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Review
"One of the finest authors writing in the English language today." -- "The Times"
"Brilliant as a period piece, Youth also constitutes a remarkable feat of self-destruction." -- "Sunday Times"
"Youth shares with Hanif Kureshi's "Intimacy" and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair a rare combination of lived experience, expressed with eloquence, and a fierce uncompromising honesty. A masterpiece." -- "Harpers & Queen"
"Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time." -- "Los Angeles Times"
"Coetzee is able to dissect the human psyche with a surgeon's touch." -- "The Hamilton Spectator"
Of the Booker Prize-winning "Disgrace":
"The richness of Disgrace lies in the elegant and allegorical role reversals, the spare symbolism of the language and in the characterization. We may not like David Lurie, but in Coetzee's skillful hands we can't dismiss him without pity." -- "The Globe and Mail"
"Brilliant as a period piece, Youth also constitutes a remarkable feat of self-destruction." -- "Sunday Times"
"Youth shares with Hanif Kureshi's "Intimacy" and Graham Greene's The End of the Affair a rare combination of lived experience, expressed with eloquence, and a fierce uncompromising honesty. A masterpiece." -- "Harpers & Queen"
"Coetzee is one of the greatest writers of our time." -- "Los Angeles Times"
"Coetzee is able to dissect the human psyche with a surgeon's touch." -- "The Hamilton Spectator"
Of the Booker Prize-winning "Disgrace":
"The richness of Disgrace lies in the elegant and allegorical role reversals, the spare symbolism of the language and in the characterization. We may not like David Lurie, but in Coetzee's skillful hands we can't dismiss him without pity." -- "The Globe and Mail"
Book Description
'One of the finest authors writing in the English language today' The Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I'm a Bracknell-based African computer programmer who once had aspirations of being a writer. So reading a book about a Bracknell-based African computer programmer who once had aspirations of being a writer was either going to leave me breathless or livid.
Youth is not a book in which very much happens - and that's because it's a book about real life. The real life of a young man finding his feet in an alien country. But the beauty of Youth is not something as mundane as excitement (any book can give you that), it's the truthfulness of the book (I should know: see paragraph 1). It is the most well-realised book I've read in ages, and in its nuances it contains more feeling than library-fuls of other books.
I guess what I'm saying is that you'll either love it - or be bored silly by it. I loved it. Which is fortunate since it seems so much to be the story of my life.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
For someone like myself who is interested in writing and in mathematics, I loved this book and didn't want it to end. Coetzee is too cold-hearted to fall in love, too idiosyncratic to make friends and too anal to begin writing so ends up in computers instead. His internal battles rage on. Wonderful stuff. By the way, were the shops really closed on Saturday afternoons in Bracknell in 1963?
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
Coetzee's second autobiographical novel is a story of flights and also an 'Education sentimentale'.
It is a flight from the oppressiveness of his family and the love of his mother - `the bond with the firstborn' -, from the socio-political situation in South-Africa - `an albatross around his neck' - and from mortgage shackles. In one word, it is a flight to freedom.
He arrives in London, but the city turns him into a beaten dog: no work, no stay. He quickly understands that the struggle for life is still going on, that he will have to find his place in the world and that he has to prove that he belongs to this earth.
Intellectually, he is attracted to Pure Thought (mathematics), but he also wants to become a poet. He makes his first encounters (through reading and radio programs) with world literature, e.g. Joseph Brodsky who teaches him that `poetry is truth'.
Sentimentally, he has to fight against his own depths of coldness, callousness, caddishness, his lack of heat and heart. He falls in love with filmdivas, but his own love (better: sex) life is not that of a `fine' author.
In impeccable prose, J.M. Coetzee painted without any shame a very realistic picture of a `Youth-struggle'.
Not to be missed.
It is a flight from the oppressiveness of his family and the love of his mother - `the bond with the firstborn' -, from the socio-political situation in South-Africa - `an albatross around his neck' - and from mortgage shackles. In one word, it is a flight to freedom.
He arrives in London, but the city turns him into a beaten dog: no work, no stay. He quickly understands that the struggle for life is still going on, that he will have to find his place in the world and that he has to prove that he belongs to this earth.
Intellectually, he is attracted to Pure Thought (mathematics), but he also wants to become a poet. He makes his first encounters (through reading and radio programs) with world literature, e.g. Joseph Brodsky who teaches him that `poetry is truth'.
Sentimentally, he has to fight against his own depths of coldness, callousness, caddishness, his lack of heat and heart. He falls in love with filmdivas, but his own love (better: sex) life is not that of a `fine' author.
In impeccable prose, J.M. Coetzee painted without any shame a very realistic picture of a `Youth-struggle'.
Not to be missed.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Introspective writing about a dull subject
This is the story: upon finishing university in Cape Town, wanting to escape the tensions in South Africa (it's 1960 or thereabouts) the youth of the title moves to London, where... Read more
Published 21 months ago by Phil O'Sofa
A bleak England made bleaker by Coetzee's main character
I found Coetzee's English usage most interesting, with some sentences to relish. But, the paragraphs were less interesting. Read more
Published on 8 Mar 2010 by Lewis Duckworth
Sad but penetrating portrait of Coetzee as a young man
This book by South African writer J. M. Coetzee is not exactly an autobiography, as it recounts a few years of his life, from about the time he was 19 to his mid 20s, during the... Read more
Published on 13 Nov 2008 by Andres C. Salama
Joyless
Just a lazy few words to describe this book: Joyless, tedious, depressing, bleak, humorless...climaxing with the statement I wish I hadn't bothered to read it. Read more
Published on 10 Dec 2007 by Riddley
A loud ripple
This is not my Top pick when it comes to Coetzee, although I am very happy to have read it. It's apparant total lack of climax makes the small events seem so much bigger and... Read more
Published on 8 Aug 2006 by M. K. Enhorning
Beautifully written and so true
No question that this book brings out the melancholy in all of us with literary pretensions who have sat typing numbers into computers for years. Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2004 by Richard Bach
Not what I had expected
I was thrilled by the beginning of Youth, it was very vivid and indeed fit perfectly a teenagers' life. Read more
Published on 27 May 2004 by sorana
A first Coetzee
Piqued by his laureate status, I decided to sample Coetzee, and picked this book for its slimness and because I had heard such mixed opinion of Disgrace. Read more
Published on 15 Nov 2003 by Philip
My favourite Coetzee book
I am surprised by the ambivalent reviews of this book. I have read several of JM Coetzees books and this is my favourite. Read more
Published on 14 May 2003
Wonderful
This is the first Coetzee book that I've read, recommended to me by a friend. After reading this over the weekend, I will certainly be eager to look out for some of his other... Read more
Published on 23 Feb 2003 by Tony Snell
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