false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1165555483m/6200.jpg 6200 15 After the brooding, dark menace of his Booker Prize-winning novel <I>Disgrace</I>, J.M. Coetzee's <I>Youth</I> is a slighter, more restrained work. Written in succinct, almost cold prose, it's a painfully maudlin bildsrungsroman that explores the dreary follies of youth rather than its more celebrated joys. The unprepossessing protagonist John is a South African mathematics graduate with literary aspirations, a dreamer who constantly yearns to meet a girl who will serve as his lover and muse. Having abandoned Cape Town after Sharpeville he finds Swinging '60s London grey, damp, and uninviting. Reluctantly he finds employment as a computer programmer. In between trundling from his grimy Archway bedsit to his soulless job, this autodidactic Pooter dabbles on a study of Ford Maddox Ford, composes an Ezra Pound-inspired poem (ostentatiously entitled "The Portuguese Rock-Lobster Fisherman"), and embarks on "one humiliating affair after another." Despite his artistic and romantic endeavors, John seems only able to cultivate "dull, honest, misery" and, broken by London, flees to a new programming job in Berkshire. Here he practically renounces literature and, for a while at least, concentrates on chess problems and feeding primitive computers magnetic tape. His creative and sexual drives appear to have gone, leaving him to consider the possibility that he might actually have grown up. <p> Like the halting, self-interrogating consciousness of John's computers, Coetzee renders his character's inner life through a series of rhetorical questions. These lend the book a curiously existentialist air but also contribute to its slightly dilatory gait. (It feels far longer than its 170-odd pages.) Coetzee's tone is so laconic it's hard, on occasions, to be entirely certain if John's poetic ambitions should be pitied or simply laughed at. However, this novel does offer an unflinchingly acute dissection of the adolescent male psyche. <I>--Travis Elborough, Amazon.co.uk</I> 807241 2002 Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II total:511|5:118|4:191|3:148|2:46|1:8| 511 1898 748 45 5 1 false false Sun May 04 12:01:05 -0700 2008 Sun May 04 18:00:31 -0700 2008
I read this straight off in one afternoon, in a couple of long and delicious sittings, Satie playing in the background, cat in my lap. These scenes of Coetzee's formative years will interest writers a...more...]]> 4 1 false false Fri Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jun 09 03:25:03 -0700 2007 Mon Jun 11 08:20:54 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Mon Nov 02 08:57:19 -0800 2009 Wed Nov 04 10:09:41 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Nov 24 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Wed Nov 19 14:14:35 -0800 2008 Mon Nov 24 21:03:57 -0800 2008 more...]]> 2 0 false false Thu Jan 15 08:42:37 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 15 09:00:11 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Fri Jul 03 12:41:54 -0700 2009 Wed Jun 24 12:27:37 -0700 2009 Fri Jul 03 12:41:54 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat May 10 09:40:56 -0700 2008 Sat May 10 09:56:06 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Dec 08 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 02:16:56 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 02:41:14 -0800 2008 once
All in all it was a good book, but I w...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat May 24 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon May 19 09:16:00 -0700 2008 Sat May 24 12:28:39 -0700 2008 Youth is difficult to explain, but at the same time it is also extremely eye-opening. The work is short, but it seems to throughly explain the several years of the main character's life. Youth does not rely on explaining what the main character does, but rather what he fails to accomplish...more...]]> 4 0 false false Sun Jan 11 10:38:30 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 11 10:40:25 -0800 2009 2 1 false false Sat Sep 20 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 19:59:29 -0700 2008 Sat Sep 20 20:13:44 -0700 2008 1 more...]]> 5 0 false false Fri Dec 01 00:00:00 -0800 2006 Sat Jan 19 13:47:43 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 19 13:54:01 -0800 2008
"of course in his heart he knows destiny will not visit him unless he makes her do so. he has to sit down and write, that is the only way. but he cannot begin writing until the moment is right, and no ma...more...]]> 4 0 false false Tue Sep 15 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 07:12:02 -0700 2009 Mon Oct 05 07:14:00 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jan 12 02:36:43 -0800 2009 Sat May 16 13:15:15 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Mon Jun 04 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Nov 03 11:03:24 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 11:31:34 -0800 2009 here on my book blog.

Available at Teton County Library, F COETZEE]]> 5 0 false false Thu May 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sun Jan 04 00:57:02 -0800 2009 Sun Jan 04 00:58:15 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Thu Jan 01 09:27:29 -0800 2009 Thu Jan 01 09:29:41 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Sun Dec 17 14:50:43 -0800 2006 Sun Dec 17 14:55:36 -0800 2006
I found Youth to be rather depressing. The main character is a computer programmer who comes to London to escape 1950s South Africa. Totally alienat...more...]]> 2 0 false false Sun Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Thu Apr 09 16:56:49 -0700 2009 Thu Apr 09 16:57:23 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 01:43:27 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 28 01:44:47 -0800 2009 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=6200