Coetzee’s 12th novel takes place in an unspecified place and time though the setting feels almost post-apocalyptic. The opening few passages promise excitement and a good story but the consecutive paragraphs filled with obscure clues and references prove you wrong in no time.[break]
From the very first page, you’re plunged in a world that’s both familiar and unfamiliar and nothing is certain, which could be the reason why reading the book is a constant struggle. The novel, much to the readers’ disappointment, is limited to outlining circumstances and providing context for what happens next.
After spending six weeks in a desert camp, Simon, a man with no possessions and no memory, arrives in Novilla with the small boy David. At this place, everybody is an immigrant and each one of them is forced to learn Spanish and live a life devoid of luxuries.
Simon is not related to David but when David loses a letter containing information about his parentage during a boat ride (from where you’ll never know) to Novilla, Simon makes it his mission – for unexplained reasons – to reunite the child with his mother.
Then Simon and David find a closed housing society where they see a woman playing tennis. So strong is Simon’s “hunch” that this is the woman he’s been searching for – the woman who’s Simon’s mother – that he manages to convince Ines to take up the child.
What follows is the child’s adjustment to his newfound mother, Ines’s bringing up the child in a world she’s struggling to understand, and Simon’s attempts to be a part of the child’s life, be it by reading him an abridged version of Don Quixote he finds in the town library or forcefully giving Ines advice on bringing up David.
The lack of details and explanations is frustrating but at the same time compel readers to imagine a world they wouldn’t otherwise, which could be what Coetzee was trying to do in the first place. Sometimes, it works in his favor and at times – when the same issue keeps resurfacing – it makes you wonder what happened to a genius writer.
However, the story is peppered with challenging ideas and philosophical inquiry, and Coetzee’s narration is as always immaculate and sharp. The philosophical questions and debates do seem forced and tedious at times, and the meaning behind it quite escapes you.
Simon’s hunger for pleasure in a town where people seem to be stripped off all the worldly desires makes for an interesting subplot, but like everything else in the book, this could-have-been-interesting story within a story fails to pull you by the collar and keep you hooked. But the frequent exchange between Simon and David are rapt and heartfelt and perhaps the only good bits in the book.
The point of the novel perhaps – to my faint understanding – is to fathom what would happen if a Jesus-like figure were to appear in today’s world. David, though he doesn’t perform miracles, is made to seem like a genius child with odd abilities. For instance, by the age of six, he teaches himself to read and seems to make up his own rules – about mathematics, science, relationships and almost everything else.
But Coetzee hasn’t been able to convincingly portray the boy as someone special or rather a messiah as he seems to have set out to. What Coetzee has
done is written a novel where much is left to your imagination and things are largely unexplained. Even the end – which comes too early, or too late: I can’t seem to decide – doesn’t supply any answers.
Readers who have read Coetzee’s books before will agree that his works aren’t easy to read. His writing isn’t easy to comprehend either, and it takes a while to figure where he’s going with the plot, but once the reader gets the hang of it, it’s a breeze from thereon. But sadly, that point never comes while reading his latest “masterpiece.”
Coetzee has a reputation of being the master of bleakness, and his new novel reasserts that. But that’s not something the two-time winner of the Booker Prize can be proud of as far as The Childhood of Jesus is concerned. Sometimes you do need to judge a book by its cover to save precious time is the only thing I’ve taken away after reading the book.
cillakhatry@gmail.com
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