Mr. Mitchell recently linked us to an article suggesting that Black Swan Green could do well to be elevated to the same heights of notability as The Catcher in the Rye, while disclaiming that part of Catcher's fading popularity owes to the fact that the book is touted by the authority figures of coming-of-agers today, robbing it of its (for lack of a better word) rebellious appeal.
I like the article's summary of the situation. Catcher is indeed bogged down with issues relating to its age (both direct and circumstantial), a problem that BSG manages to avoid. We can see the drawn-out effects of the direct issues in how Portrait carries baggage from the Irish independence movement that requires footnotes every few sentences of certain sections. On the other end of the spectrum, Housekeeping effectively occurs in a vacuum other than Monopoly, magazines, automobiles, and trains.
However, while I thoroughly enjoyed Black Swan Green, I would not consider either it or Catcher the "coming-of-age cure-all". I don't see the need to hold one novel on a pedestal as "the coming-of-age novel of an era". Both Catcher and BSG hit home at points, but at the end of the day neither changed my life.
As an alternative, I would propose merely collecting the Coming-of-Age Greatest Hits. Some books may not directly document a coming-of-age journey, yet they could still take their place in the pantheon of "formative literature". Each book we have read in our course itself has brought its own subset of contributions to the table. The Bell Jar's primary focus was mental illness for at least half its run. Catcher itself only elapses over three days or so. Housekeeping is rich with understanding of transience, both in the natural world and personal world. I would personally nominate the works of John Green as exploring a number of issues associated with "growing up", including coming to grips with the truest loss of innocence, death. The collected advantages of sampling a variety of coming-of-age novels are the greatest strengths that our semester-long CoA course offers.
I agree with your point that though readers of The Catcher in the Rye are reminded of its age by certain references in the novel, Black Swan Green is not ideal either. I find it easier to relate to Jason Taylor than to Holden Caulfield because of the fact that BSG takes place at a time that is more familiar, but I think the problem with various situations described in these coming-of-age novels becoming eventually outdated will never disappear. That is to say, BSG can't be described as a "cure-all" not only because it may not have a huge impact on every reader's life, but it also may seem outdated to teenagers reading it in the future.
ReplyDelete_Catcher_, when it was first published, was set more or less in the present day (if you do the math, the novel takes place in December 1949; Holden is narrating from sometime in 1950; the novel was published in 1951). _BSG_ is set in 1982; it was published in 2006--so it already takes place in what is, for contemporary teenaged readers, their *parents'* generation. If _Catcher_ is now finally starting to show its age--if its world is more palpably far from that of its readers than ever--doesn't that suggest that _BSG_ will "expire" more quickly?
ReplyDeleteI don't know. I hope not. It does so happen that there's a bit of nostalgia for the 1980s emerging nowadays, in fashion and music and pop culture, and this probably adds to the book's appeal and makes Jason's world not seem all that distant. But I do wonder how the book will resonate when its references have grown increasingly obscure.
But I agree with Roake that the book *feels* very immediate and contemporary--Jason seems so present and alive as a real 13-year-old that it doesn't really matter when the book is set. But I'd say the same thing about Holden, and many first-time readers still have this experience: his slang might be dated (but it's not like any of you go around saying "ace!" and "epic!"), but the voice still sounds so fresh and alive.
Look how many "buts" there are in that last paragraph. I clearly don't have any fully-worked-out perspective on this question!
What makes a good coming-of-age novel is that anyone can relate to it, whether you are coming of age or already an adult, or even if you are not from the time period of the novel. I would say that is what makes books like Catcher, BSG, and The Bell Jar good. I didn't find the time difference an issue when reading these novels. But I agree, you can not hold one novel above all the others as the definitive guide to coming of age. A collection, as you suggested, would allow readers to gather pieces from one novel to help understand another novel. The collection would work to create a puzzle, with each book being one piece of that puzzle.
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