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Youth (or Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life II) (2002) is a semi-fictionalised autobiographical novel by J. M. Coetzee, recounting his struggles in 1960s London after fleeing the political unrest of Cape Town.
[edit] Plot summary
After graduating in mathematics and English, he moves in the hope of finding inspiration of becoming a poet and finding the woman of his dreams. However he finds none of this and instead, takes up a tedious job as a computer programmer. He feels alienated from the natives and never settles down, always aware of the scorn they see him with. He engages in a series of affairs, none of them fulfilling to him in the slightest. He scorns people's inabilities to see through his dull exterior into the 'flame' inside him; none of the women he meets evokes in him the passion that, accordingly to him, allows his artistry to flourish and thus produce great poetry.
[edit] External links
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Works by John Maxwell Coetzee |
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| Novels: |
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White Writing: On the Culture of Letters in South Africa (1988) · Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews (1992) · Giving Offense: Essays on Censorship (1996) · The Lives of Animals (1999) · Stranger Shores: Literary Essays, 1986–1999 (2001)
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