Take a photo of a barcode or cover
mightymeep 's review for:
The Childhood of Jesus
by J.M. Coetzee
I didn't know what to make of this really. It's a strange novel, more of a parable or a fable, but not told that way. I get the feeling that the events that happen in the story happen for a symbolic reason, rather than for the sake of the narrative.
In a nutshell, a boy and a man, not his father, arrive as immigrants in a new, Spanish speaking country. The country is modern, it has television, but no phones, and we never really know where it is, who the people are or why they have left their original country. The man, Simon, is obsessed by reuniting the boy with his mother who he became separated from on the journey over. At least that's what we assume, but no-one in the new, nameless country can really remember their past and they are supposed to forget it, so we're never really sure what happened to the parents, or indeed any of the events that happened before their arrival. I guess it's a book about identity, immigration and starting a new life, but it seems to go deeper than that on a philosophical level that I am missing.
It's probably a book I need time to mull over and think about because Coetzee is obviously saying something here, but I just can't work out exactly what it is...
In a nutshell, a boy and a man, not his father, arrive as immigrants in a new, Spanish speaking country. The country is modern, it has television, but no phones, and we never really know where it is, who the people are or why they have left their original country. The man, Simon, is obsessed by reuniting the boy with his mother who he became separated from on the journey over. At least that's what we assume, but no-one in the new, nameless country can really remember their past and they are supposed to forget it, so we're never really sure what happened to the parents, or indeed any of the events that happened before their arrival. I guess it's a book about identity, immigration and starting a new life, but it seems to go deeper than that on a philosophical level that I am missing.
It's probably a book I need time to mull over and think about because Coetzee is obviously saying something here, but I just can't work out exactly what it is...