#24 "Youth" by J.M. Coetzee

He went, ever on the move, with the slow, shuffling step of wandering beggars who are nowhere at home.

Stijn Streuvels

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/stijn_streuvels.html#TfEG1h7g0W4lolER.99

He went, ever on the move, with the slow, shuffling step of wandering beggars who are nowhere at home.

Stijn Streuvels

Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/s/stijn_streuvels.html#TfEG1h7g0W4lolER.99

J.M Coetzee, an author whom I've never heard of, has nine books on "The List". I thwart the feeling that there may be some bias towards specific authors. To those that are like me in my ignorance of this renown author I will give a short bio. According to NobelPrize.org, J. M. Coetzee, a South African born in 1940, is a graduate of the University of Cape Town with degrees in English and Mathematics also later receiving his PhD in English, linguistics, and Germanic languages at the University of Texas at Austin. A few of his books have won literary awards. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2003 "who in innumerable guises portrays the surprising involvement of the outsider" Nobel Prize. What?? In my history of reading award winning books they use a lot of big words and/or discuss concepts and ideas that are just way over my head.

How pleasantly surprised I was with "Youth". A fictionalized memoir of John, a young man of 18 years from South Africa who abandoned his uninspiring life for a more stimulating life in London for the purpose of unleashing the magnificent poet inside of him that his former home had kept captive. London, a city that has housed some of the greatest artists ever known.

Everything in John's life centers around the idea of becoming a renown poet. Working at a 9-5 job as a computer programmer is only a means to sustain life while he hones his art. Relationships are a physical necessity only when it doesn't intrude on his ultimate purpose in life. Loneliness and social awkwardness a necessary part of becoming a great poet. The feelings of insecurity that John's present situation brings out will only make him a better poet. The struggle. In John's view of the world, happiness is not as strong of an emotion as the depths of despair felt in the pit of the stomach of an unsatisfied life.

Quote reminds me of the main character.

What I really enjoyed about the novel is I could relate to the main character. Not a bad kid only confused. He desired intimacy without commitment but when an inebriated woman offered herself to him, regretfully, he declined and was accused of being gay. I have been in similar situations. Once at a strip club I was given an opportunity for sex and I turned it down for moral reasons. Yeah, morality is what brought me there in the first place? I won't get into the time I talked to a woman whose husband frequented a strip club and witnessed to her my beliefs. In a club. A strip club. I digress. Where was I? I also empathized with the stuck in the bubble thinking. Questions like "Am I the only one with this specific struggle? Nobody understands what I'm going through nor cares. Life is only worth living striving after the dream. No exceptions!!"

I am not that smart. Those that fear the high and mighty big words, rest assured. Although this story uses higher diction than "The Hunger Games" or "Divergent" which are geared towards teens you will not be needing a dictionary constantly to follow "Youth". Coetzee truly is intelligent just in the way he is able to express thought clearly through this 18 year old boy. While reading I didn't at all feel like I was listening to a boring lecture from a prestigious pretentious professor but someone that knows they are smart and doesn't have to prove it by flaunting his high vocabulary.