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3.37 AVERAGE
3.37 AVERAGE
Wonderful second work of this trilogy by J.M Coetzee. We continue to follow our little David as he gets older and goes to the school of dance to learn how to pull down the numbers from the stars and dance them out. Simon continues to be plagued by his own odd situation in life. Things with Innes deteriorate and he finds himself all the more distant from David. He has trouble understanding his place in life and how he can still be a good influence on David's development. It is clear that once David attends boarding school he is no longer under Simon or Innes's influence and begins to take on new shapes as he grows up to be the bright young man that we remember from Childhood of Jesus. Though, events take a turn, we have a lot to learn from Coetzee about social morality and the divisions between private and political life that run as parallel arguments to the main storyline.
This book is not quite as philosophically diverse as Childhood was, however, Childhood of Jesus was quite thorough and Coetzee use's the fictional endroit that he develops to search deeper into themes about education, the nature of knowledge, political and social rights, privacy, guilt/ innocence and furthers his exploratory commentary on the nature of the family unit that he began in the first book. I highly recommend reading this trilogy and am looking forward to reading The Death of Jesus, though also sad that the story is about to come to an end. Luckily there are many other Coetzee works out there to keep my interest in philosophical literature alive.
This book is not quite as philosophically diverse as Childhood was, however, Childhood of Jesus was quite thorough and Coetzee use's the fictional endroit that he develops to search deeper into themes about education, the nature of knowledge, political and social rights, privacy, guilt/ innocence and furthers his exploratory commentary on the nature of the family unit that he began in the first book. I highly recommend reading this trilogy and am looking forward to reading The Death of Jesus, though also sad that the story is about to come to an end. Luckily there are many other Coetzee works out there to keep my interest in philosophical literature alive.
At least it is short. Dull, pointless. Written in stilted prose.
'I cannot tell you, señor Arroyo,' he says, 'how much I dislike these cheap paradoxes and mystifications." p. 199
That pretty much sums up my feelings about Coetzee's allegedly allegorical work, which - although marginally more interesting than its predecessor ('Childhood of Jesus'), since it in large part deals with a mysterious murder and its aftermath - is still somewhat incomprehensible and meaningless. The story moves quickly, and there are some interesting sections, but the underlying philosophy just never brings with it any tangible results, IMHO.
On a side note, I assume that the names of the characters Dmitri and Alyosha are a reference/homage to Dostoyevsky's Brothers K., but again, can see no reasonable explanation for why that should be so (and where's Ivan?)
That pretty much sums up my feelings about Coetzee's allegedly allegorical work, which - although marginally more interesting than its predecessor ('Childhood of Jesus'), since it in large part deals with a mysterious murder and its aftermath - is still somewhat incomprehensible and meaningless. The story moves quickly, and there are some interesting sections, but the underlying philosophy just never brings with it any tangible results, IMHO.
On a side note, I assume that the names of the characters Dmitri and Alyosha are a reference/homage to Dostoyevsky's Brothers K., but again, can see no reasonable explanation for why that should be so (and where's Ivan?)
4.5 Stars. A truly marvelous story that I have yet to fully comprehend. Some pacing issues towards the end, but I really loved it.
Read for ENGL 4811: Is Beauty Just?
Read for ENGL 4811: Is Beauty Just?