Nobel Prize winner J. M. Coetzee’s new novel Childhood of Jesus takes its main characters Simon and David and drops them into a new world and forces them to discover where they belong in it. Simon, the father figure and a boy named David, whose mother’s whereabouts are unknown because the papers telling them who is she were lost at sea.
The novel opens with the pair looking for food and shelter at a relocation center. They go through a Kafka-sequel experience but are finally offered last-minute shelter. After the first night Simon understands that he must find David’s mother. They set off on this journey, which has hints of Don Quixote, which also happens to be the first book David learns to read. The woman Simon chooses to be David’s mother even though there is no physical proof is named Ines. She is a woman he sees in an exclusive resort. He feels David will have a better life with her as his mother. After some convincing, she agrees to be the boy’s mother. After a while she tries to erase Simon from his life. While he doesn’t feel it’s right he agrees it may be best for the boy. He is soon told by his friends to get David back.
At this point in the novel, you begin to ask yourself what is Coetzee trying to say with this book. Is it a novel about Jesus looking for room at the inn, Don Quixote and his travels, or is simply about a man trying to find out what he would do if he found a lost boy?
But I digress, Ines feels that the boy is a gifted boy and needs special attention. The authorities tell her she must send the boy off to a special school after David refuses to follow the rules at the local school. After losing a court hearing on this issue, the boy is shipped off to a boy’s home where things don’t work out and he escapes and finds his way back to Simon and Ines and her new family. There they all decide that the best way to move on with life and not be captured by the authorities is to reboot and start the whole their lives over. They head back to the relocation center and claim they just arrived and need a place to stay.
For me I’ll just say Don Quixote would be very proud but then again I’m an Agnostic. It’s a happy trail for the reader no matter what think Coetzee is trying to say.
