Enduringly unformed

Three recent books for the uncomfortable youth we'll never shake

The bildungsroman (not to be confused with the “coming-of-age-novel,” which isn’t nearly German enough) is one of our most durable genres. I think there are two reasons for this. The first is the most obvious one: We’ve all been there. Most people who read novels have done some degree of growing up themselves, and there’s a pleasure in comparing notes. How does my experience measure up to this character’s? Did I make the same mistakes, or better ones? Comparing the contours gives us a thrill, putting the unique qualities of our own lives in sharper relief as we sigh or laugh or weep with the fiction. 

The second reason is that I believe most people still see themselves as capable of growth. As a guy whose mid-40s are turning late, my mental self-image is about 25 years behind. The guy that I was then is still pulling the levers and pressing the buttons, struggling to make sense of it all. If I can’t continue to benefit from learning about the world and discovering myself in the process, then what’s the point of anything? 

I happened to realize that three of the books I’ve most enjoyed over the past month are all bildungsromans (bildungsromen?) that struck a peculiar midlife chord. While they gave me plenty to consider about my earlier years, the journey they brought me on was less nostalgic than future-facing. If I’m still in the process of building my life, it’s only natural to feel a connection to carefully crafted characters - fictional or otherwise - who are doing it for themselves. 

Either/Or, by Elif Batuman

I’ll start with the most bildungsromany of the lot. Our narrator, Selin, is a sophomore at Harvard in the mid-1990s - just one year behind me, though she’s a lot more comfortable with email than I was. She has always been a Good Student and lived a life of the mind, but it’s become clear that this is not enough. As she recovers from being whimsically gaslit by a perplexing beau, Selin chooses to put her ideas about classic literature into action by making an awkward but vigorous lunge for adulthood. 

That whimsical gaslighting is largely the subject of this book’s predecessor, The Idiot, which you should totally read right now if you haven’t already. In what looks to be the first of a tetralogy of volumes named after weighty tomes of the 19th Century, The Idiot unfolds Selin’s thoughts throughout the non- and quasi-events of her first year in college. Her erudite recursiveness grinds hilariously against her social and emotional naïveté, resulting in a rich, self-conscious comedy. As Selin delineates her baffling choices with the confidence that comes with not knowing the rules, the gap between thought and understanding feels achingly, relatably, hilariously wide. 

I deeply enjoyed living in Selin’s mind for 423 pages a few years back, but when the sequel came out last spring I wasn’t sure if I wanted more. The world felt too broken and bruised for the delicate ironies of Selin’s voice (not that 2017 was any great shakes, but somehow things got worse). I ended up deciding what the hell, and I’m glad I did. It was like seeing someone dear for the first time in decades and picking up right where you left off. There was my friend Selin, still fixated on Ivan and struggling to understand why. I was worried for her, then I was thrilled as she started to take control of the situation - though many of her choices remained just as baffling as before. But in Selin’s floundering attempts to understand love and sex, I saw my own challenges in navigating a post-pandemic world. How do you get past traumatic disappointment? How do you avoid getting trapped inside your brain? How do you keep yourself safe from danger while maintaining your sense of humor? Most important, how do you deal with the exasperating mystery of other people? I look forward to spending another thousand pages exploring those questions with Selin. 

The English Understand Wool, by Helen DeWitt

Like The Idiot and Either/Or, this book also has a predecessor/twin. Helen DeWitt is probably best known for her massive 2000 novel The Last Samurai (no relation to the white-savior action flick starring Tom Cruise that came out a few years later). Like Batuman’s books, it’s another hyperliterate maximalist extravaganza about finding your place in the world - only this one seems to be playing tricks on you. It follows an 11-year-old prodigy named Ludo (Latin for “I play,” so stay on your toes) whose single mother has devoted every resource to building his staggering mental gifts - which he in turn focuses on selecting an appropriate father figure. It’s the kind of book that occasionally rattles of mathematical equations and passages in Greek to conjure its characters’ fantastic intellects, and yet it’s also a warm and shaggy page-turner. 

The English Understand Wool is in many ways its opposite - at under 70 pages it’s barely a novella, and icy currents run through its veins (hence the titular insulation). It’s the kind of book that you can’t describe too closely without giving up the game - suffice to say that it’s about another supernaturally gifted young person, one in sudden danger of losing her still-developing identity. It shares with The Last Samurai a frighteningly competent protagonist, a fixation on the responsibilities of elitism, and an obsession with the concept of found family. Genetics is not destiny, and aspiration breeds accomplishment; if we work hard - and maybe take a few foolhardy risks - we might have a shot at becoming who we emulate. 

If you’re interested in Helen DeWitt (and you should be!), I recommend doing the opposite of what I did - swallow this prickly, impeccable bonbon first, and, if you like it, dig into the main course. You’ll learn a lot about what it means to learn a lot about yourself. 

Ducks, by Kate Beaton

This one differs from the others in being both a memoir and a comic. I feel like Kate Beaton doesn’t need much introduction to anyone who’s been on the internet over the past 15 years - she’s the author of the viral literary comic strips that went into her collections Hark! A Vagrant and Step Aside, Pops, which, if you don’t know these books, who are you and why are you here? Ducks comes from another world entirely - not the heady shared culture of the literary sphere, but grim and gritty tar sands of western Canada, where oil is mined from the ground in sprawling industrial camps. This is where Beaton went in the mid-2000s to work off her student loans, and her story isn’t a happy one. 

Beaton’s recollections, like her drawing style, are built from simple lines but capacious of deep emotion and insight. They’re laugh-out-loud when they need to be, but just as effective in the darker moments. As many of you know firsthand, it’s very difficult to be one of the only women in a men’s world. The grueling, thankless work is made even worse when you’re viewed as little more than a vessel for sexuality, which everyone relentlessly tries to pry out against your will. Yet even the worst of Beaton’s characters has humanity, and she grows to realize that it’s not just individuals who cause us pain, but the systems that enforce vast inequities even as they cause irreparable damage to the physical world they exploit. Not knowing what to do about it is something we all have in common.

These are, of course, lessons I’m still learning as I try to grow into a more fully conscious human in a complicated world. But there’s also a spark of joy to take from Beaton’s youthful experience. Even as she lives in a barracks under the threat of constant harassment, mourning the unfairness that drives thousands of miserable people from their homes to do horrible things to the earth, she begins to draw the giddy, effervescent comics that would go on to make her famous. Its important to reckon with the pain, but it’s never the whole story. 

Each of these books is a testament to the wonderful things we can build from the pain and confusion of growth. We’re not all lucky enough to bounce back from the difficulties we encounter, but those difficulties will keep happening, regardless of our age. I’m grateful for wise, funny, weird guides like these, whose stories implicitly remind us that there’s no reason to stop growing just because we’re old - we’ll never stop becoming who we are. 

Fleetingly,
Jeff