The Schooldays of Jesus by J.M. Coetzee
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Asking the Proper Questions

The relationship among the three protagonists in Coetzee’s story is mysterious. All three come from somewhere else. They are intimately connected and dependent upon one another; but their origins and histories are obscure. Although they comprise a family, it appears that each is genetically distinct. They are on the run, possibly for breaking a minor civil regulation. Although poor, they are sustained by the benevolence of community members. Among these is an apparent homicidal maniac who also may be a paedophile.

Like Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians , relevant background and motivations are left unsaid. Vagueness about purpose is purposefully part of the narrative. Consequently there are many ways to interpret the the interactions among Simon and Ines, the parental figures, and David, the young boy whom they care for. The title and biblical allusions to the Flight to Egypt and several figures from the Old Testament suggest a religious reading. Alternatively, the tale can be taken as a commentary on a fundamentally corrupt society that honours convention more than authentic morality. These interpretations may certainly be valid but I find them unsatisfying.

Coetzee hints at a different sort of interpretation entirely through his early reference to numbers and the relation between numbers and life in a sort of kabbalistic, speculative parable. His point seems to be deeply philosophical, perhaps spiritual, but not a matter of religion or political sociology. In this reading, the boy David is the number One, a singular, and singularly unique entity. As this fundamental number, he exists independently of his purported parents. In fact, he is the source of their existence, although they do not recognise him as such. David is elemental and will not be forced into some presumed role. According to his teacher, David is “integral,” that is: a self-sufficient whole. In fact, of course, he is the first integer from which all others emanate.

Ines, David’s purported mother, is the number Two. She contains David within her but she is not he (1+1=2). In fact she is the first prime number, that which is only evenly divisible by itself or by the number One. During the story, Ines becomes progressively distant from David. She has her own family life of siblings, other relatives, and friends. Although One might claim an affinity with Two, he cannot assert any rights as a prime number, and therefore as part of her family.*

Simon is the number Three. He is the protector of the One and the Two. He includes them in his life (1+2=3). But he too is unique and independent as the second prime number. Two is increasingly concerned to maintain her distance in terms of intimacy from Three. In a sense she is threatened by both One and Three - One because he might claim to be her progenitor (2 x 1=2); And Three because if he is stripped of One, he might become her (3-1=2).

These are not numbers as we typically know them, namely as signs for conducting practical tasks like counting or making change in the market. Those pedestrian numbers are part of “ant arithmetic.” They are sterile ciphers without life and which, therefore, have fixed meanings as if they were ordinary things. These ant-numbers make it appear that all numbers have a prosaically easy relationship with things, that in fact numbers are merely sets of things.** This is a misunderstanding. Real numbers come from elsewhere, from the stars, or heaven if you like. They are virtually mystical entities which can only be expressed adequately through activities like Sufi-esque dance.

One of Coetzee’s characters divides numbers into “noble ” and “auxiliary.” It seems likely that the noble numbers are primes (2,3,5,7,11,13,17...); auxiliaries are all the rest. All non-prime numbers are the sum of two primes, hence their priority (4=2+2, 6=3+3, 10=7+3...). They are the building blocks of the mathematical universe. Prime numbers are the general answer to the question ‘what should we ask about?’ in mathematics. The answer to all mathematical questions lie, in a sense at least, among the primes since they generate all other numbers.

Two and Three, as primes, lead on to the entire universe, and to an infinity of enormous families of numbers which have strange and intriguing relationships with each other (there is no highest prime number; more are always being discovered). All primes are odd; not only unique but also strange. During the story, David turns Seven, the fourth prime, a sign of maturity as well as superiority to his parents who even together only sum to Five, the third prime number. He also ‘dances down’ Seven in front of his father (and offers to dance the next prime of Eleven, but is told to stop). He can generate all the primes, and therefore all the numbers from within himself. They are all ultimately expressions of him. Neither his father nor mother can understand this, trapped as they are in their isolated noble/prime positions.

In short, numbers have a life of their own, each with its own characteristics, origins, and even temperaments. Numbers are very much like human beings; perhaps humans are a form of number (Or, conversely, number is a self-projection of what being human is). This could explain their odd behaviour. Some are intimately, even passionately, connected. Passions, like numbers, have a life of their own as well. These passions have unexpected, sometimes apparently irrational, consequences. No one knows how or why they exist; and, like prime numbers, we are likely to stumble upon them by accident.

Non-prime numbers lack something; they are defective in that they have more fundamental components. Non-primes are mundane in contrast to the primordial simplicity of the passionless primes. They are the ones that cause problems in the world. They passionately and constantly look for their prime components for completion. This passion for completion can’t be denied or derailed. It is inevitable. And it can be awkward. Then there is always the possibility that during the search for one’s components one encounters a Nought, the zero-negation of existence itself, a disaster for all numbers. Nought can never be forgiven; it can’t even forgive itself.

*One is not a prime number by accepted convention among mathematicians. Giving One that status would cause serious logical problems which are simply resolved by excluding it from consideration.

**Famously, Bertrand Russell and Alfred Whitehead attempted to demonstrate in the early 20th century that arithmetic could be derived from set theory. They failed. The reason for their failure, and indeed the impossibility of establishing any logical foundation for mathematics, was proven several decades later by Gödel.

Postscript: There is also an important theme of measurement which runs through the book. Coetzee alludes to the widespread misconception that measurement involves the assignment of numbers to things and events. This is part of the process through which mystical numbers are turned into sterile ant-numbers. The reality is exactly opposite: in measurement things and events are assigned places on various numeric scales, what one of Coetzee’s characters calls ‘metrons.’ The numbers are what are real; things and events only appear when they are placed on these eternal scales. See For further explanation: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

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