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Young Adam

Alexander Trocchi

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Jan 14, 2019 Tony rated it liked it

Shelves: unreliable-narrator, crime, adapted-for-film, novels, onthewater, setting-uk-scotland

The Pete Best of the Beat generation, Trocchi ran with Ginsberg, Burroughs, et al, but never achieved their lasting fame. He paid the bills by writing pornographic works, but this brief novel--while certainly sexual--is cut of a different cloth, and is invariably compared to the Camus masterpiece "The Stranger". Written fifty years ago, the simple story is told by Joe, an itinerant worker who works on a barge that hauls coal and other loads between Glasgow and Edinburgh. He lives on board with t The Pete Best of the Beat generation, Trocchi ran with Ginsberg, Burroughs, et al, but never achieved their lasting fame. He paid the bills by writing pornographic works, but this brief novel--while certainly sexual--is cut of a different cloth, and is invariably compared to the Camus masterpiece "The Stranger". Written fifty years ago, the simple story is told by Joe, an itinerant worker who works on a barge that hauls coal and other loads between Glasgow and Edinburgh. He lives on board with the meaty ex-sailor, his solid wife Ella, and their child. The book opens with their discovery of a woman's corpse floating in the water, a woman who is somehow linked to Joe. After reporting it to the police, they continue on their way, and over the next several days Joe discovers that he is attracted to Ella. However, after the initial excitement of their affair it doesn't take long for him to become bored with her. Indeed, that's Joe's problem in general, as he states two-thirds of the way into the book: "It has always been that way with me as far as I can remember. I am a rootless kind of man. Often I find myself anxious to become involved with other people, but I am no sooner involved than I wish to be free again."

Of course, what that means is that he is unable or unwilling to form emotional attachments with people, and ends up hurting them in one way or another. As his and Ella's story wends to its obvious conclusion, a man is arrested for the murder of the floating woman. The tension mounts as Joe worries whether or not his relationship to her will come to light. In the end he is presented with a very difficult ethical choice and makes the same decision most of us would in his shoes. Indeed, for all his self-professed status as an outsider, he still works when he has to, and manages to act quite in line with the established patriarchal sexual modes. In perhaps the books most memorable scene, Joe recounts how an argument with a girlfriend led to his sexual assault of her using household food products ("I didn't know whether she was laughing or crying"), only to end with "I felt her arms close about me and she kissed me on the lips." By the end, it's a little hard to know what to make of the story, and it's not at all clear that Joe is a particularly reliable narrator. Of potential interest to those interested in expanding their knowledge of the beat writers or of modern Scottish literature, but unlikely to move others. Recently made into a film starring Ewan MacGregor that is reputed to be quite faithful to the book. ...more

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Feb 03, 2015 Jen marked it as to-read

Shelves: scotland

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