The Call of the Bildungsroman
Jay McInerny has a long review in the NYT on Indecision, the debut novel from Benjamin Kunkel. Jay discloses early on that he’s a fan of these bildungromans, novels of development, as he defines the term. Ffity years after Holden Caulfield reinvented coming of age, Jay finds the genre compelling, noting the effects of feminism and urbanization without mentioning his own contribution, Bright Lights, Big City. As a foil to the piece he mentions a middle aged successful writer who looks down her nose at the stylings of anguished twenty year olds. Jay taps her with a dig about literature’s narrow focus while managing to imply that success in middle age carries bittersweet baggage of raging envy. Look at the author photo! It’s young Sonny Crockett, and,wonder of wonders, he’s written a novel. Stunned by the blur of speeding youth, older people can tend to discount a new generation’s rites of passage.
The plot of Indecision registers low on the originality index, as McInerny casually dissects the necessary moving parts by offering a checklist and using the word ’slacker’ in the text. I have to admit that alarm bells were sounding as I envisioned Josh Hartnett cast in the lead, sleepwalking through a story so familiar that no screenwriting credit is offered, just a generic nod to standing on the slumped shoulders of previous slackers too numerous to mention. Literature’s narrow focus? Let’s hurry through the Wanderjahr, the first turning point where girl of mystery incites latent idealism heretofore thought to be puberty’s natural adjunct. But, no, this is a journey of the mind.
McInerny offers a spirited defense of both the novel, and the coming of age story’s place in the pantheon of literary works. Perhaps these books would have broader appeal if the prerequisites for the character’s bildung were not limited to white kids who attended prep school. Disposable income, disposable children, no one doubts the ill effects, but if you to go to Ecuador to become aware of poverty, then you are in the process of coming of age.