The Stories We Tell: Individual and Society in The Childhood of Jesus

Commentators have drawn attention to the close relationship between The Childhood of Jesus and Coetzee's exchanges with Arabella Kurtz in The Good Story. Read in the light of The Good Story's concern with the stories we tell ourselves about the lives we lead, our relationship to those stor...

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Bibliographic Details
Published inJournal of modern literature Vol. 46; no. 2; pp. 68 - 81
Main Author Patton, Paul
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Bloomington Indiana University Press 01.01.2023
Subjects
Bible and literature
Bible as literature
Biblical literature
Christianity
Coetzee, J M (1940- )
Fiction
Kurtz, Arabella
Novels
Postmodernism
Psychoanalysis
Psychotherapy
Society
South African literature
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Summary:Commentators have drawn attention to the close relationship between The Childhood of Jesus and Coetzee's exchanges with Arabella Kurtz in The Good Story. Read in the light of The Good Story's concern with the stories we tell ourselves about the lives we lead, our relationship to those stories and to their truth or falsity, the stories of Simon and David, their tensions and conflicts with one another and with the sometimes-incompatible stories told by the inhabitants of Novilla, exemplify the contemporary postmodern human condition. In particular, Childhood explores the consequences of what Coetzee calls a common postmodern situation in which someone is aware that a story is not true but nevertheless commits to it wholeheartedly. It shows how lives are changed by the commitment to a particular story and how they unfold as a result of the tensions that develop between individual and collective stories.
ISSN:0022-281X
1529-1464
DOI:10.2979/jmodelite.46.2.06