The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. CoetzeeMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
What. Just. Happened?
I've been trying to get my hands on as many Man Booker 2016 books, and this one was on the longlist so I thought to give it a shot. Bad idea.
Despite this being a sequel to The Childhood of Jesus the characters refer to the past often enough for the unaware reader to go into the book well-informed.
The trouble is, it's hard to fathom what this book is about. The main characters, Simon, Ines and David are a troubled family, brought together under unusual circumstances. Yet, they do not get along, do not like each other and don't have the same goals. I don't know how the first book went, but in this one David is the most insufferable child ever to exist in any literature I've read. I'd accept if the author was able to label him with some kind of autism, but since he doesn't, all David comes across as is an ungrateful bully! The fact that he's so militant to two people who have kindly taken his care upon them and aren't biologically related to him at all makes him an even worse creature.
I take it this book is supposed to be some kind of allegory, but it sure doesn't read like it. An allegory would have some basis in reality, yet all the supposed talk about dance doesn't add up to anything. Maybe it will in future parts, but in this story it's just annoying page fillers, and more unnecessary reason for David to be a brat.
If there was a message in this book, it never sees light of day. The unconventionality of this nuclear family doesn't extend beyond them not sharing a blood relationship. Aside from that, Ines stays home and cooks, and even when she gets a job she cooks. Simon is the protagonist who gets to suffer existential crises, while Ines is just a cardboard cutout in the background. And there's David, but... let's not go there. Ever.
Coetzee, for all the hype, still loves trawling through old tropes. The dance academy David is sent to has the world's most perfect white woman heading it, and her husband - old and looking it. Also, sexual assault is used as a plotline to further the cause of male characters. The author also seems unaware of the old adage 'If I can't have her, no one can', because a large section of the court scene in the third act involves the judge decrying the fact that the accused did assault and kill the object of his desire, because that's totally not what one would do to someone they 'love'. *EPIC EYE ROLL*
Honestly, what is the point of this book? What's it trying to say? Childhood is hard; parenting is hard; dancing is hard; life sucks - jeez, no s**t, Sherlock.
This must be a particularly poor year in the UK literary scene, because the Booker longlist nominees have been utter disasters for the most part. The problem with this one is that it's so annoying that you don't have time to ponder how overly pretentious, tedious and pointless it is. That comes after the fact.
Also, the weird tick of always referring to Simon as 'he, Simon', or 'him, Simon' began to grate at the second mention of it. Why couldn't the author just have written Simon, why the clarification of 'he, Simon' - what a waste of space.
I'd write more about how this book was a 200-page waste of time, but then I'd be repeating myself. Just... don't with this book.
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