Following a winning formula
A debut collection of short stories in settings from Fiji to Fox Glacier
It seemed inevitable that JM Coetzee’s latest novel, The Schooldays of Jesus, would make this year’s Booker longlist (although he didn’t make the shortlist): Booker winner (twice) and recipient of the Nobel Prize for literature, he is one of the most garlanded writers alive.
In this austere follow-up to The Childhood of Jesus, he continues to apply his
winning formula for fiction: ask yourself a philosophical question and labour away at answering it. Ideas dominate, and story and character become vehicles for demonstrating truths.
The narrative takes places in an unnamed country, where the Jesus figure, a refugee boy named David, has been rescued and parented by middle-aged Simon and virginal Ines. Rebellious and intellectually gifted, he attends a dance school in the fictional city of Estrella, where he’s instructed in the “dance of the universe” by the haughty Ana Magdalena, a spiritual beauty whose teaching takes her pupils to a “higher realm where the numbers dwell”.
Estrella’s inhabitants live on bread and bean paste, work together in socialist harmony and engage in philosophical debates. Simon is David’s guide and mentor as they discuss Don Quixote, fiction and what it means to be a human being.
But there is violence beneath the surface in Estrella, and when one of its inhabitants is murdered, arguments follow: what is passion? What is fiction? What is life? To what extent does earthly appetite lead to destruction?
The characters speak a language suitable for great themes, in dialogue heavy with significance:
“Yes,” says Ines. “Let us go to this farm. We have been cooped up in the car long enough. Bolivar needs a run.” “I feel the same way,” says he, Simon. “However a farm is not a holiday camp. Are you ready, Ines, to spend all day picking fruit under a hot sun?”
“I will do my share,” says Ines.