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A review by donato
The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
5.0
A very long time ago, in what seems like another life, in some sort of writing class, the professor singled out one of my answers on a test. She had me stand in front of the class and read it out loud. She said my answer "filled the cup"; I had poured in just the right amount of tea (these last are my words now, not hers then). Not too little, not too much. I think that Coetzee is a master at this. All of his novels are about 250 pages long, with just the right amount of chapters, just the right amount of sentences, just the right amount of words, with just the right amount of suspense, and with just the right amount of mystery.
In my review of The Childhood of Jesus, I wondered what exactly I had just read, indeed about the very nature of the book. The answer now (after having read the rest of Coetzee's oeuvre in the meantime) seems obvious: it is simply a book, within which live imagined characters. And behind that simple answer there hides a whole universe: the universe created by the book.
On the surface, we are talking about the education of a young boy, a young boy who refuses to see things the way his teachers (and other "normal" people) see things, a young boy who refuses to count properly (I had completely forgotten the question of numbers from The Childhood of Jesus; it has been 9 years). And so he goes to an Academy of Dance, where numbers can be danced, indeed whole ideas can be danced; where the stars are not just faraway light-emitting objects, but something much more mysterious; and so he has found his non-measurable mojo. But under the surface of any Coetzee book is violence, violence that rips holes in the world. And how do you foresee that; how do you measure that; how do you forgive that?
But it's also about the education of a man (a character in a book?) who wants to know why he is here (in this book?), who perhaps starts to get the idea he is made of words, and so is "learning to write" (176), who only sees "what is before my eyes" (253), who lacks passion, who lacks imagination, who wants to shake but can't be shook, and finally decides, perhaps, yes, "I will behold the world as it really is" (257).
In my review of The Childhood of Jesus, I wondered what exactly I had just read, indeed about the very nature of the book. The answer now (after having read the rest of Coetzee's oeuvre in the meantime) seems obvious: it is simply a book, within which live imagined characters. And behind that simple answer there hides a whole universe: the universe created by the book.
On the surface, we are talking about the education of a young boy, a young boy who refuses to see things the way his teachers (and other "normal" people) see things, a young boy who refuses to count properly (I had completely forgotten the question of numbers from The Childhood of Jesus; it has been 9 years). And so he goes to an Academy of Dance, where numbers can be danced, indeed whole ideas can be danced; where the stars are not just faraway light-emitting objects, but something much more mysterious; and so he has found his non-measurable mojo. But under the surface of any Coetzee book is violence, violence that rips holes in the world. And how do you foresee that; how do you measure that; how do you forgive that?
But it's also about the education of a man (a character in a book?) who wants to know why he is here (in this book?), who perhaps starts to get the idea he is made of words, and so is "learning to write" (176), who only sees "what is before my eyes" (253), who lacks passion, who lacks imagination, who wants to shake but can't be shook, and finally decides, perhaps, yes, "I will behold the world as it really is" (257).