Reading between the lines

An absolutely brilliantly written book by Coetzee, this is a sequel to the book “Childhood of Jesus”. Set in a utopian land with strong socialist laws – guaranteed employment, lifelong learning opportunities, and you name it, it attempts to break open the cracks in even such a utopian society. As always, spoiler alerts. The main characters – Simon, Ines and David, have come to this strange land on a ship. They first come to a city called Novella in the first part of the sequel. It turns out David is not related to Simon or Ines, but Simon decides to look after the boy David and reunite him with his mother. David’s mother is not Ines, but in a manner similar to Simon, decides to play the role of mother to David. As they try to enroll David in school, they find that David is either autistic or has learning disabilities, and the authorities try to put him in a special school. This is when the imperfections in this utopian society begin to show. Until then, Simon and Ines were given jobs