Becoming a Grown-up: the Bildungsroman in Stories for Young People
Stories for younger readers are often about turning into an adult. Bildungsroman is the story of a sensitive teenager leaving home, finding internal strength, and becoming a mature adult. What are some examples of Bildungsromans? Is the story structure a cliché now?
Alison Evans: Author
Kalin M. Nenov: Panelist
Christine Taylor-Butler: Author
Farah Mendlesohn: Moderator
Let’s just start at the beginning: WHAT THE HECK IS A BILDUNGSROMAN?????
Bil·dungs·ro·man: noun, “a novel dealing with one person's formative years or spiritual education”
OK, so why don’t you just SAY that?
The Bild…you know what it is! From now on, I’m just typing Bild! Anyway, Wiki says it’s basically a “coming of age story”.
So, why don’t they say that? Because it’s got nuances that, apparently, are important. Again, Wiki: “Bild is…characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features. The term coming-of-age novel is sometimes used interchangeably with Bildungsroman, but its use is usually wider and less technical.” Apparently, the German philosopher, Goethe invented it in 1795-96 with the novel, “Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship”. The “coming of age” novel been around forever, usually in standard YA form, but there are some exceptions that have invaded the speculative fiction field. Novels such as DUNE, THE WIZARD OF EARTHSEA, and ENDER’S GAME are all considered Bild. But WRINKLE IN TIME, UGLIES (Scott Westerfeld), THE HOUSE OF SCORPION (Nancy Farmer), THE AMBER SPYGLASS (Philip Pullman), and others of that ilk, including, of course THE GIVER, and from ancient times, the Heinlein Juveniles (I’m reading HAVE SPACESUIT, WILL TRAVEL at the moment) – these are considered “coming of age” books, though (apparently) not Bild.
OK…hmmm. These are the kinds of stories I LOVE trying to write (I say trying, because I haven’t had many of this type published; possibly for the same reason that the genre appears to have died out a bit since the latter part of the 20th Century. Derek Künsken’s new book, THE HOUSE OF STYX. I read it in its ANALOG Science Fiction & Fact publication, I would definitely consider it a novel of Bildungsroman.
What is it that makes a book Bild or Coming Of Age?
Let’s compare the definitions of the two words:
Bild: “…characterized by a number of formal, topical, and thematic features…a literary genre that focuses on the psychological and moral growth of the protagonist from youth to adulthood…in which character change is important…”
COA literature: “tend to emphasize dialogue or internal monologue over action, and are often set in the past…The plot points of coming of age stories are usually emotional changes within the character.”
Those define the type of literature, but the EVENT is the same. The “Coming-of-age”, is defined as: “… a young person's transition from being a child to being an adult…The specific age at which this transition takes place varies between societies, as does the nature of the change. It can be a simple legal convention or can be part of a ritual or spiritual event, as practiced by many societies. In the past, and in some societies today, such a change is associated with the age of puberty…In others, it is associated with an age of religious responsibility…in western societies, modern legal conventions which stipulate…17-21 when [people are]…no longer considered minors and…granted the… rights and responsibilities of an adult)…In either case, many cultures retain ceremonies to confirm the coming of age...”
OK – so we have it. I don’t think the story needs to take a LITERAL number of years to complete the COA cycle. Going over my records, it seems that I’ve pretty much stopped writing this kind of story. Of my own attempts at Bild/COA, only one is currently in submission, the rest are aging. Of the published pieces, by far the best is “Invoking Fire”, which you’ll find here: http://theworkandworksheetsofguystewart.blogspot.com/search/label/Invoking%20Fire (Originally published in the defunct online PERIHELION MAGAZINE).
In it, my main character, Na’Rodney Jones Castillo-Vargas Daylight Hatshepsut lost his Mom and brother in a Toronto, Quebec separatist terrorist’s bomb attack. Dad had been unable to deal with the agony and dropped Na’Rodney off at G’Uncle Bruce’s care and vanished. G’Uncle has just perished in a massive fire. G’Uncle however, was fairly sure Na’Rodney would outlive him and had set up a mission. This is actually the first chapter of my next novel, once HEIRS is published (which is a different story altogether), and I’m excited to work on it. (Actually, this is the first time I’ve realized that INVOKING FIRE is my next novel once I finish MARTIAN HOLIDAY, and a true bildungsroman!)
He is tasked with delivering hard copy books, one of which is a “first edition” of the Gutenberg Bible, to the Erg of Bilma, in the middle of Sahara, where a coalition of African nations has constructed the Library of the Information Apocalypse. It’s long, involved, and it’s a “journey novel”. Na’Rodney is joined by his “brother” Payne, a victim of Childhood Disintegrative Disorder which has whittled him down from a smart, sassy pre-adolescent to a twelve-year-old-sized toddler. And there’s Angelique Mary Ozaawindib, G’Uncle’s assistant, sometime housekeeper, and a permanent pain is his backside, Angelique's parents had died in a car crash, though she’d declared her independence from them when she was sixteen because they were, in her words, “failed crack-chemists and everything that that implied”.
The focus of the novel is that Family, no matter how crazy, is everything to Na’Rodney…it’s just that he never expected to have to create his own in the middle of the Information Apocalypse…
To write THAT novel, I need to call on the wisdom of Nisi Shawl & Cynthia Ward (https://faithandsciencefiction.blogspot.com/2020/02/possibly-not-irritating-essay-other.html) to make certain I write this well and correctly. But I NEED to write this novel. It’s been bugging me for a long time. So, I guess, when the time is right, I’ll finish what I started.
All in all, I think I would have loved to attend this session.
Program Book: https://sites.grenadine.co/sites/conzealand/en/conzealand/schedule
Image: https://www.deviantart.com/chrisostrowski/art/The-Great-Library-597339967
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