A Bridging Fiction: The Migrant Subject in J.M. Coetzee’s The Childhood of Jesus

Abstract

The article examines, with reference to J.M. Coetzee’s novel, The Childhood of Jesus (2013), how the migrant is narrated into being as a subject over the divide between a previous life, which is being transformed into memory, and a future life, which has to be imagined before being realised. Drawing on Coetzee’s own metaphor in Elizabeth Costello of writing fiction as constructing a bridge over a chasm between the real world and an imaginary one, as well as Calvino’s similar metaphor in If on a winter’s night a traveller (1979) of story being a bridge over a void, the article shows how the narrative in The Childhood of Jesus is located in, and constitutes a passage from, an unspecified past to an indeterminate future. The reader is reminded throughout the narrative of the void beneath the minimalist fictional bridge, and of the problem that the young protagonist, David, has with the logic of conventional numeracy – the hypotext for David’s difficulty with numbers being Musil’s novel, The Confusions of Young Törless (1906). Coetzee’s novel expands the fictionality around the story of Jesus not only through the parodic resemblance of his young protagonist to the Biblical Jesus, but also through its intertextual use of works by Voltaire, Cervantes and Kafka, and especially the apocryphal Infancy Gospels with their miraculous and anecdotal stories about the childhood of Jesus. Coetzee’s novel, with its essential simplicity of plot and character, gravity and meaning that resides in metaphor, may perhaps usefully be approached as a self-reflexive fictional parable – a novel about parables, Biblical, apocryphal and literary.

Opsomming

 Die artikel ondersoek, met verwysing na J.M. Coetzee se roman, The Childhood of Jesus (2013), hoe die migrant tot subjek vertel word oor die kloof tussen ’n vorige lewe wat in herinnering verander, en ’n toekoms wat eers verbeel moet word voordat dit verwesenlik kan word. Deur gebruik te maak van Coetzee se eie metafoor in Elizabeth Costello van fiksionele vertel as ’n brug oor die gaping tussen werklikheid en verbeelde wêreld, asook Calvino se soortgelyke metafoor in If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller (1979) van verhaal as brug oor die niet, toon die artikel hoe die vertelling in The Childhood of Jesus plaasvind in, en ’n oorgang skep tussen, ’n onge-spesifiseerde verlede en ’n onbepaalde toekoms. Die leser se aandag word deurgaans gevestig op die kloof onder the minimalistiese fiksionele brug, en ook op die jong hooffiguur David se probleem met gewone syfers en rekenkunde – waarvoor die hipoteks gevind kan word in Musil se roman, The Confusions of Young Törless (1906). Coetzee se roman dra verder by tot die fiksionaliteit rondom die verhaal van Jesus, nie alleen deur die parodiese ooreenkomste tussen sy jeugdige protagonis en die Bybelse Jesus nie, maar ook deur intertekste van Voltaire, Cervantes en Kafka, en veral die apokriewe Kinderjare-Evangelies met hulle wonderbaarlike anekdotes oor die kind Jesus. Coetzee se roman, met sy betreklik eenvoudige handeling en karakters dog ernstige metaforiese betekenis, kan miskien die beste benader word as a self-refleksiewe fiksionele gelykenis – ’n roman oor Bybelse, apokriewe en literêre gelykenisse.