The Young Desire It

The Young Desire It (1937) is a novel by Australian author Seaforth Mackenzie. It won the ALS Gold Medal for Best Novel in 1937. Plot summary The novel details a year in the life of its teenage protagonist Charles Fox. He has left his idyllic life on an isolated Western Australian farm for boarding school. There he suffers the bullying of his fellow students, uncomfortable advances from his schoolmaster and a difficult scholastic workload. Notes Dedication: To W.G.C. Epigraph: "...To be free to choose is not enough. Though the young desire it, they cannot use that freedom, but must be forced into the decision of choice by good or evil circumstances which while they can perceive them they cannot control..." (Michael Paul: The Anatomy of Failure). In his foreword to the novel, first included in the 1963 edition, Douglas Stewart says: "Mackenzie told me that he had invented the author, "Michael Paul", and the quotation from Michael Paul's alleged writings from which he had taken his title. He was always amused that none of his critics had spotted this harmless little hoax..." Reviews