You can’t lose a friend you never had

Dear Dad

When Bob Carr was appointed as Australia’s Foreign Minister in March this year, he made a remark that shall most certainly go into the tomes of Famous Quotations. He said in a speech, ‘You don’t choose the moment; very often the moment chooses you.’ It had been more than six years since Carr had left politics — he was the NSW premier for more than a decade – and, despite demonstrating an ongoing interest in international affairs, had not expected to return to public life.

Conversely, on a similar metaphysical subject, Lisa Adams, an American author, had once memorably said in a single unbroken breath that ‘If you want something bad enough if you really want it bad enough if you work for it long enough believe in it strong enough you will just about get it whatever it is.’

Blessed with these two utterly profound philosophies, I find myself utterly confused, however. So, if I want something, want to be someone, want to be doing something — or, if I want something, in order to be someone, so as to be doing something else — do I wait for the moment to choose me? Or, do I tell myself to want it more than I already do, to work for it longer than I already have, and believe in it stronger still ?

Well, I suppose the answer must be a conflation of the two i.e. you ought to want it, work for it, believe in it – more and long and strong — until the moment chooses you. That all makes sense to me.

But, wait a minute, what about another often repeated saying by an anonymous writer, ’What’s yours will always be yours, what’s not yours will never be yours no matter how hard you fight for it’? And perhaps more significantly, what of another one that goes, ‘You can’t lose what you never had, you can’t keep what’s not yours and you can’t hold on to something that does not want to stay’  even when you think you have made it yours?

Compared with Carr and Adams’ inspirational words, these latter aphorisms sound defeatist, they are either mumbled with an air of resigned acceptance after a disappointing failure, or are consolations offered to salve hurt feelings when someone else is suffering from a disgruntled loss. While I may be unable to vouch for the veracity of the former invigorating statements myself — that moment still elusive – I know I can, these other ones shrouded in the shadow of gloom. But more than that, they are for me salutary reminders of life’s bitter lessons.

We were uni friends, we were both from Singapore doing the same course, working towards the same Bachelor’s degree. With our families and our respective boyfriends thousands of miles away, we were home-sick, love-sick and Singapore-sick. As such, we were close and stuck to each other like unidentical twins: we attended the same lectures, enrolled in the same tutorials, picked the same elective courses, slept over at each others’ places, and went for dinners, for shopping and for movies in our spare time together.

I could be wrong, but I cannot recollect us ever having any arguments, not even disagreements, except for the odd snide remark all girls that age say to each others’ faces. I cherished our friendship dearly. And that meant lending an empathetic ear whenever she needed it, offering emotional support when her grandfather passed away and she was summoned home, it meant helping her cope with lessons she missed when she returned.

So time passed in this manner and soon we were into the final semester of our undergraduate course. That too passed quickly and we found ourselves facing final examinations in a couple of weeks. Everyone was looking forward to finally graduating, excited to be at the threshold of the next phase in their lives. The library was full of final-year students, their heads buried deep in books, in notes, and in sleep.

After another exhausting day in the library, my head hurting from too much crammed information, I came home to news that the house I rented with my housemates had been broken into. The window to my housemate’s room was found ajar when he got back, his table lamp had been knocked over, and there was a shoe print on the carpet at the foot of the open window. None of my housemates, though, seemed to have lost anything. I was told to check my room.

And sure enough, I first found my winter coat to be gone, but it was the missing textbook for my course’s ‘killer-module’ — the subject that was reputed to have kept many from graduating – that got me seriously desperate. I searched in every drawer, every bag, every room, I looked in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the toilet. But, it was not there.

Frantic and frightened, I arrived at the girl friend’s flat; I wanted to tell her about it, I wanted to cry on her shoulders, to share my fear. However, when the door was opened to me, there she was, standing there – wearing my winter coat, her eyes unknown to me.

I managed to salvage my coat, but not my book. And three months later, I graduated, she did not.

As I was crying over the lost friendship, the housemate comforted with, ‘You can’t lose a friend you never had.’ And yes, just as I can’t lose a friend I never had, I can’t keep a friend who was not a friend in the first place and I can’t hold on to her who does not want to stay, my things, my future, and my life will never be hers, no matter what she did.

Theatre review: The Weather and Your Health

Dear Dad

The title of Bethany Simons’ play, that has been making a national tour of Australia for the past two months after being selected for the VCE drama playlist and following its nomination for the 2009 Green Room Awards, may not be the most arresting: I found myself struggling to articulate it in full, without embarrassing blunders, prior to watching the production. Not now. The title makes as much sense as the acting is stunning, and the staging, unforgettable.

Based on the story of Simons’ own grandmother, The Weather and Your Health is about growing up in a small country town in NSW called Gilgandra. The protagonist, portrayed by Simons herself, relates her childhood memories of the Second World War, her life of poverty, the courtship by, and marriage to a man (played by Daniel Mottau) who is later found wanting as a provider – both emotionally and materially.

While she exacts every effort to attract his attention, he sits engrossed with horse racing commentaries on his transistor radio as he studies his Form Guide, mute. We learn how well his wife has allowed him to live — slumped in front of the fireplace all day — despite doing little to help with the household bills.

But, Simons, bare-footed but outfitted in a cheerful cotton dress and bright lipstick, depicts a young woman focused on finding the silver lining in every cloud. Just as her childhood poverty has bred not grouses but determination her own children have plenty to eat, just as her less than privileged life as the daughter of a sanitary pan collector has retained in her not bitterness but recollections of her father’s love, so, while married life could be better, we come to see how it only takes a simple expression for this life-loving woman to be once again content.

Nevertheless, the playwright avoids the schmaltzy and the saccharine in her writing, in spite of the rose-hued glasses through which her character sees the world, in spite of the central figure’s sweet (if quirky) characterisation. Simons does not wallow in nostalgic feelings for the father’s generosity when he surprises his daughter with the dress she loves, and she deftly ends the play when the frosty husband gives the first sign of softening. This does not detract from the emotional impact of her work, nonetheless: it did not keep me from becoming tearful in both places.

Directed by David Wicks, this honest account by an honest woman has been allowed to flourish honestly. We identify with the yearning, the jealousy, the ‘dog in a manger’ attitude inherent in probably every woman, and we recognise a young lady’s obsession with beauty and with beauty routines.

Simons shines in her role, as she does in her writing. Her caricatural representations of the four country-town girlfriends are especially impressive, while Mottau (although mostly wordless) delivers his part handsomely — not least in the final scene — but more memorably when he is movie-watching.

One can almost hear Simons’ nanna recount her story as this one-act piece unfolds over under an hour. You appreciate Simons’ choice in portraying her as a young woman in her prime, rather than as a mother or grandmother she is today. For, in her mind, she shall forever be the girl from Gilgandra, talking about, yes, The Weather and Your Health.

Wistful no more

Dear Dad

I have sometimes wondered how my life might be different had I not decamped to Melbourne those years ago, but stayed put in Singapore where things were familiar, if I had given myself the chance to mature into the culture that has been promoted as unique, and had chosen to be close to those who were dear. You know those times: when one gets a little lonely, when living away from home feels somewhat dreary and cold.

Well, I might have married the boy-next-door, I mused on those occasions, who has become good. He has worked his way from a junior engineer to the higher echelons of a Forbes Top 100 corporation. We may be living in a five-room HDB flat – public housing considered middle-class housing in this land-scarce nation state. And since I could also be working full-time, I indulged my imagination further, the husband and I would have hired domestic help to take care of the chores and of, perhaps, our only toddler child.

Or, I might just as likely have decided (or resigned) to remain single. But rather than disgorging myself into a vacant house at the end of each exhausting day, I will be coming back to a hot dinner with mum — who is slowly but steadily aging — before spending some time with her, chatting or watching a spot of television. Although there may not otherwise be much to look forward to by way of cultural entertainment — a moot point, no doubt — hanging out with friends I have virtually grown up with would be equally enriching and full of joy. And while the workplace will be indubitably steeped in stress and competition in one of Asia’s most vibrant economies, office politics and machinations seem to transcend national borders, anyway: the office classes in the relatively more laid back city down-under are in no way immune to the rigours of daily grind.

During those forlorn hours, sitting alone on my loungeroom suite, here in my adopted country, I found myself contemplating life, ruminating on what I had missed out on, and secretly questioning the wisdom of my decision too many years ago — too many to reverse the consequences, too many to wind back the clock and start again.

Nevertheless, observations from my latest trip to Singapore in recent weeks have allowed me to regain my peace and to cast away those niggling doubts. For how long, I cannot be sure, but I know I shall not be haunted by the same despairing wistfulness for a long enough time.

She had on one shoulder an eye-catching Chanel handbag, and on the other a ridiculously vast Louis Vuitton paper bag. Her young son, barely five, was pulling on her green suede (almost luxurious) trackpants suit in the midst of a temper tantrum.

‘You can’t have fries today, it’s too late lah!’ she snapped at him. ’But remember to tell your friends in drama class tomorrow you’ve just come home from a holiday in Australia,’ she hissed the non sequitar, then shuffled down the arrival hall, revealing a pair of Gucci sneakers from under her pants. Disappointed, the lad waited for his trailing father to catch up with them before turning to him with his request.

We were among a horde of aircraft passengers who had just disembarked from a flight from Melbourne to Singapore. Later, while milling around the baggage claim carousel the brand-conscious mother, a woman of my age, remarked to her husband, If not for the exchange rate, I would have bought that Cartier watch, Jenny upstairs would have been so jealous! In a lower tone, her husband mumbled something about moving from their HDB flat to a private apartment being the real checkmate.

I had always known that in this high-density city, where one has neighbours on the other side of nearly every wall, people cannot help but be sensitive to how their status compares with those around them, contributing to what I like to call the politics of envy. But it was the first time in many years that I was reminded of what had revulsed me before, and what evidently continues to revulse me now.

Don’t get me wrong, there is nothing revulsive about having aspirational desires. Singapore, through her utterly capitalist policies, has admirably cultivated a nation of go-getters and ambitious achievers: she has the world’s third highest GDP per capita according to International Monetary Fund and the World Bank’s 2011 estimates. However, when one seems more concerned with broadcasting their achievements through (for want of a better phrase) conspicuous consumption, to chase not quality or self-enhancement, but others’ approval — even jealousy — it makes you question the source of one’s self-worth.

Then, there was a sweltering Sunday afternoon. All the brief noon shower had done was to create sizzling wraiths from heated asphalt on the busy roads. I was out in search of food at the complex near mum’s place when I ran into a cousin I had not seen for many years. Clinging to his hands were his daughter on one side and his son on the other: she was seven, enroute to piano lessons, while he was five, crying to resist drama classes. Their father told me they were there all day each week for the children’s extra-curricular activities. He appeared harried, tired.

True enough, I had only to wander around the bustling building to realise how it has been transformed, from an exclusive shopping centre in the 1980s to the raucous learning destination today. There is a golfing school for children aged five and above, a fencing centre that claims to nurture discipline, determination and endurance; there was a long queue outside the drama school, and a line at the door of a natural science laboratory. And, while their kids were having music lessons, parents were raiding stores for assessment books or stationery.

Those familiar with the local culture will have heard of the phenomenon known here as kiasu-ism — an attitude in which one strives to get ahead for fear of losing out. Now, although this trait has derogatory overtones, invoking chagrin in those who have been so labelled, its ubiquity is arguably what drives this competitive society. Nonetheless, the weary, and at times dazed, looks etched on the parents’ faces are (I know) not something I covet, and the stressed, unhappy gazes of their worn-out children perhaps explain the alarmingly high levels of depression among the young.

Still, I could be living the life of the swinging single in my birth country, shielded from the buffeting forces of parenthood, you contend. But government efforts to encourage its marriageable, career-focussed population to settle down and to start families have seen innovative state-sponsored mating programmes and widespread propaganda to go with them. And even if I shall be indifferent to such paternalistic desperation, I know mum’s well-meaning worries in close proximity all night would gnaw away at me. Besides, rumoured programmes that involve elderly parents exchanging pictures of their single children for potential dating prospects, harking back to the traditional practice of arranged marriage, would only spark more panic in me.

So, as I sit on my loungeroom suite, looking out at the butterflies flitting across my rose garden, at a sparrow resting on the cherubim bird-bath, the sun rising in the Melbourne horizon on this autumnal morning, I am relieved. Relieved that I live where it is easier for one to be comfortable in one’s own skin, where one is not blind to the fact that not losing out on the extrinsic may mean losing big time on the intrinsic. But above all, relieved to be surrounded by space, physical space and personal freedom, without giving up on mum’s distance-busting love.

The World’s Stain

Dear Dad

My very first encounter with a real estate agent was here in Melbourne 10 years ago. A then-new immigrant, I desperately needed a place to rent, to set up my base, settle in to this foreign city, before moving on to somewhere more permanent.

In 2002, before the manic rush in the property market pushed houses out of first homebuyers’ reach, competition for temporary lodging was far from keen. During the inspection of a potential home in a fairly coveted location, the agent opened the door to a cosy one-bedroom apartment for just one other rival tenant and me.

“It’s too tiny,” said the gentleman, after taking one look through the third-floor space.

As I was the only other suitor in the wake, the real estate agent turned promptly towards me, earnestness pouring from her eyes. I rented it with little fuss, at a, well, reasonable enough monthly cost.

Two years later, the landlord decided to put the investment property out for sale – with no! lease in tow. I was required to open the flat for inspection by prospective buyers twice a week, was banned from my own residence during those weekend mornings and weekday nights, and had to contend with the traumatic burden of having to find new living quarters in the meantime. And all that, while I continued to be a full-paying tenant, meeting my rental obligations on time, every time. To the agent, now dismissive and not hiding it, I wondered aloud about tenants’ rights in this supposedly fair country. There were no apologies, no thank yous, just a look as if to say, “tough, you’re renting.”

The next place was a two-bedroom ground floor apartment in the same suburb a couple of streets away. With the housing market still repressed, the bigger and newly renovated unit did not come a lot dearer. However, I quickly discovered that behind the freshly plastered walls were dodgy water pipes on the brink of rupture before they were covered up and put out of sight. For no sooner had I set up my settee, my bed and my desk, watery blobs started appearing on the ceilings and the walls. The short-term myopic view of the apartment owners – largely landlords rather than self-occupiers — unwilling to simultaneously defray a substantial capital expenditure and lose out on income, was no doubt one issue. But for me, the fractured relationship between my new agent, Bill, and the Body Corporate representative, Manuel, only made immediate matters worse. When water started leaking in the living area, and sewerage water began to flood the lavatory floor, I found myself held hostage to their personal vendettas.

“Ring Manuel,” Bill instructed me, when I called asking for urgent plumbing services on one of those occasions. “He will send the plumber, let him explain to the owner,” he said, despite being the point of contact named in my rental agreement.

“I’ve done that in the past,” I replied, helplessly, “but he’ll have me ring you back anyway.”

“Just do that this time!” he boomed.

I did, and then, giddy from the orbital rides I had been sent on, with water on the verge of seeping through the carpets, I rang the after hours emergency numbers – never mind it was 11 am on a normal working day.

By the time I had to move again, Melbourne was experiencing its biggest property boom in decades. It was 2007, and wave upon wave of Chinese nouveau riche sweeping on Australia’s eastern shores were tossing house prices to previously unseen sky-high levels. Being an ethnic Chinese — even though I could not be farther away from the ‘cashed-up’ league –  I found myself confronted with two antithetical realities.

Astounded (belatedly) by the rise in property values, I talked myself out of procrastination over signing my life away to a 25-year mortgage. I flirted with the idea of jumping on the bandwagon of seemingly boundless optimism, and with the notion of becoming a home owner too. So there I was, I turned up at OFIs (Open For Inspections) every Saturday and joined in the crush of other eager buyers to inspect houses, units, townhouses, and apartments for sale. And never had I felt more privileged as a ‘yellow-skinned’ resident. Real estate agents were tripping over themselves to impress me: greeting me in Mandarin, remarking on the beauty of the language, complimenting me on my excellent bilingual skills — until they noticed how I baulked (perhaps too overtly) at their properties’ asking prices.

Unable to face a mortgage that looked more like 35 years, not 25, I took myself out of the house buying market back into the leasing one, depressed. There, although I found myself in a similar squeeze – now that more and more were renting, with housing affordability plummeting to an all time low – the niceties of agents in the former were nowhere to be felt or seen in the latter. Like a headmaster/mistress tending to a flock of defenceless children, the agents lorded over us at the front door or gate. I queued up with the other renters at awkward hours (2 pm Thursdays) to look at dreary places, I had my identifications checked and recorded like would-be criminal offenders, and I had to send in my applications faster than fire. I was no longer the wealthy Asian they thought they could milk. I belonged to the basic renting classes.

My predicament was a function of rudimentary demand-and-supply economics, surely, I nearly hear you say. But that is not my point.

Fast forward four years, my love-hate relationship with real estate agents burned on with undiminished intensity. With the property market eventually softening, even after the 2008 GFC did little to step on the brakes, I have at last achieved the dream of owning my home. But no, not before another run-in with the brokering party.

Pleasant, obliging, even oleaginous, she watched nervously as my pen hovered too-long away from the dotted line. The hydronic heating, the alarm system, the ovens — I’ll need brief guidance on their use, I said, on the day of signing the contract, typically apprehensive. I’ll organise a time with you to meet with David so that he can offer some tips, she replied, referring to the vendor. I’ll prefer an early settlement time, and pick up the keys early on settlement day, I added, pulling back again from inking the page. Absolutely, her eyes darted nervously from my fingers to my face, as soon as the lawyers give us the signal, we’ll release the keys.

Finally, I signed. And changed her behaviour along with it. The agent became a diametrically different person even before the ink had found time to dry itself out.

“Oh, by the way,” I said (too late), “would you mind taking down the internet listing of the property, now that it’s been sold?”

“It’s three months to settlement,” her eyes glowered. “Technically, you are not the rightful owner, not yet.” She pursed her lips and maintained the stare, before adding, “Anything can happen between now and then.”

Of course, she mentioned nothing about how an online ”SOLD” banner against a property managed by her was good advertisement for the company she owned, refused to answer why other agents had different practices, and ignored how the listing (with the sale price included) was to me a violation of my privacy.

Today, as I sit in my study tapping away on my computer, I have little, if anything, to do with real estate agents, and wish that never to change. The next time I hear used car salesmen criticised as the business world’s biggest stain, I shall jump at the chance to remonstrate.

Film review: The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel

Dear Dad

In an efficient sequence at the beginning of his delightful film, the director John Madden depicts the frustrations among Westerners in their increasingly outsourcing world. Newly-widowed Evelyn (Judi Dench), eager to be tech-savvy, is exasperated when a heavily-accented telecommunications call centre staff insists on speaking only to the account-holder — her deceased husband.

If The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel appears to be a cruel imperialist joke on Britain’s former colony, India, the funny and heartwarming drama that unfolds is anything but.

Based on Deborah Moggach’s novel, the movie takes us into the lives of Evelyn and six other pensioners who seek to make the most out of their autumnal years.

Forced out of her marital home for the settling of her dead husband’s debts, Evelyn declines her son’s invitation to live with him; instead she longs for a life of newfound independence. Married couple Douglas (Bill Nighy) and Jean (Penelope Wilton), unhappy with what the leftover money from hapless investments in their daughter’s start-up bust can offer them by way of retirement care in the UK, look elsewhere to get more for what they have. Graham (Tom Wilkinson), a judge, finally decides to retire, and to find his then forbidden childhood love. And while Madge (Celia Imrie), like Norman (Ronald Pickup), will do anything to reignite carnal desires – even if it means overseas outsourcing of erotic partners — Muriel (Maggie Smith), an inveterate racist, considers the unthinkable arrangement of having her hip replaced in faraway India.

So, we follow as this greying seven journey to Jaipur, lured by the promise of luxury, amid “arches and canopied balconies”, in their quest for an exotic yet affordable Indian Palace to spend out their golden years.

The memorable shot in which the characters are seen occupying a row of interconnected airport seats marks how the seven disparate lives are soon to become linked.

As it turns out, the palace of their dreams is not to be. The hotel is positively neglected, dilapidated, in ruins, despite its young febrile manager Sonny’s (Dev Patel) huge plans to refurbish it. Still, the group settles in, each in their own, however idiosyncratic, way.

Ben Davis’ cinematography captures the panoramic frenzy of the Indian city brilliantly: the colour, the squeeze, the noise and the dust. And yet, in amongst the chaos and the cacophony, he does not forget to show the bucolic peace and the culture’s spirituality: one scene in which a lone white swan is shot gracefully flying into the horizon, after Graham’s personal redemption for a lifelong guilt, is particularly indelible — to say nothing of the sacred ceremony after his death.

While some may find Moggach’s story somewhat fluffy, and the premise unlikely, Ol Parker’s screenplay more than makes up for it: some lines, ostensibly narrated by Evelyn on her adventure blog, are so delicious, they make one hunger for more servings.

Nevertheless, the film inarguably owes its audience enthusiasm to the stellar cast: veteran actors Dench and Wilkinson are clearly in their element — natural, at ease, and eminently lustrous — while Nighy, Pickup and Imrie too live out their characters well. And whilst Wilton’s role may not be the most likeable, she gives nervy Jean an emotional, if explosive, odyssey. The standout is still Smith, nonetheless. Her initial portrayal of the cavalier Muriel is utterly authentic, her later change of attitude is sincere, and the overall effect altogether shimmering.

On one level, the story is what Evelyn says it is i.e. never to give up trying , even in one’s sunset years. And that the only “failure is the failure to try”. But, it is also about correcting any Western mindset that may be entrenched in preconceived bias.

If Muriel is Moggach’s way of redeeming the Brits’ famous snootiness, the narrative is the writer’s effort in altering prejudices against those Asian countries to which western industries have been contracted — be it aged care, healthcare, call centres, or, yes, love.

So, next time, when you find yourself fuming over a call centre automaton, think instead about how the phenomenon of outsourcing could perhaps one day open your life to a world of untold riches.

Chasing Vanished Scenes

Dear Dad

A short piece published in The Weekend Australian on Mar 31/Apr 1 2012.

I sit in an air-conditioned food court, one of many in the heart of Singapore’s shopping belt. The plate of wonton mee (noodles with meat dumplings) tastes as sublime as I remember it but the experience is hardly the same.

It has been many years since I left my birth country to live in Australia. In those days, wonton mee was not eaten in food courts; people had it at home. The dish was hawked by vendors clapping a pair of timber batons to call for customers before orders were placed then despatched to an unseen kitchen. Half an hour later, the same vendor appeared on your doorstep bearing the steaming noodles and exact change.

I grew up in a shophouse where my father ran his convenience store on the ground floor while the family lived upstairs. Trekking there today, I can barely recognise the place. Twinkling of bells from the traditional rickshaw has been displaced by the whirr of escalators leading to underground trains; delicate smells of local congee from the neighbourhood coffee shop has been pushed out by the aroma of McDonalds’ fries. The corner candy store is gone; it now opens up to an alfresco food hall. But it is the old family home, now a bustling backpackers’ hostel, which feels the most surreal.

Hopping on a bus, I head towards the east where my grandmother had a coconut plantation once. While I was never under any illusion of going back to bucolic scenes of unkempt grass and fruiting trees, the sight of gleaming condominiums and sparkling pools still staggers me. Instead of weeds that sway in the breeze, I see gardens and golfing greens; the streets are no longer full of rural folks with sun-battered skin, but dotted by expatriate families with strollers and dogs on leash. And no, I cannot know exactly the boundaries of those fields across which I used to scamper and kiss my grandmother on her cheeks.

Moving south, I stop to check out the city’s drawcard today. Although Marina Bay Sands boasts the world’s biggest atrium casino and the swankiest pool atop the world’s largest trestle, it has snuffed out the mystique that used to permeate the bay-side here. For where, in this swimming pool 57 storeys above the ground, can I find the magic of that first kiss made unforgettable by the sea?

Still, wonton mee tastes the same – at least.

Book review: Youth: Scenes from Provincial Life

Dear Dad

A youth memoir from JM Coetzee was never going to be a heady account soaked in rock ’n roll ecstasy or soused in exuberant joy. The 2003 Nobel Laureate and twice winner of the Man Booker Prize is renown for his reclusion and dark saturnine narratives that could arguably have only been borne out of deep introspection and misery.

The first installment in his Scenes from Provincial Life series, Boyhood, was an honest chronicle of Coetzee’s early life in which the author, as a boy between 10 and 13, was already revealed to be cruel, solipsistic and auto-critical, that left confounded readers disgusted yet positively disarmed.

Youth continues with this self-portrait. While it offers another narrow glimpse into the writer’s jealously-guarded psyche, the second volume lacks the occasional jollity, however rare, that lent its otherwise gritty predecessor much needed relief. And if his earlier work was memorable because of its unforgiving, precocious voice, the latter will be remembered for its self-abhorrent and persistent, lugubrious tone.

Coetzee, 19, is an undergraduate at the University of Cape Town. Like most teenagers, he is angsty (despite his own denials), defiant in his determination to be independent of his parents, insecure in his own looks, and paranoid of others’ criticising eyes. His aim is to one day leave his birth country for the promised cities of Europe where he is convinced he will be transmuted and turned into a poet.

Interwoven through the novel is Coetzee’s search for art, and for love, two objects whose inextricability he explores to an excruciating fault: on one hand, he expects the Destined One to unleash the poetry welled up inside him; on the other, he believes he must first begin to write to nurture the inner fire, for “it is in quest of the fire … that women pursue artists and give themselves to them.” Still, he recognises that one feeds the other, that in turn fuels the former, to create something of a virtuous circle, before eventually writing as if art is love, and love, art.

In the wake of the Sharpville massacre, Coetzee finally leaves his homeland for England. With little more than a freshly obtained degree in Mathematics and English, he joins IBM as a computer programmer, wearing a black-suited uniform, “adding up numbers on a machine”, and bored into a mental torpor. And when the weekends come around, at the end of 13 hour working days, all on his own in a cold, dank, and dreary little pad, loneliness stalks,  and he sinks into consuming despair.

Nevertheless, the determined Coetzee refuses to fail. Instead, he focuses on his aspiration to become an artist. He longs to have affairs, intimacy and passion that inspired Picasso; he vows to turn his back on morality if being immoral, like Henry Miller, will lead to the creation of art; he wants to follow his literary models in Ezra Pound and TS Eliot and sacrifice his life to art, “even if that means exile, obscure labour, obloquy.”

However, Coetzee lacks the temperament to live such a life. He knows that he does not have Picasso’s manipulative sensibilities and “hypnotic black eyes”, that his fastidious taste in women detracts from his philandering ambitions, and that his adversities in loneliness and misery will be as much as he is prepared to endure.

And when neither love nor poetry seems to be forthcoming, self-doubt starts to set in. Coetzee becomes associated with girls less desirable than the sophisticated European women thronging through London’s streets. He clings reluctantly to demeaning relationships, makes love for no apparent reason, shrugs off responsibility, and breaks innocent hearts.

There are lingering whiffs of his boyhood temperament. His behaviour towards his mother is as heartless as it was in the prequel, his love for her as begrudging, conflicted yet compelling. As riddled with contradictions as before, he may have been desperate to sever all ties with South Africa, and become as English as he can, for most of the volume, but by the end of the memoir, he finds himself yearning for his homeland of the old days, with a desire to write a book about the continent within the 1820s, from where seeds of his first novel Dusklands are perhaps sown.

There is clear evidence of the author’s fascination with Beckett’s works, whose trademark rhapsody on human existence and on the consciousness of an isolated character can be detected in many of his novels including Waiting for the Barbarians and the Man Booker Prize-winning Life and Times of Michael K, not to mention the 20th century writer’s spare and laconic writing style that permeates Coetzee’s prose.

Nonetheless, it is the technique of Ford Madox Ford — the writer he has chosen for his Master’s research thesis — that he most emulates here. Impressed by Ford’s “cunning with which a note, casually struck and artlessly repeated, will stand revealed, chapters later as a major motif”, Coetzee has deftly worked his theme of test into his narrative. He sees the “real world” of England as a constant test, with its exhausting monotony, its bitingly cold winter, its aloofness to foreigners, and the loneliness, guilt and brink of madness that it brings.

While Youth, which closes when Coetzee is still languishing in a creative drought aged 24, does little to reveal how he goes on to become one of the most respected writers of this century, the reader is suitably informed it might well have been ”a kind of stupid, insensitive doggedness, as lover, as writer, together with a readiness to fail and fail again.”