Schooldays of Jesus, The

260 pages

English language

Published July 15, 2013 by Harvill Secker.

ISBN:
978-1-911215-36-3
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OCLC Number:
956958934

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4 stars (4 reviews)

"The curiously contrived family of Simon, Ines and David resettle in the city of Estrella, after being forced to flee their previous home in Novilla following a dispute with the education authorities. There they seek to continue the shhooling of the headstrong and gifted boy, David."--Www.adlibris.com.

"David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simon and Ines take care of him in their new town Estrella. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog Bolivar to watch over him. But he'll be seven soon and he should be at school. And so, David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance. It's here, in his new golden dancing slippers, that he learns how to call down the numbers from the sky. But it's here too that he will make troubling discoveries about what grown-ups are capable of. In this mesmerising allegorical …

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Review of 'Schooldays of Jesus, The' on 'GoodReads'

4 stars

Exceptional writing as always from Coetzee. This book, the second in a trilogy, brings forward the story of Simón and the boy Davíd who is in his care. The book is more philosophy than story, bringing points of view on art and numbers that are told from rational, academic and theoretical standpoints by the characters. Different philosophical theories are wrapped together through the acts and actions of the dance teacher Ana Magdalena and the uncouth museum attendant Dmitri who is infatuated with her, and how they bring their influence into the life of the child Davíd.

Continuing on from the previous book in the series, the world is constructed around migration to a new place, and the forgetting of the old. Gripping and stark, and very strange, this book (and its predecessor) feel like a culmination of the author's ideas from his career.

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Subjects

  • Refugees
  • Families
  • Children
  • Fiction