Coming of Age in Contemporary American FictionEdinburgh University Press, 2007 M04 18 - 200 pages This book explores the ways in which a range of recent American novelists have handled the genre of the 'coming-of-age' novel, or the Bildungsroman. Novels of this genre characteristically dramatise the vicissitudes of growing up and the trials and tribulations of young adulthood, often presented through depictions of immediate family relationships and other social structures. This book considers a variety of different American cultures (in terms of race, class and gender) and a range of contemporary coming-of-age novels, so that aesthetic judgements about the fiction might be made in the context of the social history that fiction represents. A series of questions are asked:* Does the coming-of-age moment in these novels coincide with an interpretation of the 'fall' of America?* What kind of national commentary does it therefore facilitate?* Is the Bildungsroman a quintessentially American genre?* What can it usefully tell us about contemporary American culture? Although the focus is on the conte |
From inside the book
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Page 12
... aesthetics, which is to some extent intractable, but which nevertheless warrants consideration because it is a relationship that haunts all of the novels included in the present study. For example, Franco Moretti has identified the ...
... aesthetics, which is to some extent intractable, but which nevertheless warrants consideration because it is a relationship that haunts all of the novels included in the present study. For example, Franco Moretti has identified the ...
Page 20
... aesthetic appreciation, and in these respects his voice gradually becomes a shrewd and discriminating one, even while it retains the demotic idiom of a fourteenyear-old. Where Huck remarks at an early stage 'You know what I mean – I don ...
... aesthetic appreciation, and in these respects his voice gradually becomes a shrewd and discriminating one, even while it retains the demotic idiom of a fourteenyear-old. Where Huck remarks at an early stage 'You know what I mean – I don ...
Page 25
... aesthetic sense of how a properly engaging story should be told, and it is that tacit artistic sensibility that drives the imaginative form of his own narrative. These formal qualities are highly developed in Bone's narrative; there is ...
... aesthetic sense of how a properly engaging story should be told, and it is that tacit artistic sensibility that drives the imaginative form of his own narrative. These formal qualities are highly developed in Bone's narrative; there is ...
Page 31
... aesthetic impulse that compelled him to tell his story in the first place, looking at the stars and 'connecting the dots on my own' (388). In this respect, Bone's story is a subtle and imaginative interpretation of 'the racial ...
... aesthetic impulse that compelled him to tell his story in the first place, looking at the stars and 'connecting the dots on my own' (388). In this respect, Bone's story is a subtle and imaginative interpretation of 'the racial ...
Page 37
... aesthetic accomplishment, these accumulated pages, like the stories of Alexie, have a crucial social and political dimension in recording in a uniquely creative form the life of a marginalised American Indian culture. The innovations of ...
... aesthetic accomplishment, these accumulated pages, like the stories of Alexie, have a crucial social and political dimension in recording in a uniquely creative form the life of a marginalised American Indian culture. The innovations of ...
Contents
1 | |
15 | |
Growing up in the Sixties | 46 |
Chapter 3 Citation and Resuscitation | 72 |
Life Sentences | 98 |
Chapter 5 Lexicon of Love | 130 |
6 Memoirs and Memorials | 154 |
Conclusion | 181 |
Bibliography | 183 |
Index | 189 |
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adolescence adult aesthetic American argued attempt attention authority becomes begins believes Bone Bone’s called challenges chapter characterised characters child childhood circumstances closely coming of age coming-of-age contemporary critical crucial culture death defined depiction desire dramatises Edgar especially example experience expression father feel fiction final Fishboy further genre girls gives growing idea identity important innocence integral interest interpretation issue kind knowledge language linguistic Lisbon Lucille Lucille’s Maisie male means metafiction Mona Mona’s moral mother narrative narrator nature never novel origin parents particular partly past Phillip politics protagonist Prozac Nation Purple question reader reading recognise relationship respect response Ruth scene sense significant simply simultaneously social society speak specific story structure subjectivity suicide symbolic takes tell things understanding United voice women writing young