Boyhood is a short novel on Coetzee's youth, growing up in the Western Cape. Beautifully written, it's very gripping, but it took me a while to grasp the point of the novel.
As with most biographies, there's no real story arc, no real plot, but that's not the point. Coetzee shows how he, as a boy, struggled with the meaning of his being, questioning everything and not understanding anything.
On the last page of the book, Coetzee makes a small revelation on his reasons for writing: "He alone is left to do the thinking. How will he keep them all in his head, all the books, all the people, all the stories? And if he does not remember them, who will?" It's a bit of an anti-climax, but does give something of closure to the intellectual search the Coetzee-boy is going through during the novel and, supposedly, Coetzee during his youth.

creo que nunca había leído un libro con tantos mommy y daddy issues como este. sin duda es una autobiografía a considerar y no solo porque esté escrita en prosa, sino también por el atractivo y honesto retrato que hace coetzee de sus años de infancia. hay algunos pasajes un poco densos, pero creo que no hay un solo capítulo de sobra o desperdicio. me parece muy especial que mi primera experiencia con coetzee haya sido esto. espero poder leer "juventud" antes de que se vaya el 2023

ملخص الكتاب كالآتي:
"أنا كنت بلعب مع صحابي،بابا وحش،ماما حلوة..
جده كان عنده مزرعة..خالتي وقعت ورجليها اتكسرت وبعدين ماتت.."
المفروض إن الكتاب مذكرات لكويتزي من أيام طفولته والصراحة الحاجات اللي كتبها لا تستحق أن تُكتب في كتاب من ٢٠٠ صفحة أو بمعني أصح لا تستحق أن تُكتب أصلاً!
كتاب ممل ومش مفيد ولا ينصح به..

Review one 12/5-24:

Beautifully written perspective on boyhood. So many contrasts. Happily lived yet tragic.

Review two 16/5-24:

My individual reading experience.

I really enjoyed this book. I love how deeply it goes in to describe a childhood, both the good and the bad parts. I also enjoyed that it was written in the third person. The book is in some parts self-biographical, which makes it a more interesting read. It is clear a lot because of the fact that the book takes place in provincial South Africa, where it’s dry and a hard-living lifestyle, no people live happily and the author J.M. Coetzee has his roots there as well. Who I interpreted as J.M. himself was the main character young John. John is a private, mirthless and brooding little boy. He lives with his a father he absolutely despises, a mother he adores but doesn’t know very well and his younger brother who is doesn’t get very close with. John is filled with guilt, but I found the reason why sort of unclear. He is the smartest boy in school, or at least in his grade, but the school isn’t very ambitious or engaging which is not the best for John.

I liked the book because of the tension John and his family had in their family’s household. It turned my stomach in to knots and made me almost uncomfortable. I know that sounds bad, but I like a book that makes me feel strongly, and that feeling doesn’t always have to be pleasant, just strong. In some ways I also found the book a bit typical. It’s the same sort of silent/suppressed/ tortured genius storyline. Someone who holds so much intelligence and potential yet is just too misunderstood in this world. Yes, it is an interesting storyline, but we’ve seen it before. Maybe it is just J.M. wanting to take advantage of his intelligence-bragging-rights, but the book is called boyhood. I’d like to read about a regular, average kid going through life in South Africa. He doesn’t have to be a genius for his story to be validly read and listened to.

Rating 4.2/5

Every Coetzee is a revelation to me. It is just so pure in its abundance and simplicity, as it is grey and intense. From Disgrace to Summertime to Boyhood, his accounts are evocative, to say the least. A sadness engulfs the reader and stays put.
*
This story is the account of his boyhood in provincial South Africa, where politics and religions and school life overlapped, leading to sardonic results. It makes for a quick read.

I find it amazing that there can be so much content in a 166-page book, and that the result is so spellbinding and perfect. J.M. Coetzee's "Boyhood: scenes from provincial life" is a portrait of the author as a 10-year-old boy growing up in South Africa. I have never read a more insightful analysis of a child's thinking and emerging personality; well, it is hard to find this level of psychological profundity in any writing. At the same time, the novel gives an amazingly rich and deep depiction of the South African society, with its class and racial divides.

Mr. Coetzee, in this "fictionalized autobiography" writes about a 10-year-old boy in the third person. The "he" is little John Coetzee, a precocious child, who loves and hates his mother and is ashamed of his father. The author reaches to the deepest and most private layers of a child's psyche, layers that one is usually too embarrassed to get to. One of the magnificent passages describes how the boy creates his first memories (yes, creates and edits them). The essential question are raised: Who am I? Where do I belong? As the author writes: "What he does not yet know is why he is in the world." The boy tries to figure out how the world works - who the good people are. He experiences something almost like the first love, and is fascinated by the beauty and mystery of other children's bodies.

The year is about 1950, just after the United Party's downfall and the ascent of the National Party rule. The boy lives in a society that is racially much more complex than that of the U.S. and probably of most countries in the world. The racial divides are between four distinct groups: the English, the Afrikaners, the "Coloureds", and the "Natives". Mr. Coetzee shows the racial fissures in the South African society sharply yet subtly. So many books in which the well-meaning authors try to present the problems of race on hundreds of crudely written and superficial pages read like predictable sermons. Here, the author writes four sentences about the meaning of the word "mustn't", and these four sentences perceptively convey the nature of racial inequality.

I can pleasantly waste about two hours of my life reading 166 pages of Connelly, Kellerman, or Grafton. I have spent about 12 hours over four days to read 166 pages of "Boyhood". These were some of the best spent 12 hours in my life.

Five stars.

SCENE DI VITA DI PROVINCIA


David Coetzee, fratello dello scrittore J.M. Coetzee, in un ritratto realizzato dal premio Nobel. Tutte le foto sono scattate dal giovane J.M. Coetzee

Primo capitolo del romanzo autobiografia difficile capire quanto fittizia. Fantabiografia?

Ad accelerare il processo di crescita del giovane John, qui seguito in terza persona dai dieci ai tredici anni, è la realtà del secondo dopoguerra nel suo paese natale, il Sudafrica.
Siamo in provincia, come indica il sottotitolo, che si protrae ad abbracciare anche i capitoli seguenti, Gioventù e Tempo d'estate. E con provincia s’intende la periferia di Worcester, a centosessanta chilometri da Città del Capo.


A casa di un compagno.

John adora la madre in modo viscerale, ma per forza di cose non è un sentimento sereno, quanto piuttosto un attaccamento morboso.
Anche perché dall’altra parte detesta suo padre, uomo manesco e irascibile dedito all’alcol, che gli suscita vera e propria (esagerata) rabbia.
Rabbia che scompare appena fuori dall’ambiente domestico, dove invece si presenta quasi implume, agnello.
E data la sua esasperata sensibilità, non ha vita facile ad adattarsi, a inserirsi, a fare parte.


St Joseph’s Marist College.

È l’età dei primi turbamenti, vuoi per la religione e vuoi ancor più per la sessualità, il senso di inadeguatezza e il senso di colpa, vita amore e morte.
Con chi parlarne, con chi condividere?
Amare è essere in una gabbia, correre avanti e indietro come un povero babbuino disorientato.
Il suo paese è in pieno apartheid, e il nostro giovane bianco anche su questo tema non riesce ad abbracciare la posizione dominante della sua razza.

Ne risente l’educazione scolastica che procede in solitario e autosufficienza: quasi come se John vivesse già nell’attesa di partire per l'Europa.


Ros e Freek, nati nel Karoo, sulla spiaggia di Strandfontein – la prima volta che hanno visto il mare.

Wow. Extremely honest book.

This book veers between fascinating & terrifying. Fascinating because the voice of the young boy in question(possibly an autobiography of the author) is so strong, so vivid, and so evocative, that it may very well be the most realistic presentation of a young boy in all modern fiction. However, it’s also terrifying in the depiction of the boy’s hates, loathings, secrets, and opinions, especially towards his mother. Coetzee gives us a character with the perceptiveness of an adult, trapped in the body of a 9 year old. Can children truly be as cold as this protagonist? Or is it the author himself who was such a complicated, dark young soul? At times, it scarcely bears thinking about…but it was a novel I just couldn’t put down.

پسرانگی گویا قراره خاطراتی از کودکی در آفریقای جنوبی باشه، اما هر کاری کردم بهم نچسبید، یعنی هی خوندم گفتم الان یه چیزی میشه، یه اتفاقی می‌افته، اما نشد که نشد حالا مشکل از من بود یا از کتاب نمیدانم.ه

الترجمة حلوة، وذاكرة الصبيّ حادة وجارحة.

No había leído nada de Coetzee, aunque había leído buenas reseñas sobre su escritura y sinceramente no defraudan.

En tan poco Coetzee es capaz de sumergirte en la profundidad de los claroscuros de la infancia: la soberbia, amargura por crecer y la valentía que sólo cuando somos infantes tenemos. No quiero comentar mucho sobre la temática, porque resulta obvia que Coetzee hace un ejercicio de mirarse a si mismo sin miramientos y sin compasión de lo que fue su yo, o lo que recuerda ser.

El libro que al inicio aparenta ser sin miramientos ni mayor cuestionamientos se va haciendo más maduro, a medida que evidentemente el personaje crece. Y por consiguiente, también aquello de lo que empieza a fijarse, aquello que suaviza y otro que se endurece. No hay compasión en su escritura: se reconoce en un prisma patriarcal, racista y elitista. Pero al mismo tiempo se destapa su máscara y muestra lo cultural y genuino que encuentra en esas figuras.
El final me dejó como reposo de café a ser interpretado: deseosa de conocer el futuro que está escrito -y recordado-.

Me quedé con ganas de leer más sobre este autor. Creo que para empezar en su literatura puede ser un buen comienzo, aunque no soy del todo objetiva.