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Roger DeBlanck's Reviews > Boyhood
Boyhood (Scenes from Provincial Life #1)
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Coetzee has been among my favorite writers ever since I first ventured into his incredible range of work over twenty years ago. Age of Iron, The Master of Petersburg, and Disgrace rank among some of the most indelible and searing works of fiction I’ve ever experienced. Having read most of Coetzee’s work including his rarely-mentioned collections of profound essays, I have no good explanation for why I am only now reading his “autobiographies.�
Spanning three separate and rather short volumes, Boyhood is the first in the trilogy, and it is a formidable piece of autobiographical literature, at once confessional, solemn, melancholic, but also in strides funny. Coetzee indeed chronicles “scenes� from his childhood and adolescence, and he is most incisive with making a critical examination of his parents—a mother he both adored and found frustrating for her contradictions, and a father he both respected as a WWII veteran and resented for his alcoholism that induced seismic tremors within the family.
When remembering his experiences in school as a top-of-the-class student and his interactions with relatives, especially his joys of visiting his uncle’s farm out in the veld, he is masterfully observant with capturing details and moods. He is also adept with elaborating on a more philosophical and psychological level what his experiences and memories reveal about his childhood fears of death and his musings about the conundrum of his own existence.
Although Coetzee has a penchant for exploring the hardships of life, he shows he can be funny throughout his recollections, in particular with his “becoming� a Roman Catholic in a split-second after replying to a question that ends up impacting him at school. Even though Coetzee can make us smile, he is still more steady and assured with exploring the meaning of human struggle to endure and defy adversity. In recalling his own early years, Coetzee delivers an autobiography that is very good and entirely worthwhile, but not quite as brilliant as many of his acclaimed works of fiction.
Spanning three separate and rather short volumes, Boyhood is the first in the trilogy, and it is a formidable piece of autobiographical literature, at once confessional, solemn, melancholic, but also in strides funny. Coetzee indeed chronicles “scenes� from his childhood and adolescence, and he is most incisive with making a critical examination of his parents—a mother he both adored and found frustrating for her contradictions, and a father he both respected as a WWII veteran and resented for his alcoholism that induced seismic tremors within the family.
When remembering his experiences in school as a top-of-the-class student and his interactions with relatives, especially his joys of visiting his uncle’s farm out in the veld, he is masterfully observant with capturing details and moods. He is also adept with elaborating on a more philosophical and psychological level what his experiences and memories reveal about his childhood fears of death and his musings about the conundrum of his own existence.
Although Coetzee has a penchant for exploring the hardships of life, he shows he can be funny throughout his recollections, in particular with his “becoming� a Roman Catholic in a split-second after replying to a question that ends up impacting him at school. Even though Coetzee can make us smile, he is still more steady and assured with exploring the meaning of human struggle to endure and defy adversity. In recalling his own early years, Coetzee delivers an autobiography that is very good and entirely worthwhile, but not quite as brilliant as many of his acclaimed works of fiction.
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Reading Progress
September 12, 2023
– Shelved
September 12, 2023
– Shelved as:
non-fiction
September 13, 2023
–
Started Reading
September 15, 2023
–
Finished Reading
