| Title | : | Youth |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0142002003 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780142002001 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 176 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2002 |
Youth Reviews
-
Ehum…
Well…
What can I say? This is the tenth novel (or so, I just made a quick calculation in my head) by Coetzee that I have read, and it leaves me puzzled in a way that the others do not, even though they may be less approachable, more brutal and enigmatic. This one is clear-cut, with simple language and a typical coming-of-age plot. It is very easy to read, and in fact, I finished it in an afternoon. But it has left me agonising over its content in a way I did not anticipate at all.
There are autobiographical elements in the story of the young man who leaves Cape Town in 1962 to start a new life in London. The character is called John, and aspires to become a poet, or writer in general, while trying to fit in by taking a job as a computer programmer. So far, so good. It is the search of the poet for the right modus vivendi to develop his creativity.
Where is the problem?
I absolutely loathed the main character. There is no other way to describe what I felt, page after page, digging deeper into his psyche filled with pretentious nothingness and arrogance. This makes me wonder what the character meant to the author. Does he reflect Coetzee’s own development? If so, there is a huge amount of prejudice and misogyny in his world view, almost painfully evident in every sentence. Or is it a critical analysis of the mindset of the early 1960s, showing the reality of that time ruthlessly in order to make a subtle statement on the era without embracing those attitudes in 2002, when the novel was published?
I don’t know.
Apart from the problematic relationship of 1960s South Africa to the rest of the world, I was appalled by the stereotypical description of women from Provence, London, small towns in England or Sweden.
“Spiritually, he would feel at home in Stockholm, he suspects. But what about Swedish?”
I hate when people assume by hearsay that they know exactly what Sweden is like, and what they can expect of it. There seems to be a consensus in the world how to categorise Swedes, and the general common denominator between the analysts is that they have never lived in Sweden or talked to a Swede, or read a Swedish author. Yet, they “spiritually” identify with Stockholm.
Swedish women, of course, are useful to young poets-in-the-making with patriarchal instincts and ancient attitudes towards women’s roles as muses and sexual objects:
“Because they are creators, artists possess the secret of love. The fire that burns in artists is visible to women, by means of an instinctive faculty. Women themselves do not have the sacred fire (there are exceptions: Sappho, Emily Bronte). It is in quest of the fire they lack, the fire of love, that women pursue artists and give themselves to them.”
Good artists can hope for Swedish or French muses, while boring poets have to take a local girl, a pert little something from the countryside…
Judging by the butcher approach of the main character when it comes to all encounters with women, he does not have the creative spark himself, despite his conviction to the contrary.
He is literally caught between two worlds: the respectable middle class and the bohemian artist life, and he is equally hopeless in both:
“The right thing is boring. So he is at an impasse: he would rather be bad than boring [note from the furious reviewer: he is BOTH!], has no respect for a person who would rather be bad than boring, and no respect either for the cleverness of being able to put his dilemma neatly into words.”
No respect for anything might be a good summary of the character’s mindset. The outside world only exists to deliver what he needs to fulfil his literary destiny. He offers nothing in return.
Leaves me to form a judgment on the novel. Clearly Mr Coetzee himself is spiritually at home in Stockholm, as he received the Nobel Prize in Literature from the Swedish Academy in 2003, shortly after he wrote this novel. Clearly he has a sharp analytical mind and is able to describe an abject character objectively without raising an eyebrow. The story as such is compelling, and most definitely a mirror of what many young men in 1962 would have thought or done.
It does take a master storyteller to create a portrait of such a man and get the reader to feel so strongly against him, and still want to read on.
I will have to reread my Coetzee collection again in order to make a proper evaluation of why I can’t make up my mind about this one.
The jury is still out. Not expected back anytime soon. -
RITRATTO DELL’ARTISTA DA GIOVANE
Nel costante gioco di rimandi nel quale Coetzee trasforma la sua narrativa, talvolta spingendosi al confine della metaletteratura (penso per esempio a La vita degli animali), qui il protagonista si chiama John proprio come l’autore, e fa cose molto simili negli stessi posti e negli stessi anni in cui le ha fatte Coetzee.
Gioventù, che prosegue il racconto e la biografia di John iniziati con Infanzia, è una vera autobiografia nascosta dietro una finta biografia.
È un romanzo. Bello, molto bello come tutti quelli di J. M. Coetzee che ho letto (oltre al Nobel, due Booker Prize).
Piccadilly Circus 1963.
E quindi, dopo aver visto crescere John in Sudafrica nel primo capitolo (nel primo romanzo), potremmo definire questo nuovo capitolo (romanzo), il ritratto dell’artista da giovane.
John lascia il Sudafrica e va a cercare fortuna in Inghilterra, a Londra, dove la lingua parlata è la stessa con la quale lui è cresciuto.
John capisce presto che il Sudafrica è asfittico, almeno per le sue mire: gli serve l’Europa. E in fondo ogni uomo è un’isola; non c’è bisogno dei genitori.
Trafalgar Square e Northmberland Ave. 1962.
Solo che l’isola dove approda, è fredda e inospitale - l’eredità che si porta sulle spalle, il suo paese d’origine che ha scelto l’apartheid, che vive nel razzismo, gli suscita vergogna e imbarazzo, e forse anche gli inglesi lo guardano in modo strano proprio in quanto sudafricano - fare lo scrittore o il poeta come vorrebbe non è così semplice, bisognerebbe se non altro cominciare a scrivere veramente, a farlo sul serio, non solo a progettarlo e pensarlo, trastullarsi con l’idea.
John finisce a fare proprio quello che non voleva, quello che temeva: lavorare per una multinazionale dell’elettronica (programmatore di computer all’IBM).
John è un giovane che se la cava meglio con i test, quiz ed esami che con la vita vera. Forse proprio per questo s’è laureato in matematica.
Ma avendo problemi con la vita vera, è facile immaginare che sarà tendenzialmente un solitario, una persona schiva: e infatti non si può dire che gli anni londinesi allarghino il giro dei suoi affetti.
Conosce donne, ma non la donna eccezionale che sperava.
In effetti, non è che i suoi rapporti con le donne siano splendidi, quanto piuttosto sbrigativi: John è un amante mediocre che sembra non rendersi conto che la verginità è anche un fatto fisico, e costringe ad abortire una ragazza senza neppure chiederle se sia d’accordo.
Conosce gente, ma lega relativamente. In compenso Ezra Pound, la Bachmann, Brecht, Enzensberger, e il “Vangelo secondo Matteo” di Pasolini lo sconvolgono, e scaldano, e sostanzialmente gli fanno più compagnia di tutti quelli che conosce.
Whitehall 1962.
L’isola inglese è un’isola nel senso letterale del termine, molto poco accogliente:
Come può qualcuno in Inghilterra capire cosa porta le persone dagli angoli più remoti della terra a morire su un'isola umida e avvilente, che detestano e con la quale non hanno nessun legame?... Mese dopo mese, il governo dà un giro di vite alle leggi sull'immigrazione. Gli antillani vengono fermati sui moli di Liverpool, trattenuti finché non sono proprio disperati, quindi rispediti indietro. Se non lo fanno sentire così manifestamente indesiderato come loro, è solo per la sua colorazione protettiva: il completo giacca e pantaloni di Moss Brothers, la pelle chiara.
Trafalgar Square 1962.
Coetzee prende le distanze da John, usa la terza persona invece di un più immediato io narrante: si allontana dal suo personaggio, si guarda da fuori, anche se la vita del John sulla carta è assai simile a quella che ha vissuto il John che scrive (Coetzee ha effettivamente vissuto a Londra dal 1962 al 1965 facendo esattamente il programmatore, prima per l’IBM e poi l’ICT. Dopo di che credo si sia trasferito negli States). Da matematico, vero o finto che sia, Coetzee sceglie il suo tipico linguaggio secco, tagliato e tagliente, freddo, lucido, spietato, non risparmia nulla al suo John, né a se stesso.
Charing Cross Pier 1963. -
*edited on 28.04.19
Normal people, when they feel badness flare up within them, drink, swear, commit violence. Badness to them like a fever: they want it out of their system, they want to go back to being normal. But artists have to live with their fever, whatever its nature, good or bad. The fever is what makes them artists; the fever must be kept alive. That is why artists can never be wholly present to the world: one eye has always to be turned inward
Is darkness quintessential for a writer to be great? For misery and darkness provide food to the part of consciousness where creative muscles flex them. Is misery necessary to wrench heart of an author so much so that he feels as if insanity takes over him and to get rid of the insanity he needs to express himself and that’s how literature takes birth, one express oneself to get rid of insanity in life. The naïve words must pass through furnace of personal tragedy wherein there are processed to form condensed sentences which are potent to enough to express what the author has to say to his readers. Are all these pretensions, under the sheath of which an abominable, misogynist young man conceals his pompousness? Does an author want to say anything to his reader? Perhaps not. For he is just expressing the turmoil he feels in consciousness, though he may choose different ways to do it- sometimes words are simply used to render the tumult and turbulence he might be going through while sometimes words are deftly used to concoct an escapade which may indirectly covey his thoughts. And that’s how new art movements have taken birth in the realm of literature. Do words exist on their own- their being represents an authentic existence and do not require reference- without the authors? Structuralists might say they do but then post-structuralists might come upon fiercely and repudiate it. Youth is perhaps one of the most important phases of life- for it marks one’s outbreak to the world. The exuberance of youth makes you feel that there is no such thing in life which is not possible; you may conquer the whole world as if you’ve dawned on earth for it.
Misery is his element. He is at home in misery like a fish in water. If misery were to be abolished, he would not know what to do with himself.
There exist a few authors who have masterly fused their personal experiences with elements of fiction to bring up great creations of art built upon tightly woven narrative- Coetzee is one of them. The book has got all traits and logic of fiction - Coetzee creates a believable world and allows autonomous creations to move freely in it. In fact, Youth is less a work of imagination than a stylized memoir, in which Coetzee revisits the humiliation and struggle of his early years as a restless student in London.
John, a young man with lofty literary aspirations through a mathematics degree, a move from a politically unstable South Africa to London where he works towards a Masters degree in literature and begins work as a computer programmer. It is torturous tale which is hallmark of youth- the desire for glory, for greatness, for artistic achievement and admiration without the tedious work of application; as we see normally happens- aspirations of people are built on shallow buildings of disregard, inaction and passivity which is shredded to ruin of wishful cravings as soon as quivering of reality struck.
Coetzee picks up John and the story moves on in third person narrative in present tense which gives it somewhat surreal touch. The reader is being taken up into dark recesses of consciousness which constitutes our hero or rather anti-hero- John; wherein the reader is thrown into the abominable soup of disregard, misogyny, self-obsession, prejudice, out of which a sharp mirror, which tears apart imaginary artistic tarpaulin of John by profound beams of truth, emerges for him to reflect upon his guilt and shame. He has several lovers- or should we say infatuations and he writes an awful lot of verse, scarcely any of which we ever see. Coetzee here maintains a measured distance from the reader in which everything is told and relayed through the thick filter of John’s thoughts. Almost all people, whom John meets, act just as objects for achievement of his poetic greatness, as if all those do not have voice of their own, their existence is endowed upon the mercy of John.
In a perfect world he would sleep only with perfect women, women of perfect femininity yet with a certain darkness at their core that will respond to his own darker self.
Coetzee’s greatness lies in the fact that under the calm veneer of anecdotal narrative of a self- absorbed young man he surreptitiously embark upon a tornedo of turmoil in the background of racism, civil war and guilt. There is the Sharpeville massacre in South Africa, protest marches, the Cold War, and the prelude to the Vietnam war. At one point, John even writes to the Chinese Embassy in London offering to teach English in China in an attempt to engage himself in something, which emanates a feeling from his heart to do something positive. Africa remains pretty much an unhealed wound in the consciousness of John throughout the story- he is being constantly torn between his cravings about money oriented west world and his inability to do something purposeful which gives birth to guilt and shame.
The pass laws to which Africans and Africans alone are subjected are being tightened even further, and protests are breaking out everywhere. In the Transvaal the police fire shots into a crowd, then, in their mad way, go on firing into backs of fleeing men, women and children.
He knows his mother’s opinions. She thinks South Africa is misunderstood by the world. Blacks in South Africa are better off than anywhere else in Africa. The strikes and protests are fomented by communist agitators. As for farm labourers who are paid their wages in the form of mealie-meal and have to dress their children in jute bags against the winter cold, his mother concedes that this is a disgrace. But such things happen only in Transvaal. It is the Afrikaners of the Transvaal, with their sullen hatreds and their hard hearts, who give the country such a bad name.
This is my very first encounter with Coetzee but sufficiently convinced me that he is a writer of deep intelligence which is built upon closely inter woven threads of symbolism and allegory. I find his prose somewhat similar to that of Kafka wherein his characters do not follow any moral standards and there is only thing they follow and this to exist, and perhaps in isolation. As if they are being thrown into this cruel world of purposelessness by the very first crime of the life and which is birth itelf. The prose of Coetzee reminds me of Beckett as his style is built upon concise, condensed sentences (which looks like a perfectly tuned musical note, for if you go slightly lower you may not enjoy it, if you go slightly higher it may sound coarse) formed out of concentrated meditation about the narrative, like minimalism of Beckett. We may say that Coetzee's student, is sustained by immortal longings but for whom truth and beauty are always tantalizingly elsewhere.
4/5
-
Youth (Scenes from Provincial Life #2), J.M. Coetzee
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. The story begins with the narrator living in Mowbray and studying at the University of Cape Town. After graduating in mathematics and English and in the wake of the Sharpeville massacre he moves to London 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 working for IBM his work including checking punched cards submitted to an IBM 7090 for the TSR-2 project. He seeks refuge in the Third Programme and cinema, falling in love with Monica Vitti. 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, according to him, would allow his artistry to flourish and thus produce great poetry. By the end of the book he is working for International Computers on the Atlas project.
عنوانها: جوانی؛ دوران جوانی؛ تاریخ نخستین خوانش: بیست و نهم ماه اکتبر سال 2008 میلادی
عنوان: جوانی - سه گانه صحنه هایی از زندگی شهرستان - کتاب دوم؛ نویسنده: جی.ام. (جان مکسول) کوتسی؛ مترجم: محمدحسن سجودی؛ تهران، افکار، 1385، در 176 ص؛ شابک: 9648910405؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان افریقایی انگلیسی و برنده جایزه نوبل - قرن 21 م
عنوان: دوران جوانی؛ مترجم: محمدرضا رضایی هنجنی؛ تهران، البرز، 1384؛ در 290 ص؛ شابک: ایکس - 964442459؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان افریقایی انگلیسی - قرن 20 م
جی.ام كوتسی نویسنده ی اهل آفریقای جنوبی كه برنده ی جایزهی نوبل ادبیات 2003 میلادی ست، در زندگینامه ی خودنوشتش از روزگار جوانی و ایام تحصیل و دغدغه های دوران دانشگاه میگوید. از كتابهایی كه میخوانده، نویسنده هایی كه میپسندیده و الگوی ایشان بوده اند، وسوسه های جامعیت و آموختن همه چیز از ریاضی و كامپیوتر گرفته تا شاخه های مختلف هنر و علوم انسانی، از شوق دشوار آموختن چند زبان بزرگ دنیا و مصائب نویسنده شدن. در این نوشته هم سرگردانی او و هم هدف مشخصش را میتوان دید. ا. شربیانی -
This is very good, and I highly recommend it. It is autobiographical fiction. That one is not always sure what is fact and what is fiction didn’t bother me in the least—what we are delivered all the way through are Coetzee’s views. The details may be off, but they are not the essential. How he reasons and thinks, that is what is important, and it is this that we come to understand.
As the title indicates we observe Coetzee’s youth. We start when he is nineteen and we follow him through his twenties, i.e. the 1960s. What is happening in both South Africa and on the world stage set background events. We see Coetzee’s as a mathematician, teacher, computer programmer working at IBM and for a British competitor. This is during the Cold War and the Cuban Crisis. We see him as a writer, as a poet as a lover.
The art of writing was for me the book’s central theme, what intrigued me most. We watch how he grows into his role as an artist of words. I love reading. His analysis of authors I have read captivated me. He speaks, for example, of
Ezra Pound,
Samuel Beckett,
Henry James,
T.S. Elliot and
Ford Madox Ford. I now want to read
The Good Soldier: A Tale Of Passion and
Parade's End, the books by Ford he most highly recommends.
I am glad to have read
Nelson Mandela’s autobiography A Long Walk to Freedom. It has given me a firm base to stand on. The knowledge learned from one book helps you get a better grip on another.
Experiences in one’s own life enhance one’s ability to see new ways of thinking. The sentences in this book leave you thinking. One cannot help but take his thoughts, evaluate them and compare them to your own. See the following quotes:
*”He believes in passionate love and its power to transfigure.”
*“Some of us are not built for fun.”
*“I ought to be happy.”
*“He is used to not understanding.”
*“To be dogged is essential in both love and art.”
Both Coetzee and I appreciate sparse prose. The writing is excellent and gives readers food for thought. These are qualities I look for in a book.
The author’s views on the value of manual labor fit my own.
I got a kick out of how efficiency is built into computer models. I could not help but compare this to how my daughter instinctively thinks. Do you see how my mind analyzes, how I turn the book’s content this way and that and reformulate it in my own way?! The comparison left me smiling.
William Gaminara narrates the audiobook very well. You have time to think, and the words are spoken clearly. The narration I have given four stars.
I liked this so very much that I have chosen to immediately read the next book in the series--
Summertime. See this as a vote of confidence. I am enjoying it, although its style is quite different. Ironical humor comes to the fore. It is good that the books are different; you don’t get a repeat; you don’t get bored.
************************
*
Boyhood: Scenes from Provincial Life 4 stars
*
Youth 4 stars
*
Summertime reading now
*
Age of Iron 4 stars
*
Waiting for the Barbarians 5 stars
*
Disgrace 3 stars
*
The Master of Petersburg 3 stars -
This is really a portrait of an artist as a young man (pun intended). The stupid motivational speakers make it sound too easy - when they ask one to chose between passion and money as one's career goal. Money here sounds some kind of luxury which one can live without. But really, money is what is going to pay the bills. And pursuit of arts almost always have a big gestation period before it earns one money. And the artist must struggle in poverty in meantime - may be live as a financially dependent. John struggles to maintain a balance between what he does to earn and pursuit of his own art. The choice he has is between being a bored programmer or a starving artist. And he finds himself gradually tilting towards the last.
Like any young artist, he is visited by doubts - how come he hasn't written anything great yet? Is he a failure then? It is this eternal wait for some muse to take petty on him which forms the main theme of novel.
Meanwhile he is also young man - and feels frustrated like any young person who is learning to see the world for what it is and not finding it in anyway the bed of roses it was supposed to be. Plus like any young man, he grumbles at problem if getting sex regularly. In fact, that is one of the attractions of being an artist. The women are supposed to just fell in love with and quarrel to be taken by one. So sad, it doesn't seem to happen.
Plus John's conscience is troubled by the political evil around him and, to which, he steadily seems to be contributing more and more - of unwillingly made to contribute to cold war, of politics in Africa etc.
There is so much to relate in this novel. Unfortunately, this wait for muse is such a passive thing and so the novel lacks action. There is trouble of memoirs shaped into novels - so often they are chaotic like real life and lacks necessary symmetry to make a good novel. What is more Coetzee seems too harsh on himself (or the protagonist) - so often the narrative seems to laughing at the protagonist. While once can easily find so many faults with John, the music of inspiration which drives himself seems to have been killed by the cynic narrative. -
”... al centro delle poesie c’è lui stesso – intrappolato, solo, infelice...”
[Forse era meglio non sapere...]
Forse, quando nutriamo grande passione per uno scrittore, non dovremmo sollecitare la curiosità per il suo privato leggendo biografie e/o autobiografie.
Ho letto spesso commenti ai romanzi dello scrittore sudafricano J.M. Coetzee, che lamentavano una scrittura fredda, una mancanza di calore.
Leggendo “Gioventù...”, non solo possiamo inquadrare la personalità algida dell’autore ma ne abbiamo, addirittura, una piena consapevolezza ed ammissione.
Dopo aver affrontato in “Infanzia” i primi anni (dai 9 ai 13 circa) della sua vita sudafricana, qui troviamo un ragazzo più cresciuto fisicamente (dai 19 ai 24 circa) ma con paure, debolezze ed insicurezze ancora molto infantili.
Scritto sempre in terza persona come a prendere le distanze da se stesso, ci racconta gli anni universitari e le prime esperienze nel mondo del lavoro spostandosi dal Sud Africa alla Gran Bretagna.
Il gelido distacco con cui scrive è fastidioso e non solo per l’estraniazione da se stesso ma per le frasi secche, perentorie che, spesso, danno quasi l’idea di un mero elenco di azioni.
Coetzee, futuro vincitore del Premio Nobel per la Letteratura (2003) è un giovane matematico che troverà impiego nella nascente industria informatica inglese come programmatore.
In segreto, però sogna di diventare un poeta e di trovare la Donna Ideale.
Il suo disprezzo per l’immagine dello sregolato artista bohémien lo porta ad abbracciare uno stile di vita strettamente regolato.
Seguendo l’idea che per generare Arte si debba soffrire decide di sopportare un’opprimente vita di ufficio dove si reca ogni giorno costretto nel suo completo di flanella.
Sono gli anni ’60, la guerra fredda e i cambiamenti sociali in vista non scalfiscono la sua determinazione a prendere le distanze da tutto ciò che è anche solo vagamente politico:
” Solo l’amore e l’arte sono, secondo lui, degni di dedizione assoluta.”
Incastrato dietro ad una scrivania vive la vergogna del retaggio sudafricano, cerca di annullare di ogni legame con la sua terra e soprattutto con il soffocante amore della madre.
Per almeno metà libro mi sono ripetuta che «forse era meglio non sapere.» perché io, che sto a centellinare la lettura dei suoi romanzi per assorbirne con calma ogni fibra, non avrei voluto prendermi carico della sua mancanza di calore, della sua legnosità, del suo fuggire di fronte ai problemi sociali, e, soprattutto non avrei voluto sapere di come, spesso e volentieri abbia usato le donne con comportamenti disgustosi...
Arrivata, tuttavia, a metà lettura ho avuto un momento d’improvvisa lucidità (?).
Sono riuscita anch’io a distanziarmi e a vedere questo giovane ragazzo per quello che era:
incastrato tra un passato che lo metteva fortemente a disagio, solo, con un senso dell’autostima distorto, con una mancanza di visione completa.
Un qualsiasi John, un ragazzo, in lotta con se stesso e in cerca della sua strada per diventare adulto.
” C’è un altro modo, ancor piú brutale, di dire la stessa cosa. In realtà, ci sono centinaia di modi: potrebbe passare il resto della vita a elencarli. Ma il modo piú brutale è dire che ha paura: paura di scrivere, paura delle donne. “ -
The reluctant, inwardly drawn, conscience-stricken 10-year-old from Boyhood returns as a prudish and insecure young man who dreams of being a great artist. As a 19-year-old Mathematics student in a South African university, John is leading an extraordinarily practical life – making cheese with left-over milk and working hard at multiple jobs during vacations – to escape the deterioration of South Africa (like Stephen Dedalus wants to cut all ties from Ireland) and find his way as a poet in London. But his inherently cautious and rule-abiding nature doesn’t let him get soaked in the experiences that a city like London offers. Stuck in a soul-sucking day job as a computer programmer which provides him financial independence, he is lonely and miserable, with no outlet for his creative expression.
This is a fictionalized autobiography of J.M. Coetzee and he has been relentless and perhaps remarkably truthful in the examination of his youth, his ideals, and more importantly his inadequacies. John desires freedom from the traps of his family (especially his mother), his country, and the “provincial culture” – all of which he considers embarrassing. But he is never able to extricate himself from this “trap”; he is torn between his South African and English identities. Like most of his works, the apartheid in South Africa and its social and economic implications form the backdrop of life there. When he runs away to London, he wishes for acceptance but experiences social snubbing and alienation in the stony frigidity of the European capital. The solitude he craves slowly turns into isolation. As he undergoes this misery, he tries to believe that the agony and darkness which fill his days are the rites of passage to be a great writer and he would channel them in his work.
John is not particularly likable; he is cold, indifferent, and too proud of his artistic temperament. In all his associations with others, he wants his inner artistic flame to be acknowledged. He waits for his “destined woman” to reveal herself – only an exceptional girl who is his equal in all ways and is attracted to the creative fire within his dull exterior. This torrid, life-altering passion will consume him and bring out the great artist in him. In the meanwhile, he looks at women as objects of desire and sometimes even as obstacles to art. In his interactions with these women, he is immature and insensitive. He has a string of meaningless affairs where his attempts are half-hearted and passive; he is ashamed about his failure as a lover which, for him, also translates to his failure as an artist. Outwardly, he dismisses exhibitions of vulnerability, but deep down he knows he is a child incapable of handling what life is throwing at him.
This book has 160-odd pages, but I took time to read it, partially because I kept going back to the restrained writing and the simple sentences which are chosen with so much care and precision; this artful economy brings out the complexity inherent in Coetzee’s work. I’m sure I will pick it up again in 2021. -
"هذا الوضع يصيبه بالغثيان والاشمئزاز من بدايته إلى نهايته، فالقوانين في حد ذاتها، ورجال الشرطة المجرمون، والحكومة التي تدافع علنًا عن القتلة وتندد بقتلى التظاهرات، والصحافة التي تخشى أن تقول الحق أو تصف ما يمكن أن يراه كل ذي عينين".
-
Ah, to be welcomed back into the eloquent polished sheen of Coetzee’s prose. So quickly I join the young man leaving the smothering mother’s grasp, himself now grasping to evolve into the blossom of poetry. From South Africa to London where culture thrives and he sees himself entering.
What he finds is a wait. He awaits. Waiting is what he does. His performance. A woman will notice him and see all the magic of his creativity locked within his stiff posture and muffled gestures. She will unlock what he knows is there but is knotted.
The knot cinched tight consists of strands of webbing. He has cultured the art of self criticism locking himself in while locking others out. This leaves him protected but passive. In effect keeping himself safe by keeping others out. He is a pro. No one enters justifying his beliefs of self criticism completing the circle of his diving further down into his passive withdrawal.
I couldn’t wait to follow Coetzee removing strand by strand, the ups and downs, John staging the battle to free himself. But…But…But… it didn’t happen. A set piece. A concert where the same note is played over and over again, at the end no one sure whether to stand and applaud or walk out. I found the aisle and walked out. John continued in his self constructed rut. This short novel gave the experience of what it is like to be trapped by one’s own undoing but nothing more. The fact that our protagonist has the same name as the author, for me now looking back, shows Coetzee’s own battle writing this piece. The piece becoming a piece about itself? -
«Anche lui è capace di essere focoso, non ha smesso di crederlo. Ma per il momento, per questo indefinito momento, lui è freddo: freddo, gelido».
Cosa può interessare nei migliori libri di Coetzee (come questo), storie in cui l'io dichiara come se niente fosse che “nella vita vera sa fare solo una cosa a quanto pare: essere infelice”?
Forse l’implacabilità a non trovare una forma, a riluttare, e rendersi disturbante, senza estro e suo malgrado.
Gioventù (2002) ripercorre la vita di Coetzee dai 19 ai 24 anni, scritto in terza persona anima un personaggio dai tratti originali che non è più lui più di quanto si sforzi di risuscitare. Un ragazzo che vive a Città del Capo, studia matematica e dopo la laurea si trasferisce a Londra come programmatore all'IBM. Un essere flemmatico che dichiara che non sa che farsene della felicità, dovrebbe andare in analisi ma sta bene nella sua infelicità, gli permette di votarsi all’arte, anche se non ha ancora capito se ha o non ha un briciolo di inclinazione all’arte stessa. E legge smodatamente, pensa, guarda film, si innamora di Monica Vitti ne “L’Eclisse”, quando lei vaga perdutamente per Palermo sotto un sole rovente. Va a letto con una donna più grande di lui, più sofisticata, più intelligente, sa che lui per lei è uno sfizio, sa che non la soddisferà, sa che se non è soddisfatto l’uomo non lo sarà neppure la donna. Come non è soddisfatto degli autori che legge, verso i quali si affeziona e si disaffeziona sbadatamente, allo stesso modo si smidolla, si sbriciola, tra le braccia di una donna; che dovrebbe amarlo per la sua non amabilità, che non sa dire egli stesso se sia una posa o una iattura?
Libro apparentemente arido, dal ritmo rapido e monotono, frasi brevi, asciutte, come la figura dello scrittore stesso. Un osservare la sua vita in terza persona. Un uomo che non sa diventarlo, che teme di perdere quel barlume di fremito che sente dentro nell'imminenza dell'età adulta, alla quale non crede. Crede che l'età adulta non sia tanto diversa dalla giovinezza, e forse non esiste è un trucco, si restringono soltanto le velleità, il Tutto diventa un tutto. E lui non vuole ciò, sotto sotto arde, anche se sembra arrendevole e irritante per la sua perdurante, quasi stilizzata, malinconia senza approdo.
Ha solo 24 anni, tuttavia.
Coetzee è uno dei grandi scrittori viventi, grande che non accende le folle, come un Kafka cento anni dopo. Questo libro va letto insieme allo splendido e successivo, “Tempo d’estate” (2009), in cui Coetzee immagina di essere morto e la sua figura viene ricostruita attraverso le interviste che un ricercatore (che sta scrivendo un libro su Coetzee stesso) colleziona, spesso sono donne a parlare, viene fuori il ritratto di un uomo, trentenne, che non ha nulla del valore che in seguito la società gli attribuirà, un uomo senza talento, uno Zeno nato in Sud Africa, bianco, di lingua inglese, attivo che sembra inattivo. La bravura di Coetzee è quella del romanzo stesso mentre ci mostra che un romanzo è la spiegazione scritta di come non si possa arrivare a conoscere una persona se non per blitz casuali. -
From the book cover:
Set against the background of the 1960's - Sharpeville and the Cuban Missile Crisis, Vietnam - Youth is a remarkable portrait of a consciousness, isolated and adrift, turning in on itself. J.M Coetzee explores a young man's struggle to find his way in the world with tenderness and a fierce clarity.
Hmmm.
When I first started reading this book my first thought was, Dawsons Creek, with aspergers set in the 1960's. To much youthful angst and introverted navel gazing highlighted by a tumult of excessive adjectives to describe every thought, every hope, every breath, every aspiration (see what i did there?).
Youth is a study of a man who spends too much time believing that he was destined for better things and over analysing the fact that instead of being born as the 1960's answer Voltaire or Flaubert, he is in fact a computer programmer. A wordy testament to the fact that as we get older most of us realise that we are not going to set the world on fire and get on with simply living.The last four lines of the book were a great summary. Not convinced it deserved a place on the 1001 books list and I've since read other Coetzee books which I liked a lot more. -
"She writes every week but he does not write every week in return. That would be too much like
reciprocation."
"He has a horror of spilling mere emotion on to the page. Once it has begun to spill out he would not know how to stop it. It would be like severing an artery and watching one's lifeblood gush out."
"They might as well get married, he and Astrid, then spend the rest of their lives looking after each other like invalids."
"He is chagrined to see how well the reality principle operates, how, under the prod of loneliness, the boy with spots settles for the girl with the dull hair and the heavy legs, how everyone, no matter how unlikely, finds, in the end, a partner."
"Without descending into the depths one cannot be an artist. But what exactly are the depths? He had thought that trudging down icy streets, his heart numb with loneliness, was the depths. But perhaps the real depths are different, and come in unexpected form: in a flare-up of nastiness against a girl in the early hours of the morning, for instance. Perhaps the depths that he has wanted to plumb have been within him all the time, closed up in his chest: depths of coldness, callousness, caddishness."
"Sorry: the word comes heavily out of his mouth, like a stone. Does a single word of indeterminate class count as speech? Has what occurred between himself and the old man been an instance of human contact, or is it better described as mere social interaction, like the touching of feelers between ants? To the old man, certainly, it was nothing. All day long the old man stands there with his stacks of papers, muttering angrily to himself; he is always waiting for a chance to abuse some passer-by. Whereas in his own case the memory of that single words will persist for weeks, perhaps for the rest of his life. Bumping into people, saying “Sorry!”, getting abused: a ruse, a cheap way of forcing a conversation. How to trick loneliness."
"What is wrong with him is that he is not prepared to fail." -
Seguito di Infanzia, Coetzee in questa opera prosegue l'autobiografia scritta in terza persona. Anche qui lo scrittore espone senza nessun ritegno le parti più recondite dei suoi pensieri e dei suoi sentimenti. Si sdraia sul tavolo d'acciaio dell'anatomopatologo e procede ad una minuziosa dissezione del suo Io.
Gli eventi lo hanno portato a Londra, dove trova lavoro, ma nel cuore persiste l'aspirazione a divenire poeta. Il Sudafrica è una ferita dentro di lui che non smette di sanguinare. Non sa a cosa credere, non sa qual è il suo posto nella vita, lui che "ha talento solo per l'infelicità". Ci presenta i suoi sentimenti con una prosa semplice, diretta, riflessioni profonde, parole allineate come stelle in cielo e fredde come cristalli di ghiaccio. E' questa la forza del libro. -
Reading J.M. Coetzee's work is somewhat exhausting. No matter how you're psyched to think you're in the same current stage in life to master reading a masterpiece, you'll eventually left dumbfounded and coerced to rethink what's come to the life of the character that is hard to articulate. Or maybe their life, even so much different than yours, can be terrifyingly comprehensible and it's unbearable not to weight on their decisions as if they were yours to bear. Writing such wonderful characters is truly Coetzee's purest gift.
The main character in this book is arrogant, idealistic, ignorant and self-absorbed as may him be called out. He is desperately trying to escape from whose life he is living in by over-analysing everything comes between who he is and the definition of what he wants to be -- the great poet. His existence depends on the ideal meaning he's craving to trap himself into. The belief that his life is destined for something much greater than he is at the moment manifests him and fosters his ignorance. While, so many conditions: racial and historical influence hinder his dreams, or what he believes that he could acquire; the ability to write, love and care for the other human beings. All those are missing throughout the flood of social dilemma, racial bias, xenophobia, and most of all concluded as the sense of alienation by leaving for the motherland to live in the foreign country with the heart full of false hope.
Yep, it's pretty much like reading about a white man's delusional crippled mind with the psychoanalysis approach and so many literary criticism which, I could say, is the major fondness I have for this book. His taste for poetry is pretty much the same as mine. Lol. -
How do bitter and twisted, lonely, emotionally crippled older men start out? Men whose relationships, if any, have always soured early, men whose jobs are all that sustain them, mediocre jobs with colleagues who never become friends. Men whose strict weekend routines stop loneliness from being more than an uneasy feeling which never quite comes to the surface. Never quite acknowledged.
They start out as bitter and twisted Youth. In this novel by Coetzee, we see the establishment of such a being, a young man who thinks somehow that his cold alienating ways will make him a poet. When it turns out that he has nothing more in him than the capacity to be a computer programmer, and an undistinguished one of those, he sees his future as a hollow meaningless thing. We do not find out if his life remained the mean and nasty existence he portended.
Enter Nagasaki. Here we meet a man who might be the person Youth foresaw. Towards the end of his nondescript career he is alone, as far as we know he has never had a meaningful relationship with anybody, including his relations. When not at work he is at home, when at home, the person he talks to is himself. He has no friends, no interests, nothing about him justifies his carbon footprint. Like Youth, he is given the opportunity to live, to behave with largesse, to give. Like Youth he cannot do that. Both of them experience discomfort, unease at their utter meanness of spirit, but neither is capable of being a new person.
Is this inevitable? Enter Mr Stone of Mr Stone and the Knights Companion.
rest here:
https://alittleteaalittlechat.wordpre... -
Lui è come Lo Straniero di Camus (che poi in francese ha anche il significato di "Estraneo" che forse in questo caso è più consono e d'impatto...). Lui è un altro personaggio in "formazione", è acerbo, però è asettico alle emozioni, lui tra le altre sue azioni senza significato (cose che semplicemente gli capitano per noia) mette in cinta una donna e poi cerca elegantemente, scrupolosamente con garbo di rimediare con una procedura fattibile e burocratica alla sua incapacità di amare, per potersi allontanare il più velocemente dalla parte peggiore e inutile di se stesso.
Lui è fragile e inconsapevole, lui non vuole finire nei meccanismi aridi della catena di montaggio di un lavoro falso e d'ufficio, tra gente ipocrita e tra cervelli che sono solo macchine in funzione e dove c'è solo la politica del guadagno e non dell'umanità, ma finisce poi a fare un lavoro banale e a perdersi nel grande meccanismo dell'accettazione di ciò che durante l'adolescenza non avremmo mai accettato, quando studiavamo i poeti e recitavamo affascinati il "to be, or not to be..." Il suo disincantato cinismo è il protagonista di questo breve romanzo. Finisci l'ultimo rigo e rimani in apnea e ti guardi attorno sperando di riuscire a estrarti nella tua vita reale dall'automatismo delle azioni nella vita di tutti i giorni che nel romanzo sono ben raccontate.
Vorresti almeno tu che hai letto il romanzo non essere un topo di laboratorio... in realtà hai la sensazione di esserlo già da tempo, allora sospiri... e pensi: il prossimo romanzo forse mi porrà di fronte altre sfide, così che io possa dimenticare che di sicuro non sto vivendo ciò che in realtà desidero.
È venuta così... senza gioia... -
I LOVE Coetzee.
No more words are there to express my feelings for him. :) -
"Youth" is a portrait of an artist as a young man - struggling to find his way.
Maybe I will just start with a quote;
"At 18 he might have been a poet. Now he is not a poet, not a writer, not an artist. He is a computer programmer, a 24year old computer programmer in a world where there are (yet) no 30 year old computer programmers. At 31 he is too old to be a programmer: one turns oneself into something else - some kind of businessman - or shoots oneself" Coetzee.
Darn. I have 7 foolscap pages of handwritten notes I made while reading. Somehow have to condense it. I will return to this.
************************************************************************
Review in progress / feeling too sick to write reviews too fast between coughing. This was excellent though. Want to read more of Coetzee. Recommend this for would be writers, poets or anyone really who is sucking on their misery / dark night of the soul stuff.
btw excuse slashes / as punctuation, my keyboard is cracking up in sympathy with my lungs. Delete, hyphen and various other keys not working.
Library borrow. Just discovered this author last night and found this slim volume on my college library shelves today. I am trying to expand the range of authors I'm reading so this is kind of like a test drive. -
me: can we get portrait of the artist as a young man
coetzee: we have portrait of the artist as a young man at home
the portrait at home: dull attempt at narrating a journey of self development and growth (usually compelling topic!) with such bland writing it couldn’t even make a sexuality crisis interesting. i don’t usually complain about narratives where the stakes are “low” (i swear you don’t have to be saving the earth for me to find your story interesting) but this just feels like a bunch of nothing on top of more nothing. it’s leading nowhere. there were some okay reflections on art and life but they are so sporadic and unrelated to anything that i can’t really take them into account. idk. just one more to go i guess. (also if he mentions pound one more time i will jump out the window) -
Postales de un joven en Londres (Enumeración, 2020)
1. El hijo hace todo lo posible por apartarse del padre y de la madre. Cuando puede se muda fuera, vive como estudiante, le obsesiona el dinero. Lee, sigue una carrera en matemáticas. Aprende a sumar.
2. Relaciones amorosas al borde de la locura. El misterio del sexo enlazado al misterio del amor. Confusas ideas de la creación asociada al acto amoroso: el amor de la mujer debe redimirlo de sus culpas. No lo hace.
3. Una torpeza apática lo rodea. No consigue apasionarse, es tibio apenas, como arena bajo el sol de la mañana, apenas comenzando a calentar. No consigue comprometerse, o enfadarse, u odiar.
4. Después de la universidad de muda a Londres. La gran metrópoli debe tener algo que ofrecer. Se vuelve oficinista. Programa con tarjetas perforadas en IBM. Le falta valor para pedirle algo más a la vida.
5. Su vergüenza le acompaña. Siempre. Hay una sombra en todo lo que hace. No consigue conectar con nadie. Es un solitario porque no es capaz de tender puentes, de amarrar lazos. Es egoísta.
6. Vive a base de salchichas picantes y trozos de pan. Se alimenta a la manera de los estoicos. A veces va a cine. Anhela un mundo de misterios que no se abre para él. Que él es incapaz de abrir.
7. Cuando salta al vacío lo hace con paracaídas. Se despide de la ciudad, en la periferia construye rutinas. Su mayor mística es la soledad de madrugada con una supercomputadora. El oráculo de consolación.
8. Siente que la vida debe ser algo más. Piensa que la vida debe ser algo más. Le exige a la vida que sea algo más. Pero sentimiento, pensamiento y exigencia no tienen fuerza suficiente. Es lo que es.
9. En el colmo del aburrimiento reconoce el privilegio, el mimo que siempre ha acolchado su existencia. Entonces comprende, o empieza a comprender, la culpa inmensa que carga sin saberlo del todo.
10. Lee sobre el pasado de su patria. Siente la palabra patria. Imagina un regreso. Imagina escribir un mito. Imagina fundar una ciudad imaginaria donde consiga conjurar sus fantasmas para conseguir el perdón. -
Có vẻ tương đồng với văn chương của ông trong khoảng thời gian gần sau này. Nếu Tuổi thơ kể về cái yếu mềm lúc nhỏ, thì Tuổi trẻ là thời thanh niên 20 bỏ lại tất cả ở Nam Phi để dấn bước sang Anh, sống vững vàng trên một hòn đảo không cần cha mẹ sau sự kiện Sharpeville bi thảm.
Nhưng vẫn thế. Cái bạc nhược luôn theo sau ông, bạc nhược vì trốn nghĩa vụ chiến tranh, bạc nhược vì chối bỏ trách nhiệm làm cha và hàng hà những nghĩa vụ cấp thiết khác trong đời sống một người đàn ông, một người nghệ sĩ mà ông luôn khao khát trở thành. Đây cũng là khoảng thời gian những tự vấn của một người nghệ sĩ thành hình. Giữa tình nghệ sĩ, giữa cảm hứng tắt ngấm, giữa đường cùng công việc kiếm tiền và những ngẫu hứng tràn trề nghệ thuật...
Tuổi trẻ như áng văn giãi bày về khoảng thời gian khó khăn trong nỗi suy tư làm cách nào tự bản thân trở nên quan trọng, để phản ánh thời đại, để trở thành một nghệ sĩ thực thụ như Picasso, như Pound, như Eliot trong đời sống vật chất lên cao. Chưa ai dũng cảm như J.M. Coetzee để phơi bày mình ra trước ánh mắt phán xét tận cùng của xã hội này như ông, trước đó và cả sau này dường như và sẽ chưa bao giờ có. -
6 días y 171 páginas después. El tercer libro de Coetzee que leo, y este fue un prestamo de un buen amigo literario.
A ciencia cierta no supe que me motivó a leer este libro, quería seguir leyendo a Coetzee después del libro de los barbaros, pero creo que no fue la mejor opción, ya que considero que un libro de memorias es únicamente para los seguidores fervientes de los autores, y aunque me fascina Coetzee no me considero un ferviente admirador... por el principal motivo que no he leído lo suficiente de él.
Aunque el libro no es malo, leer los pasajes de casi cualquier juventud es un ejercicio de inspección interna y externa, ya que es inevitable no comparar... aunque en este caso ni el país ni la época ayudan mucho a una comparación.
Comprendo los motivantes del autor y los temas de los que habla el libro, pero simplemente no me generó gran emoción, por supuesto que la narrativa es demasiado hermosa (no encuentro otro superlativo para describirlo) pero en este caso no es suficiente. Hay unos episodios realmente bueno, mayormente al principio y al final. Me quedaron muchas dudas acerca de si todo fue real.
Un libro que nos ayuda a darnos cuenta de las dos Sudafricas y las grandes diferencias, que hubo (seguramente que aún hay).
No habrá reseña. -
In che misura la vita del(l'odioso) personaggio racconta la gioventù di Coetzee?
Non sapevo il libro avesse forti tinte autobiografiche e, mi sono accorta, non conoscevo quasi nulla sulla vita di Coetzee. Scopro così che l'autore ha due lauree: una in matematica, e qui suona la campana dell'assonanza, e una in letteratura.
Ma, se il protagonista corrisponde all'autore, la lettura di questo libro mi lascia turbata. Coetzee è davvero così incapace di relazionarsi con il prossimo? È davvero così freddo da ferire quasi volontariamente le donne che frequenta?
Questa lettura mi lascia insoddisfatta e con la sensazione di incompletezza. Devo leggere "Infanzia" e altre opere dell'autore per risentire la voce forte e chiara di "Vergogna"?
Non lo consiglierei come primo approccio a Coetzee, ma forse è una tappa obbligata per dargli uno spessore a tutto tondo.
Chissà come ha vissuto la dicotomia tra matematica e letteratura, come le sue due anime gli hanno reso la vita impossibile.
Chissà. -
Este libro me atrapó desde la primera página. Le doy mucho valor a Coetzee no solamente por su prosa sencilla y fluida sino por la sinceridad que hay en sus páginas. Me parece difícil escribir sobre uno mismo (en tercera persona) sin caer en las justificaciones.
Es un coming of age que abarca desde los 18 a los 24 años, tiene mucho valor por las reflexiones que hace sobre: trabajo, nacionalidad, xenofobia, política y por sobre todo el amor y el ejercicio del arte.
También le doy puntos extras por narrar el mundo (de mierda) de la programación y ese ambiente frio de oficina y frio donde te prometen salir a las 5 de la tarde, pero salís a las 10 pensando que estas haciendo algo productivo realmente con tu vida. Ya que Coetzee fue un escritor sin privilegio que dividió su vida generando ingresos para poder dedicarse al ejercicio del arte al mismo tiempo.
Tuve momentos que no supe como juzgar a Coetzee (spoiler alerts) cuando narra que no existe ninguna escritora buena salvo Emily Bronte (evidenciando lo poco que leyó mujeres porque Charlotte era mejor que la hermana) y otros donde trata a las mujeres desconsideradamente, pero creo que es valiente decir las cosas como las sintió en ese momento en lugar de tener una corrección política falsa. También hubo momentos donde sintió que una mujer no ser quería acostar con él, pero el tampoco estaba seguro de si quería hacerlo con ellas. Y es esto el aire que perdura en toda la novela/biografía: un hombre que va con la corriente, dejando arrastrar, preguntándose todo el tiempo que hace y porque lo hace, pero sin encontrar muchas respuestas —así se siente la juventud—, que te da la impresión que esta muy desorientado o cansado para luchar y es observador del pasar de su propia vida. -
Una de las novelas más ñoñas jamás escritas. Los escritores suelen hacerlo en sus memorias, pero tiene sentido: no todos los escritores son Burroughs ni todos se pasaron la mitad de su vida enajenados con una bolsa de correspondencia al hombro. Las confesiones de juventud (ficticias o reales, no me importa) suelen ser una ñoñería, sin embargo esto no significa que no estén escritas con una prosa bien lograda, como de una persona que ha trabajado en su voz narrativa (tiene un Nobel, coño).
Juventud es la narración en segunda persona de la vida de un joven escritor sudafricano que vive en Londres, luchando contra la rutina que puede convertirse en la enemiga de sus ambiciones literarias y explorando el mundo más allá de los límites de su colonia. En otras palabras, es el comodín de la novela del escritor poscolonial, sin embargo no llega a los niveles poéticos de Naipaul.
Así pues, recomiendo este libro de Coetzee como "lectura de anteojos" (para descansar entre libros densos). Y, a pesar de mis reservas, tiene párrafos sublimes como este:
"Así es como se hace, así es como funciona e mundo. Y un día, estos hombres, estos poetas, estos amantes, tendrán suerte: la chica, no importa la excelencia de su belleza, les responderá, y una cosa llevará a la otra y sus vidas se transformarán, las de ambos, y punto. ¿Qué más hace falta sino una especie de obstinación estúpida e insensata como amante y escritor unida a la buena disposición para fracasar una y otra vez?" -
How to tell the story of a life? Life is: books, art, sex, moving, school and institutions, and the interior life: fear of ignominy, hierarchies of learning (pure math over applied math; scorning the authors that authors you admire disdain), the feeling of belonging or lack thereof.
Is the narrator aware of the limits of "his" 3rd person main character? The narrowness of some of that character's views on life and women and art? Are we meant to take John's analyses at face value? Or is Youth a self knowing allegory of a maturity that seems full but is actually only part? John contemplates the greatest art but is still as lost as one can be about how to live.
However narrow and single-minded John's worldview, the novel is a reminder that worldviews are tended, like plants in a garden. They're planted with art and reading and teachings of all kinds and fertilized with experience. I can look down on John for being overly deterministic and foolish about both poetry and women; and yet I admire him for actively tending to coherent theories about any part of the world, and giving real import to what his working theories say about his own life. This kind of interior moral life which is all wrapped up in an artistic life - it's familiar to me. And my own tendency is toward nihilistic chaos to soothe me from even trying to be moral or be an artist. When I reflect quietly, I don't believe in nihilism. When I flip the channels and swiftly scroll through the feeds, I let it run me. -
By page 115 of this slim fictional memoir, Coetzee had convinced me that he's a beautiful writer. He manages to avoid corniness, even though he's describing the inner narrative of an ex-pat wannabe poet (recipe for sappy disaster). There are some ethical musings in here which are quite good and I like the whole construct of an author describing a fictional character's interaction with other authors. It achieves a distance between Coetzee and his pathetic, miserable hero that is compelling. There is a lot of pitiful self-mockery involved here that may be depressing for some, but which for me was a breath of fresh air after reading so many novels in which the characters pretend to psychologically self-flagellating just to garner the sympathy of the reader. Here the narrator's self-disgust is genuine and not particularly unwarranted, mean as that may sound.
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Another stellar read from Coetzee. I started this and next minute I was looking at the free end page...I devoured it. Not much happens, traditionally plot wise. But I couldn't help but see myself in this book, with the characters musings on poetry, the minor tragedies of an artist trying to find his art, in a world heavily reliant on pathetic and mundane rituals, also known as making a living.
