J. M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus: The Ethics of Ideas and Things

Description

Since the controversy and acclaim that surrounded the publication of Disgrace (1999), the awarding of the Nobel Prize for literature and the publication of Elizabeth Costello: Eight Lessons (both in 2003), J. M. Coetzee's status has begun to steadily rise to the point where he has now outgrown the specialized domain of South African literature. Today he is recognized more simply as one of the most important writers in the English language from the late 20th and early 21st century. Coetzee's productivity and invention has not slowed with old age. The Childhood of Jesus, published in 2013, like Elizabeth Costello, was met with a puzzled reception, as critics struggled to come to terms with its odd setting and structure, its seemingly flat tone, and the strange affectless interactions of its characters. Most puzzling was the central character, David, linked by the title to an idea of Jesus. J.M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus: The Ethics of Ideas and Things is at the forefront of an exciting process of critical engagement with this novel, which has begun to uncover its rich dialogue with philosophy, theology, mathematics, politics, and questions of meaning.

Anthony Uhlmann is Director of the Writing and Society Research Centre at the University of Western Sydney, Australia. He is the author of Beckett and Poststructuralism (1999), Samuel Beckett and the Philosophical Image(2006), and Thinking in Literature (2011). From 2008-2013 he edited the Journal of Beckett Studies. Jennifer Rutherford is Director of the JM Coetzee Centre for Creative Practice at the University of Adelaide, Australia. She is the author of two books, including Zombies (2013).

These essays, overlapping in their concerns, offer many useful entries into a puzzling fiction that Rutherford likens to a fairy tale, in that 'it magnifies the darkness and complexity of being human.' * Comparative Literature Studies * J.M. Coetzee's recent fictions are about what he calls 'second-order' questions. Always the self-conscious craftsman, Coetzee made the great historical conflicts of our time his particular metier, from Dusklands (1974) to Disgrace (1999). Now the attention falls more squarely on writing itself: on fictional representation, and on the place of ideas and ethics in story-telling. To explore this terrain, Coetzee takes us back to the apocryphal gospels and the foundations of culture in Plato and Cervantes. This new writing by Coetzee is as quirky as it is erudite and it demands a special kind of reader. J.M. Coetzee's The Childhood of Jesus: The Ethics of Ideas and Things assembles the best possible cast to illuminate one of Coetzee's most perplexing novels to date. * David Attwell, Professor of English, University of York, UK * This remarkable collection provides an indispensable guide to unravelling the literary, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of Coetzee's enigmatic novel. Together, the essays form a highly suggestive, discordant and overlapping exploration of some the key ideas in this allusive work. They set a benchmark for the critical work of interpretation yet to come. * Paul Patton, Scientia Professor of Philosophy, University of New South Wales, Australia *