8/6/2019 Global Micro the Me 5

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Alex Crouch

Global ConnectionsBoyhood Microtheme

Pg 96: He has two mothers. Twice-born: born from woman and born from the farm.

Two mothers and no father.

J. M. Coetzee gives us a glimpse into his childhood life growing up in South

Africa in his book, Boyhood. He gathers together a rather eclectic grouping of

memories and throws them all together into a book that carries an overtly negative

tone to it. There are so many things that are wrong in his young life from his self-

conscious image of himself, to the swirling emotions involving race, to his bizarre

family life. I thought that perhaps the most interesting of his problems were the

relationships that he had with his parents.

His fathers side of the family was a typical, polite family, while his mothers

family was strange and willing to jump into confrontation. For some reason Coetzee

never identified with his father as he did with his mother. Strangely enough,

Coetzee even admired many of the things his father had done like his exploits as a

cricket player, his service in the military, and his law education, and yet he always

found fault with his father. On the other hand, Coetzee loved his mother more than

anyone else despite having a very weird view of her. He found her views to be

extremely contradictory (which he thought was annoying) and he didnt even

respect her intelligence as he often called her dumb, and yet for some reason,

Coetzee loved his mother to death. She seemed to be the one force in life that kept

him grounded to the world. Even his love of the farm paled in comparison to his

love for his mother because his love was more an infatuation while his love for his

mother was unconditional. Sometimes love is a mysterious thing.