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Not only is he a terrible snob, he's also a prude and a mama's boy. Desperate to hurl himself into the abyss of madness and sex, he can't even seem to find it. The story would be funny if it weren't so awful. His sexual encounters are invariably joyless and loveless, leaving him feeling miserable and his partners -- to whom he's unfailingly caddish -- feeling worse. His poetry, when he's even writing it, is lifeless. Most of his mental energy goes into berating himself for his failures as a lover and an artist. In other words, ''Youth'' covers that period of a man's life when he's most repulsive both to himself and others. The story is not new, but Coetzee tells it with brutal honesty.

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