Youth

Youth

This
is a book
written by J.M.Coetzee the nobel prize winning South African writer.
I had mixed feelings about this book.
On a few occasions when I was reading this I asked myself why was I reading it? Indeed why did he write it? I've read two other books by him, Disgrace and Waiting for the barbarians. Both of which I really enjoyed. Youth was not what I was expecting it to be. The main character is so passionless and lives such a mundane existance and yet in a funny way it is interesting.

The book is about a young man who finishes uni in Sth Africa and then moves on to London with ideas in his head of becoming a poet. Coetzee writes entirely in the third person, although we know the main character is based on himself. He probably did that to give some apparent objectivity to his study of himself as a young man. The "He" of the novel is for most of the book unhappy. He is devoid of passion and lives a miserable existence of a computer programmer. His relationships with women are completely unsatifying. He realizes that he in fact is making himself miserable through his attitudes. But his intention is to live the life of an artist and so he justifies this as a worthwhile experience. We see him struggle through things and know the ideas he has of how to be an artist are misgiven. He seems to think the best way to be an artist is to cut himself off from his family, his country and his feelings. He idolizes writers like Henry James who seem to write in a vaccuum, with brilliant passages issueing forth from the higher cortex of their brains, and Ezra Pound with his cryptic ramblings. It is so unlike Coetzee's other writing that comes from his feelings and his Sth African roots. I guess that's the irony of the book. The author is writing about himself as a struggling artist who could never, with the mindset he's in, ever write the book that he is writing.

I think Coetzee is missing something here about his youth and youth in general. Is this book meant to be a criticism of his own attitudes as a young man? Or has he just forgotten the full experience of his own youth?.....I think he is too great a writer to say this. He seems to be trying to convey the banality of our lives, which we are confronted with even when we are young. His book stands in contrast to cliches that we often see of youth being a time of passion and thrills. I don't think it's an accurate picture but I guess it's not meant to be.The saving grace of the book is the truth in the writing. The detail and clarity of the youth's observations about himself is striking. I could see many observations and experiences that I myself have had. As the book continued I felt more sympathetic to him. He is brutally honest with himself. On one level I felt a bit sickened when I was reading it but on another level it was also very intriguing. I do find myself thinking of reading the other book he wrote about himself; entitled "Boyhood".

I wouldn't recommend this book although I can see that it is a well crafted work of art.
To me he's avoided all the "youth" cliches but in the process lost something important.

RSS

Here I have put in a photo of a galaxy because it is symbolic of the expanse of information available to librarians. Sound corny? I guess it does. I really just love this photo. I like RSS aggregators as they help you narrow down your search for information. RSS stands for Really Simple Syndication. They are also called feed readers. In simple terms it's a computer format that allows you to see a number of blogs, that you choose, on one site (an example is bloglines).

The amount of information that humans have produced is "galactic" Anything that allows you to focus in on information of interest or relevance is very useful. As librarians we are the lens of the telescope focusing on the stars in the galaxy of information that the borrower want to look at. No, wait! the internet is the telescope we point the telescope. No. The computer is the telescope the internet search engines are the lens....Oh God, This is getting very corny.



I have chosen blogs related to book reading (ie book reviews) as it relates to my job, and my interests. I also chose some blogs about libraries in general, about news and one about alternative energy.


The sites I chose on Bloglines are: About Contemporary Literature, Alternativeenergy blog. Bloglines News, Librarians' Internet Index, New York Times Book review, The Shifted Librarian, USATODAY.com Books, Washington Post Book reviews and Powerhouse Museum picture of the day.


I think RSS Aggregators would be helpful in my work in that I could increase my knowledge of what books are being written and I could recommend books that we could add to our collection. Also the up to date information about library issues and problems is also helpful.


Library's blogs are very useful to pass on information. If a blog serves the function of the 'old' bulletin board Then an RSS is a bulletin board of different bulletin boards. Or maybe a diary of diaries (I'm getting corny again) It's more up to date than a bulletin board and the information can be more global and cheaper to create and pass on. It's all about being able to find more information for our borrowers and find it quicker and easier.



I think some of the drawbacks should be mentioned as well. If you are not ofay with the internet as a lot of old people are, you are locked out of a lot of this. As a library worker I see a lot of old people who cannot use the internet let alone the library catalogue (let alone a mouse). I also see a some computer/internet jargon/abbrieviations used that I don't really know.



I have looked at the ACT libraries blog and found everything from opening hours to reading challenges to fun competitions to news about authors. I can see that this is a wonderful promotional device to facilitate more library participation. I hope my library will be getting one soon. The ACT library blog is well done. It has a pleasant look about it. The entries are brief and easy to read. There doesn't, though, seem to be any facility for the public to comment on the blog, unless I missed it, as you can with the blog I'm writing now.

That's all I have time for now.

"Kangaroo" is another D H Lawrence book that I have always wanted to read. I saw the movie version many years ago and really enjoyed it. I find Australian books (or books about Australia) always have a little something extra for me in them. It can be a average book but If it has an Australian connection I will still enjoy it.

When Lawrence wrote Kangaroo (around 1920's) There were very few writers (if any) of his calibre writing about Australia. So When I started reading the book I had high expectations. Having just finished Lady Chatterley's Lover and been blown away by Lawrence's writing style and depth of his observations, I was expecting a lot. As it happened I only got through half of the book.

It did have some great observations and exchanges with the main character,who is an English tourist visiting NSW for a few months, and his Australian neighbour. But I found it had long passages of exchange with the Kangaroo character which were hard to understand exactly what he meant.

Kangaroo is the head (guru) of a secret organization of ex-diggers with "ideas" of how best to run the country similar to the New Guard which existed in Australia at that time. The passages where Kangaroo talks about his philosophy of how to make a Australia a better place is deliberately written in a vague manner. Initially I found it riveting reading. I assume that Lawrence is trying to create something that all sides of politics will find something in. He avoids cliches and creates a new kind of philosophy that is interesting. The problem with it is that it loses it basis in reality.We know the New Guard was a right wing, fascist organization. By cutting off his philosophy from it's grounding in reality, the dialogue becomes more and more nebulous and meaningless as it continues.

The main character starts talking about a second force that motivates people (love is the first) and knowing Lawrence we can assume he means sex. but he disguises what he says so much, (I guess so the book won't be banned) that it's hard to know what he is talking about. Okay so this book was never banned but it's hard to know just what he is talking about.

After reading a few chapters of this dialogue with Kangaroo and the main character and not being sure what they were talking about I gave up and returned the book to the library. After I started writing this blog I became curious as to how the book ends. I have to confess I borrowed the book again and have it next to my bed now. It's funny the effect writing a blog has on people....

Ta

Hi,

I have today uploaded an image of D.H.Lawrence as a young man for your general enjoyment. Being in Black and White is appropriate as that was my impression of him before recently read his most famous book-Lady Chatterleys' Lover.

I had previously, in high school, read Sons and Lovers. A book that left no impression on me whatsoever. Hence I had the impression that he was a boring writer not relevent to a young 2008 stud like myself. A few months ago I was in Chatswood library and saw a nice new copy of lady Chatterley's Lover so I thought I'd give it a go.

I loved it. I found it a riveting read.

It's most famous as a book that was banned because of it's explicit sexual content, but it has a lot more to offer than just that. It's beautifully written and must have been ahead of it's time as it reads like a novel that was written in 2008. In it Lawrence rages against the life of England in the 1920's. Against life in a northern English coal mining town. Against sexual inhibitions and against the futility of the recently fought W.W.I.

What I loved about his writing was it's directness and the way he makes complex observations about human behaviour in an understandable way. You know just what he's talking about. Another writer would waffle on in a way that you would have an Idea of what he meant but would not be sure. With Lawrence his observations are so deep and complex but perfectly clear.

He alsohas a lot of descriptive passages about the setting of the novel. Such as the manor house where lady chatterley lives, the grim mining community nearby, the forests around the manor house. They are all beautifully expressed. You really feel you are there. He avoids all cliches in his descriptions, they are wonderfully evocative

Although it has a positive ending most of the book is extremely grim and I like that about it. He is committed to expressing the truth as he sees it even though as we know now that will mean the banning of the book for many years to come.

I would recommend this book to any adult or teenager. It is much more than you might think.

Cheers