![]() ![]() John is a hard character to stomach because we have been there. The story is tortuous because it reminds its readers of something that seems to go hand and hand with youth – the desire for glory, for greatness, for artistic achievement and admiration without the tedious work of application. ![]() Whatever parallels there may be to Coetzee’s young life, this book is clearly a novel, and it deserves to be judged as a complete work. Many critics have argued that this sparse Beckettian novel is really a memoir, to be read as a prelude to Coetzee’s own great writing career. Youth is a short and tortuous novel which follows 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. ![]()
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