y separately published work icon The Jesus Trilogy series - author   novel  
Issue Details: First known date: 2013... 2013 The Jesus Trilogy
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1
y separately published work icon The Childhood of Jesus J. M. Coetzee , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2013 Z1908494 2013 single work novel (taught in 2 units) ''The child is silent. For a while he too is silent. Then he speaks. 'Please believe me—please take it on faith—this is not a simple matter. The boy is without mother. What that means I cannot explain to you because I cannot explain it to myself. Yet I promise you, if you will simply say Yes, without forethought, without afterthought, all will become clear to you, as clear as day, or so I believe. Therefore: will you accept this child as yours?'

David is a small boy who comes by boat across the ocean to a new country. He has been separated from his parents, and has lost the piece of paper that would have explained everything. On the boat a stranger named Simón takes it upon himself to look after the boy.

On arrival they are assigned new names, new birthdates. They know little Spanish, the language of their new country, and nothing about its customs. They have also suffered a kind of forgetting of old attachments and feelings. They are people without a past.

Simón's goal is to find the boy's mother. He feels sure he will know her when he sees her. And David? He wants to find his mother too but he also wants to understand where he is and how he fits in. He is a boy who is always asking questions.

The Childhood of Jesus is not like any other novel you have read. This beautiful and surprising fable is about childhood, about destiny, about being an outsider. It is a novel about the riddle of experience itself.' (Publisher's blurb)
2
y separately published work icon The Schooldays of Jesus J. M. Coetzee , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2016 9704550 2016 single work single work novel

'When you travel across the ocean on a boat, all your memories are washed away and you start a completely new life. That is how it is. There is no before. There is no history. The boat docks at the harbour and we climb down the gangplank and we are plunged into the here and now. Time begins.'

'David is the small boy who is always asking questions. Simón and Inés take care of him in their new country. He is learning the language; he has begun to make friends. He has the big dog Bolívar to watch over him. But he’ll be seven soon. He should be at school. And so David is enrolled in the Academy of Dance in Estrella. 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.'

'The Schooldays of Jesus, the startling sequel to J. M. Coetzee’s widely praised The Childhood of Jesus, will beguile its readers. With the mysterious simplicity of a fable, it tells a story that raises the most direct questions about life itself.' (Source: Text Publishing website)

3
y separately published work icon The Death of Jesus J. M. Coetzee , Melbourne : Text Publishing , 2019 17064224 2019 single work novel

'AFTER The Childhood of Jesus and The Schooldays of Jesus, J. M. Coetzee completes his trilogy with a new masterwork, The Death of Jesus.

'David loves to kick a soccer ball with his friends in Estrella. His father, Simón, and Bolívar the dog usually watch. His mother, Inés, works in a fashion boutique.

'David still asks lots of questions. In dancing class, he dances as he chooses. He refuses to do sums and the only book he will read is Don Quixote.

'One day, Julio Fabricante, the director of a nearby orphanage, invites David and his friends to form a proper soccer team. David decides to leave Simón and Inés and live with Julio. Before long he succumbs to a mysterious illness. Will he have time to deliver his ‘message’?

'In The Death of Jesus, J. M. Coetzee continues to explore the meaning of a world brimming with questions.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.

Publication Details of Only Known VersionEarliest 2 Known Versions of

First known date: 2013

Works about this Work

Don Quixote, Benengeli and Coetzee’s Jesus Trilogy María J. López , 2024 single work criticism
— Appears in: English Studies , vol. 105 no. 2 2024; (p. 222-241)

'This article focuses on the central role of Don Quixote (1605, 1615) in J.M. Coetzee’s Jesus novels, arguing for the relevance of the fact that it is Benengeli, the fictional Moorish historian – and not Cervantes – who is presented as the author of the Spanish novel. This is first explored in relation to the analogy that The Childhood of Jesus (2013) makes between authorship and paternity, along with the depiction of the relationship between authors and characters as one of temporary, non-substantial stepfatherhood. The disruption of Don Quixote’s authorship/paternity also traverses the trilogy’s questioning of linguistic origins, and concern with linguistic processes of estrangement, displacement and irony. Finally, Cervantes’s absence in Coetzee’s novels is examined in relation to David’s act of trust and blind belief in the character of Don Quixote, a response to both the performative power of words and the capacity of literary characters to outstrip their original authors.' (Publication abstract)

The Jesus Novels Timothy Bewes , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Bloomsbury Handbook to J. M. Coetzee 2023; (p. 191-206)
An Obscure Prodigy J.M. Coetzee’s 'Life and Times of Michael K' at Forty James Ley , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 456 2023; (p. 50)

'These are the words of Mrs Curren, the elderly narrator of J.M. Coetzee’s under-appreciated mid-period novel Age of Iron (1990), but it would be easy enough to find similarly anguished sentiments being expressed by the Magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), or Dostoevsky in The Master of Petersburg (1994), or David Lurie in Disgrace (1996), or the eponymous protagonist of Elizabeth Costello (2003). It has long been apparent that there is a recognisable Coetzeean type, who appears in various guises in his many novels. These characters tend to be educated products of their relatively privileged social positions. They are conscious of the pain and injustice in the world, conscious of their own suffering, and conscious of their impotence in the face of overmastering contexts. Their common instinct is to philosophise about these problems. Many ironies, gruelling and subtle, arise from their desire for redemption and their simultaneous awareness of its impossibility, not least of which is that their penchant for metaphysical high-mindedness has a distinct tendency – on display in Mrs Curren’s lament – to bend back on itself in a way that resembles self-absorption or even self-pity.' (Introduction)

J M Coetzee’s ‘Jesus’ Trilogy : A Search for Answers Hania A. M. Nashef , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Current Writing : Text and Reception in Southern Africa , vol. 35 no. 1 2023; (p. 43-51)

'The 2019 novel by the South African-Australian Nobel laureate, J M Coetzee, The Death of Jesus, is a third book in a sequence that includes Jesus in its title; like its predecessors it follows the lives of a recently constructed family in the dystopian Spanish-speaking towns of Novilla and Estrella. The surreal trilogy, which began with The Childhood of Jesus (2013), and then The Schooldays of Jesus (2016), presents us with unreal worlds, leaving us searching for meaning. This fable-like fantasy, which expands the author’s ‘late style’, challenges the genre of fiction itself. Typical of late style, the trilogy resists closure and resolution. The debated ideas are generated by characters who were forced to forsake their memories and histories. Even though the protagonists begin to embody the very ideas they debate, answers are not forthcoming.' (Publication abstract)

Ku Qie Ye Zuo San Bu Qu Dui Bei Ke Te Shi Xue Si Xiang de Ji Cheng Yu Fan Si Zhang , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Foreign Literature , no. 3 2022; (p. 59 - 69)
'Coetzee's "Jesus Trilogy" series In addition to inheriting Beckett's poetic thought, the novel also reflects on it. The trilogy reveals the characteristics of Beckett's post-structuralism and post-modernism in terms of language concept, narrative strategy and characterization. It is not difficult to see Beckett's profound influence on Coetzee's novel creation. However, Coetzee did not follow the steps of this Irish literary predecessor. He reflected on Beckett's fall into the rut of purely formal games in his late creation. At the same time, compared with Beckett’s attitude of retreating more and more towards the closed spiritual world of the subject, Coetzee has expanded his vision in the trilogy, embracing the objective world represented by the body, expressing Emphasize the ethical responsibility and humanistic care of social reality.' 

(Publication abstract)


 
There Is No Other Place : J. M. Coetzee’s Jesus Trilogy Marie Luise Knott , 2020 single work review
— Appears in: Los Angeles Review of Books , June 2020;

— Review of The Jesus Trilogy J. M. Coetzee , 2013 series - author novel
论库切“耶稣系列”小说中乌托邦社会的建构 CAI Shengqin , LV Yuewen , 2019 single work criticism
— Appears in: Foreign Literature Studies , no. 4 2019; (p. 138-150)
'Coetzee's "Jesus series" novels "Jesus's Childhood" and "Jesus's School Days" centered on the protagonist David's childhood and elementary school growth experience, shaping a utopian society free from exploitation and oppression. Based on Ernst Bloch’s philosophy of hope, this article analyzes the utopian world in the "Jesus Series" from the three dimensions of educational utopia, marriage utopia, and religious utopia, and finds that the author uses the utopian society in the novel. Constructs, reflects on and criticizes the various shortcomings of the current Western society, and its purpose of constructing utopian society is to awaken people’s inner utopian ideals and encourage people to transcend the shackles of the existing world and become free and comprehensive individuals, thus realizing people Liberation.' (Publication summary)
Ku Qie Ye Zuo San Bu Qu Dui Bei Ke Te Shi Xue Si Xiang de Ji Cheng Yu Fan Si Zhang , 2022 single work criticism
— Appears in: Foreign Literature , no. 3 2022; (p. 59 - 69)
'Coetzee's "Jesus Trilogy" series In addition to inheriting Beckett's poetic thought, the novel also reflects on it. The trilogy reveals the characteristics of Beckett's post-structuralism and post-modernism in terms of language concept, narrative strategy and characterization. It is not difficult to see Beckett's profound influence on Coetzee's novel creation. However, Coetzee did not follow the steps of this Irish literary predecessor. He reflected on Beckett's fall into the rut of purely formal games in his late creation. At the same time, compared with Beckett’s attitude of retreating more and more towards the closed spiritual world of the subject, Coetzee has expanded his vision in the trilogy, embracing the objective world represented by the body, expressing Emphasize the ethical responsibility and humanistic care of social reality.' 

(Publication abstract)


 
J M Coetzee’s ‘Jesus’ Trilogy : A Search for Answers Hania A. M. Nashef , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: Current Writing : Text and Reception in Southern Africa , vol. 35 no. 1 2023; (p. 43-51)

'The 2019 novel by the South African-Australian Nobel laureate, J M Coetzee, The Death of Jesus, is a third book in a sequence that includes Jesus in its title; like its predecessors it follows the lives of a recently constructed family in the dystopian Spanish-speaking towns of Novilla and Estrella. The surreal trilogy, which began with The Childhood of Jesus (2013), and then The Schooldays of Jesus (2016), presents us with unreal worlds, leaving us searching for meaning. This fable-like fantasy, which expands the author’s ‘late style’, challenges the genre of fiction itself. Typical of late style, the trilogy resists closure and resolution. The debated ideas are generated by characters who were forced to forsake their memories and histories. Even though the protagonists begin to embody the very ideas they debate, answers are not forthcoming.' (Publication abstract)

An Obscure Prodigy J.M. Coetzee’s 'Life and Times of Michael K' at Forty James Ley , 2023 single work essay
— Appears in: Australian Book Review , August no. 456 2023; (p. 50)

'These are the words of Mrs Curren, the elderly narrator of J.M. Coetzee’s under-appreciated mid-period novel Age of Iron (1990), but it would be easy enough to find similarly anguished sentiments being expressed by the Magistrate in Waiting for the Barbarians (1980), or Dostoevsky in The Master of Petersburg (1994), or David Lurie in Disgrace (1996), or the eponymous protagonist of Elizabeth Costello (2003). It has long been apparent that there is a recognisable Coetzeean type, who appears in various guises in his many novels. These characters tend to be educated products of their relatively privileged social positions. They are conscious of the pain and injustice in the world, conscious of their own suffering, and conscious of their impotence in the face of overmastering contexts. Their common instinct is to philosophise about these problems. Many ironies, gruelling and subtle, arise from their desire for redemption and their simultaneous awareness of its impossibility, not least of which is that their penchant for metaphysical high-mindedness has a distinct tendency – on display in Mrs Curren’s lament – to bend back on itself in a way that resembles self-absorption or even self-pity.' (Introduction)

The Jesus Novels Timothy Bewes , 2023 single work criticism
— Appears in: The Bloomsbury Handbook to J. M. Coetzee 2023; (p. 191-206)
Last amended 7 Jul 2020 12:27:01
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