The Childhood Of Jesus
by J.M. Coetzee
Award: Nobel Prize 2015
Nomination: Dublin Longlist 2015
Date Read: November 2, 2022
David is a boy who is lost in every sense of the word. Having been separated from his parents as they were leaving their country, all he had with him was a letter explaining who is parents are. In the chaos of the journey, the letter was lost. With no way to identify his parents, the 5 year old David is taken in by a fellow exile, Simon. Upon entering their new home country, an unknown place where everyone lives in government housing and Spanish is the national language, David is assigned the name David and we never learn his birth name.
Simon has vowed to stay with David until he can find his mother. With no name and no visual, the task is entirely impossible. The town where they settle, Novilla, is a strange place where bread is almost the only food available for consumption and everyone seems nice and helpful but never goes out of their way to be truly helpful. Simon is confounded by the entire place.
One day as Simon and David are exploring, they see a woman in tennis whites playing tennis with her brothers. For some inexplicable reason, Simon insists on seeing her face-to-face and offers her a child – David. He has convinced himself that this woman, Inez, is David’s true mother. I never understood why Simon did this. Was he tired of being a stand-in father? Did he think she would be good enough since he would never be able to locate David’s actual mother? The entire Inez situation was baffling.
The one thing everyone in their life agrees on, except the teachers and administrators at David’s school, is that David is a unique and special child. Frankly, the kid is odd, is precociously intelligent and has a robust imagination. He insists reality is contrary to what it actually is. He pretends he can’t read but can, in fact, read quite well. He is difficult with his teachers and gives the appearance of being unwilling to learn. For these reasons, the school decides David should be sent to a boarding school quite far away.
Being only 6, Simon and Inez fight this decision vehemently but since neither are his official, legal guardian, they have no standing. While Simon is in hospital convalescing from a serious accident on the docks where he unloads ships, David is suddenly taken away while he’s playing by himself on the playground. David, who has previously touted himself as an escape artist, does indeed escape, walking through razor wire to freedom. To prevent the authorities from taking him again, Simon and Inez decide to run, taking David somewhere far away where they won’t think to look.
Since this is the first part of a trilogy, I am curious to see how much the second book takes up where this one leaves off. I am confused by some of the decisions being made on David’s behalf. Even though I question the appearance of Inez, she does clearly love David and tries to keep his best interests in mind. She is curt with other people and can even be downright surly at times, refusing to take responsibility for her own actions and is overly indulgent in giving David his own way. I am excited to get to the second novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, to see what happens next - always the hallmark of a great novel. And being Coetzee’s work, readers already know they are in store for a meaty feast.
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