'This is the first detailed interpretation of J. M. Coetzee’s “Jesus” trilogy as a whole. Robert Pippin treats the three “fictions” as a philosophical fable, in the tradition of Plato’s Republic, More’s Utopia, Rousseau’s Emile, or Nietzsche’s Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Everyone in the mythical land explored by Coetzee is an exile, removed from their homeland and transported to a strange new place, and they have all had most of the memories of their homeland “erased.” While also discussing the social and psychological dimensions of the fable, Pippin treats the literary aspects of the fictions as philosophical explorations of the implications of a deeper kind of spiritual homelessness, a version that characterizes late modern life itself, and he treats the theme of forgetting as a figure for modern historical amnesia and indifference to reflection and self-knowledge. So, the state of exile is interpreted as “metaphysical” as well as geographical. In the course of an interpretation of the central narrative about a young boy’s education, Pippin shows how a number of issues arise, are discussed and lived out by the characters, all in ways that also suggest the limitations of traditional philosophical treatments of themes like eros, beauty, social order, art, family, non-discursive forms of intelligibility, self-deception, and death. Pippin also offers an interpretation of the references to Jesus in the titles, and he traces and interprets the extensive inter-textuality of the fictions, the many references to the Christian Bible, Plato, Cervantes, Goethe, Kleist, Wittgenstein, and others. Throughout, the attempt is to show how the literary form of Coetzee’s fictions ought to be considered, just as literary—a form of philosophical reflection.'
Source : publisher's blurb
'Robert Pippin’s Metaphysical Exile is the first book-length study of J.M. Coetzee’s Jesus Trilogy, comprising The Childhood of Jesus (2013), The Schooldays of Jesus (2016), and The Death of Jesus (2019). It contains an introduction, a chapter on each of the three novels, and a brief conclusion. The author refers to the trilogy as “Jesus Fictions” in order to highlight the gulf between the three texts and other “realist” novels. He suggests that the works may resemble the everyday world inhabited by human beings but, fundamentally, their setting cannot be said to be parts “of any human world that has ever been or is now” (1). This is because they contain “highly unusual elements” like metafictional tropes and characters who are all migrants with memories “wiped clean” (2). As a result, Pippin argues, the trilogy works as a “metaphysical allegory” of exile and homelessness – the texts do not feature displacement as a temporary phenomenon, nor do they present characters who can at all remember their lives in the past (5–6). Hence, the trilogy invites philosophical reflection on its various aspects. These include: intertextual references to episodes from the Bible and literary works including Don Quixote and Coetzee’s own Elizabeth Costello; references to ideas of philosophers ranging from Plato to Heidegger; the importance of dance and music in the lives of its characters; and an essayistic and dialogic narrative style. As Pippin underlines, the reader is invited to reflect on the complexities that the trilogy presents to them without reaching some distilled philosophical principle or expecting a direct conclusion to emerge from the reading (20–21).' (Introduction)
'Robert Pippin’s Metaphysical Exile is the first book-length study of J.M. Coetzee’s Jesus Trilogy, comprising The Childhood of Jesus (2013), The Schooldays of Jesus (2016), and The Death of Jesus (2019). It contains an introduction, a chapter on each of the three novels, and a brief conclusion. The author refers to the trilogy as “Jesus Fictions” in order to highlight the gulf between the three texts and other “realist” novels. He suggests that the works may resemble the everyday world inhabited by human beings but, fundamentally, their setting cannot be said to be parts “of any human world that has ever been or is now” (1). This is because they contain “highly unusual elements” like metafictional tropes and characters who are all migrants with memories “wiped clean” (2). As a result, Pippin argues, the trilogy works as a “metaphysical allegory” of exile and homelessness – the texts do not feature displacement as a temporary phenomenon, nor do they present characters who can at all remember their lives in the past (5–6). Hence, the trilogy invites philosophical reflection on its various aspects. These include: intertextual references to episodes from the Bible and literary works including Don Quixote and Coetzee’s own Elizabeth Costello; references to ideas of philosophers ranging from Plato to Heidegger; the importance of dance and music in the lives of its characters; and an essayistic and dialogic narrative style. As Pippin underlines, the reader is invited to reflect on the complexities that the trilogy presents to them without reaching some distilled philosophical principle or expecting a direct conclusion to emerge from the reading (20–21).' (Introduction)
