The novel has many possibilities still left in it, and J.M. Coetzee’s attempt in this partial success of a novel is to push at the boundaries of what is possible. The Childhood of Jesus is devoid of middle-ground reception from those critics who claim to understand what the author is attempting. Most have celebrated the typical Coetzee characteristics on display: the sparse and terse delivery of the narrative, the breathing quasi-real world, and the direct political commentary. Few have ventured further than that to attempt a link between the narrative and the title, and thus discover the mystical and allegorical meaning of this enjoyable book.

The story begins in a post-apocalyptic setting with a middle-aged man, Simón, and a young boy, David, coming into the town of Novilla, where everybody is an immigrant, and everybody is forced to learn and speak Spanish. (“One day it will cease to feel like a language, it will become the way things are.”) Simón is not David’s father — he is on a mission to find the boy’s mother in Novilla, and hand him over. After a few settling in hiccups, they find shelter and Simón finds work as a dockworker and befriends a music teacher, Elena. But while Simón is interested in a romantic and physical relationship with her, Elena — and seemingly every human being in Novilla — is devoid of sexual desires. This feels bizarre to Simón, and one of the reasons for that is that he remembers the pre-apocalypse life more than the others do. The old world is still “alive” in him.

Finding David’s mother remains a serious mission for his guardian, and he explores the city and scans its reports for information on the residents. He is utterly convinced that the mother resides in Novilla. A quarter of the way into the novel, Simón and David stumble upon a closed housing society, La Residencia, and happen to see a woman and twin men play tennis. Simón becomes at once convinced that the woman is David’s mother. He arranges a meeting with her in which he proposes to have David adopted as her son. Simón’s gut feeling is so strong and willful that he is able to convince her. She becomes David’s mother.

That is the extent of the plot setup in The Childhood of Jesus. After this, there is an adjustment period, during which the new mother, Inés, dresses David up as a girl, treats him like an infant rather than a young boy, and refuses to let him go to school. A constant refrain is the boy’s special abilities, which are not explicitly named or pointed out. He is just thought to be special. Alvaro, Simón’s dockyard supervisor, doubts the handover to Inés by saying, “David is no ordinary boy. Believe me, I have watched him, I know what I am speaking about. Are you sure you are acting in his best interests?”

Simón’s conversations with David bring out what appear to be gifted notions (water gets in the sky “because the sky breathes in”) but could just as easily be childish prattle. Coetzee does not judge, nor does he allow judgment of the characters in any meaningful way. Their existence is unbearably light, and very tenuously connected to each other. But then, as Simón says, “If lovers were tight up against each other all the time they would no longer need to love each other. They would be one. There would be nothing for them to want.”

Characters are a strong suit of the novel, as can be expected from most Coetzee novels. The child speaks like a child, and acts like one spoilt thoroughly by Inés. He refuses to comply with authority, and his rebellions are indulged all the more by his inexperienced mother. She believes the world is out to get her son, and she refuses to let him be ordinary.

Simón, world-weary, seeks purpose to stay alive after fulfilling his mission, and finds no easy answers. A series of wrong turns leads him to the Institute, a place that all of Novilla turns to for learning and teaching. Here, there are classes on drawing and philosophy, which are either full or dull and unrelated to Simón’s reality. He therefore stays away from it and instead debates the meaning of life in Novilla with various residents. With Elena he argues about desire, and with his fellow workers the merit of labour. Seemingly authorial commentaries follow, which are worth reading.

As seen from Simón’s perspective, the mother is the most interesting character. She is self-sacrificing, but not very understanding. She refuses to submit to her child becoming someone mediocre and is the pivot upon which the final rebellion in the novel hinges. And from there on, she plays a mechanical part. However, the most interesting parts are regarding her evolution as a mother, the adjustment period she goes through to come to truly value and love David.

That Novilla is a post-apocalyptic town is only hinted at. There was an incident before which life was different. That incident is never narrated. That lack of detail is a frustrating yet brilliant move on Coetzee’s part. It forces the reader to find and build meaning into the characters’ motivations and actions. The effect on the story is also hypnotic. The dream state sets in from the first page, and never lifts. There is never the ‘then he woke up’ moment, which returns the laws of physics, parenthood and the legal system to a norm. It all just keeps on the thin line between fantasy and waking life.

That point of departure is where the title links with the narrative so aptly. This whole book seems an attempt to investigate what would occur if a Jesus-like figure were to appear in the contemporary world. David shows no outward miracles. But he does learn to read all on his own. Coetzee only partially succeeds in his experiment, because he only partially investigates the possibilities.

Even though this may remain among the lesser known of Coetzee’s works when all is written up about him, The Childhood of Jesus stands alone as an attempt at something masterful. In that vein, it is reminiscent of Hanif Kureishi’s Gabriel’s Gift, which stands out as very different from that acclaimed writer’s other books. Coetzee keeps writing superbly, and The Childhood of Jesus will please at least some of his readers.

The reviewer teaches rhetoric at LUMS

The Childhood of Jesus

(Novel)

By J.M. Coetzee

Harvill Secker, US

ISBN 1846557267

288pp.