michael K and Disgrace. Nobel laureate and two-time Booker Prize winner J. M. Coetzee returns with a haunting and surprising novel about childhood and destiny that is sure to rank with his classic novels. Separated from his mother as a passenger on a boat bound for a new land, David is a boy who is quite literally adrift. The piece of paper explaining his situation is lost, but a fellow passenger, Simón, vows to look after the boy. When the boat docks, David and Simón are issued new names, new birthdays, and virtually a whole new life. Strangers in a strange land, knowing nothing of their surroundings, nor the language or customs, they are determined to find David’s mother. Though the boy has no memory of her, Simón is certain he will recognize her at first sight. “But after we find her,” David asks, “what are we here for?” An eerie allegorical tale told largely through dialogue, The Childhood of Jesus is a literary feat—a novel of ideas that is also a tender, compelling narrative. Coetzee’s many fans will celebrate his return while new readers will find The Childhood of Jesus an intriguing introduction to the work of a true master.

User’s Reviews

Reviews from Amazon users which were colected at the time this book was published on the website:

⭐I imagine J.M. Coetze’s The Childhood of Jesus will send people scurrying through the novel frantic biblical symbol hunts. They’ll find a few tasty clues, but I doubt they’ll help plumb the depths of this fascinating book. In fact, the hints of allegory might in the end be little more than a Coetze joke. It would be better to sum up The Childhood of Jesus as the story of person with extraordinary insight and vision trapped in a prosaic world.In the allegory category, look at the protagonist. He’s Simon (as in Simon Peter, you might suppose). Five year old David (as in the house of David) drops into his care from almost nowhere and Simon takes it upon himself to find the child’s true mother. For no good reason, he decides he’s found that mother in the person of a virginal lady dressed in Marian blue, takes on the role of Gabriel, and hands the child over to her. Problem for the biblical parallel? The lady’s name is not Mary, but Ines; and, virginal or not, she’s no spring chicken, has no husband, nor any desire to get pregnant. Is Coetze giving us the equivalent of an Emily Dickinson slant rhyme or just a gigantic tease? In other such examples, I noted hints of three of the four apostles, and of David’s sense of a life mission in his writing Yo soy la verdad on a school blackboard. However, only one of the apostle candidates–Juan–shows apostolic tendencies, so that parallel is a fizzle.Oh, and then there’s the plot. When Simon takes David under his wing after a shipwreck, they find their way to a relocation center. The lingua franca of the area they’re in is Spanish, so the official name of the center is Centro de Reubicacion Novilla, a name which would seem to be a cognate for “new,” but which really means “heifer” in Spanish. The place is a socialized community that provides apartments, menial jobs and food to displaced persons. The inhabitants all accept their lot without ambition or protest (suggesting, perhaps, that the “heifer” moniker means the people are cattle-like) , which attitude drives Simon nuts. He’s possessed of a normal helping of both skepticism and striving, and is frustrated by the citizens’ passive responses to his challenges of accepted procedures and customs.So, what’s the point of the title? Is the whole book just a giant nobel-prize-winner-put-on? Absolutely not. Coetze both demystifies and deifies the Jesus myth. David is a gifted child whose perspective on reality constantly bewilders and bedevils the adults around him. Though Simon is a great questioner relative to the other Novilla citizens, his avuncular advice to David is pretty conventional. He over and again urges him to conform, to accept circumstances because we’re all trapped in them.David’s quite spoiled and willful, always insists on getting what he wants no matter how unreasonable. Sometimes it’s just petty childhood stubbornness (Surprise, Christ might have been human.) But often it’s a matter of his living in a personal world that’s off-center from everyone else’s reality. He knows his numbers, but refuses to put them in order. He teaches himself (almost) to read with a child’s version of Don Quixote, and he can calculate just fine when he wants to, but doesn’t reveal his skills to the frustrated adults around. He’s focused on other things, like the dangerous cracks between the numbers.In the end, Simon, Ines, and David escape from Novilla and embark on a journey to an unknown destination. They leave to avoid officials’ attempts to incarcerate (in their view) David in a special school supposedly designed to help gifted and talented children develop their talents. Not for David. Simon seems finally to embrace David’s strange perspective, even though he understands it not at all. Ines indulges him with the blind maternal faith she’s always had.I’ve read a few complaints about the philosophical discussions that pervade the novel, but I found them organic to the book, tied inextricably to plot, character, and action. Nothing like the confusion and abstruse discussions of Coetze’s Elizabeth Costello, which seemed impenetrable to me. No, The Childhood of Jesus is challenging, fascinating, mysterious and written in that clear, crisp Coetze prose that won him the big prize. It’s a big time winner.

⭐JM Coetzee’s The Childhood of Jesus strikes me as a step past Coetzee’s last decade as writer of fiction.Its title is both a quotation of previous works and a hint to the author’s background.However the book takes its readers to very different fictional avenues, with its Latin American setting, apparently very far from most other Coetzee novels. Is this book about a Latin American Messiah? Or is Jesus to be taken as a proper Spanish name (with an accent), bearing no immediate connection (other than its graphic rendering) with Our Christ the Saviour? Of interest, to a language expert who knows their Spanish or Portuguese, are especially the names the author chooses for the book’s characters, most of which are of Biblical origin: Weiss, Ana, David, Simon, Ines and even Jesus itself. Fidel and Eugenio are two other names for which there are quite close allusions to Latin America, and of course, Eugenio is a reminder of Dusklands, Coetzee’s first two-fold novel. Alvaro is also a Spanish name, and there are several Spanish words throughout the book (el Viejo – the old man) – Avocado is his surname which in Spanish means lawyer or barrister; this book is fascinating moreover, for its clear-cut and almost photographic dialogues between the protagonist and his half-adopted child, whom he seeks to provide with the rudiments of an education, as well as for its ways of dealing with very complex issues, from orphanage to child abduction or abuse. Coetzee skilfully contextualizes his characters and his fiction within the Kafkian, half-suspended atmosphere of a Latin environs, where even family links become obscure and disbanded – so much so as to engender a sense of identity loss even in its well-established, learned readers. The mention of keys to rooms in bedsits or small hotels – C55 letters and numbers combination there is a definite Kafkian sense to this first part of the book – ideas of freedom and imprisonment are recalled through reference to locking and unlocking doors somehow lined up with an idea of a need for over-controlling measures and emergency access (passpartout or llave universal=universal key) – possibly disclosing aspects of the eternal, unwritten memoir of a writer’s autobiography.Furthermore, the words silence and silent /dumb and dumbfounded are repeated as a predominant aspect of topical moments of character interaction – in The Childhood of Jesus, silence is both linked to bereavement and to dullness. Lack of words is compared with a ‘mind-blindness’ (p. 31).From within the meta-literary framework, there are indeed a number of overt (though some less so) cross-literary connections, some to previous books by Coetzee, others to Beckett (‘all out’ and reference to chess on p. 20).Similarly, the search for the lost mother, recurrent in The Childhood of Jesus, is another topical element in both Life and Times of Michael K and In The Heart of The Country, two fictional turning points in the author’s creative development.In conclusion, in this book, the child-soul is described as lost, in limbo (on the threshold, at risk); a very perturbing motif, as it also signals a reflection of mortality (of someone who is in between life and death or in great peril). Effectively, David is an under-achiever whom his educators are seeking to send out to Punto Arenas, a special correction facility for underage children. However, there is some hope to be found in this book as his adoptive parents decide not to allow this form of instructional abduction of the child, preferring to teach him at home.Last but not least, if requirements for the ideal reader of this new Coetzee novel are to be outlined, they would be a good working knowledge of English, Spanish and Latin cultures, as well as the inevitable familiarity with Coetzee’s array of extra- and inter-textual literary cross-references which are found scattered throughout the South African Nobel writer’s novelistic corpus.

⭐I cannot but say that Coetzee is a genius. But, not sure what to make of this book! It is a great description of how life of the 2 anonymous immigrants was/is. It is always interesting to read about the life of people moving from one place to another; hopeful people in search of a new life and new beginnings. A life full of surprises, freshness through the eyes of the boy and the new family and friends he makes for himself. The book reminded me of people starting fresh in America in the 30’s; it reminded me of Steinbeck’s style, this raw, simple dialogue with a feeling of ‘on the move.’ Coetzee makes one eager and curious to continue with the trilogy. Few writers, that I know at least, have this extremely delicate description as Coetzee, he makes the reader actually live the story fully.

⭐I recently read Disgrace and wanted to read more by Coetzee. I loved the premise of this novel and the writing style but ultimately it was a disappointment: the story wasn’t completely unravelled, there was no climax, no conclusion. I see there is a sequel to this book but it’s quite unfair on the reader who buys a book and doesn’t get a story.

⭐I love this writer. His style is clear and spare. It’s about an immigrant and lost boy who try to make a new life in a new land. The boy is not called Jesus but it could be the second coming! Front cover of people in what looks like the 1930’s seems to bear no relation to a book set in my opinion in the future when memories of the past are erased. They search for the boy’s mother….not Coetzee’s best.

⭐Difficult book to follow. Great start but became quite abstract. I’m sure there’s a deeper meaning to it all but didn’t quite grasp it.

⭐The author doesn’t explain the background context and history which brings us to the story. It’s as if the reader has just stepped in and travels a while with the characters. But the narrative is engaging and real. There is a undercurrent of deeper meaning which is allusive and keeps you captivated

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