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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.