© Journal of Language and Literature, ISSN: 2078-0303, Vol. 4. No. 2. 2013 114 | www.ijar.lit.az/philology.php Sh. Neimneh. J.M. Coetzee and literary developments: the farm theme in Boyhood and Life and times of Michael K. Journal of Language and Literature 2013; 4(2), 114-120. DOI: 10.7813/jll.2013/4-2/16 J. M. COETZEE AND LITERARY DEVELOPMENTS: THE FARM THEME IN BOYHOOD AND LIFE AND TIMES OF MICHAEL K Dr. Shadi Neimneh Hashemite University (JORDAN) E-mails: shadin@hu.edu.jo, snaamneh@excite.com DOI: 10.7813/jll.2013/4-2/16 ABSTRACT A look at J. M. Coetzee’s fictionalized memoir Boyhood (1997) and his earlier novel Life and Times of Michael K (1983) reveals that the farm is one thematic and intertextual link. In both works, a South African Karoo farm is viewed as a site of freedom, belonging, abundance, fulfillment, and endurance. It is also seen as a pillar for identity formation and communing with nature. However, this particular theme the works share has been relatively ignored by Coetzee’s critics. More importantly, the way it functions in the works deserves special attention. In one tricky sense, the farm theme in the latter fictionalized memoir seems a natural development from the earlier novel, which was published in 1983, and Coetzee's rewriting of the plaasroman genre. In another—more convincing—sense, the experiences recounted in Boyhood seem essential for the depiction of the farm theme in Michael K because, regardless of the publication dates, Boyhood stages formative years in the life of the author as a boy and before the writing of Life and Times of Michael K. Thus, both works complicate the idea of literary developments in literature, specifically with relation to publication history and autobiography. In literature, thematic development is not bound by chronology. Rather, it is a matter of intertextuality, influence, and doubling. Key words: Farm Novel; Intertextuality; Literary Development; J. M. Coetzee; South African Fiction; Boyhood; Life and Times of Michael K; Comparative Literature Biographical Statement: Dr. Shadi Neimneh (pronounced “Na’amneh”) got his Ph.D. from Oklahoma University (USA) in 2011. He has published numerous articles in international journals in Canada, Australia, Britain, India, and the USA on the South African (Apartheid) literature of J. M. Coetzee and literary modernism. He has served as the Assistant Dean in the College of Arts at Hashemite University (HU) in 2012 and currently chairs the English Department as of January 2013. 1. INTRODUCTION: COETZEE AND AUTOBIOGRAPHY Boyhood (1997) and Youth (2002) are J. M. Coetzee’s fictionalized “biographies.” Coetzee uses third-person narration and present tense to trace the development of his protagonist, his alter ego, John Coetzee, from boyhood to youth and probe the formative impact of such years on the protagonist’s identity. Coetzee takes us, among other things, through his protagonist’s school years and childhood in Worcester and Cape Town, family upbringing, university years in Cape Town, life in London as a computer programmer, attempts at writing poetry, and failed love affairs. In Boyhood, in particular, we see Coetzee’s boy as a school student between the ages of ten and thirteen, struggling against the orbits of his mother’s influence and her stifling love and internalizing the shame of his family’s racist prejudice. Above all, we have a confessional account of a rural boyhood in the Karoo. In Youth, by contrast, we see Coetzee’s youth as a young man in his late teens and early twenties pursuing a university degree in English and Mathematics in Cape Town and then working as a programmer for IBM and International Computers in London while working on a Master’s thesis on Ford. It is in Boyhood, however, that the farm theme relevant here is treated. Readers of Coetzee’s biography can easily see the relevance of these two works to Coetzee’s life. What might be disturbing, nonetheless, is that Coetzee, often described as a shy, reticent figure, does not resort to past tense and first-person narration in these two works. Instead, he significantly uses present tense and third-person narration to recall his past as a lived experience in the present and fictionalize himself as an alien John Coetzee. Coetzee describes this distant or detached narrative technique, in an interview with David Attwell, as “autrebiography” (Doubling the Point 394). The