The Childhood of Jesus

Since my virgin reading of Coetzee (it was Boyhood in 2008, the first chapter was set reading for a course on memoir) I have approached him with a kind of fundamentalist reverence and intensity. (Not unlike this guy).

So, I thought it appropriate that my first post on a blog created to chronicle my wandering thoughts on writing and spirituality consider the publication of his new novel, the Childhood of Jesus. 

The premise of the novel is this: a man, Simon, has arrived in a new country as a refugee. He has a boy, David, in his care.  Not a son or a relative of any kind, merely a child he came across on the ship ride to the new country. They are trying to get on with the business of living in this new country, Simon is also trying to find the David's mother.

The most intriguing aspect of the novel so far is the nature of the new country. There is free healthcare, free transport, work for the willing, the people are pleasant (but not overly friendly, not passionate) "full of goodwill," Simon says. Physical needs are met, but for Simon it is an arid emotional landscape. A place with very little feeling. Feeling, we are lead to believe, is a remnant of the old world to be un-learned if one is to get along in the new country.

This is not something that Simon is willing to accept (at least not yet). Simon finds a woman he feels, intuitively knows, to be David's mother. He gives David over to her. Simon's neighbour, Elena, questions this method of decision-making:

"'You followed an intuition?'

'More than that. A conviction.'

"'A conviction, an intuition, a delusion -- what is the difference when it cannot be questioned? Has it occurred to you that if we all lived by intuitions the world would fall into chaos'

'I don't see why that follows. And what is wrong with a little chaos now and again if good follows from it?'" (102)

Perhaps I am drawing a long bow, but this could be taken as an example of the conflict between an essentially religious perspective and an essentially rationalist perspective. While Simon has not appealed to a supernatural force as the locus of his intuition, I would describe the absolute faith in his conviction as representing a religious perspective. Simon has invested ultimate trust in his conviction/intuition and acts accordingly. Elena argues that where reason can not intervene, feelings/intuitions/convictions are tantamount to delusions and lead only to chaos. While Simon does not dispute the potential for chaos in a universe of intuition, but he does dispute that chaos is invariably bad. 

What I'm most interested in here is the connection that can be made between the extreme rational perspective, and the emotional vacancy, the passionlessness of the new world. Elena is a fully adjusted new-world citizen and places little value on intuitions or sensation. (After she and Simon have sex, she says to him, "See, it does not advance us."). Simon has all the longings for the feelings of the old world, where one experiences feelings, and these feelings are a valid locus for the direction one takes in life. The source of his feelings is not attributed to a higher power (and therefore the consequent action not authorized by a superior being) but if I accept Simon's position as essentially religious, I must be willing to consider that from a religious perspective, an extreme rational-secular society may be full of goodwill, but it may also be lacking in feeling, lacking in passion, lacking in colour.

References  

Coetzee, J.M. 2013. The Childhood of Jesus. Melbourne: Text Publishing