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Coming Of Age Novels: Why Are Americans So Good At Them?

First Posted: 08/17/10 03:09 PM ET Updated: 05/25/11 06:25 PM ET

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guardian.co.uk:

Is this merely coincidence, or is there something else at work here? Do American writers absorb Bildungsroman aptitude alongside fluoridated water and Wonder Bread?

Read the whole story: guardian.co.uk

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Is this merely coincidence, or is there something else at work here? Do American writers absorb Bildungsroman aptitude alongside fluoridated water and Wonder Bread? ...
Is this merely coincidence, or is there something else at work here? Do American writers absorb Bildungsroman aptitude alongside fluoridated water and Wonder Bread? ...
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HUFFPOST SUPER USER
Quack Ackers
463 Fans
10:33 PM on 08/23/2010
catcher is hilarious. mockingbird left no lasting imprint.
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colamonkey
My micro-bio contains this sentence.
210 Fans
08:17 PM on 08/23/2010
'Catcher' was meh and I didn't read the other.

Reading novels from the perspective of European Americans/white people is getting old. And I'm white. I really would like to see a better variety of perspective regarding any writings. Living in the same box and only being exposed to that which the majority thinks is great is getting old.

Anyone have any suggestions? I'm all ears.
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GraceNotes
We live for books.
225 Fans
06:00 PM on 08/18/2010
Perhaps it is because American children have the longest "childhood" of any developed nation.
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entropychic
38 Fans
03:56 PM on 08/18/2010
to answer the headline question - because we are brought up to believe we can do/become anything. follow your dreams, work hard, make a difference. sorry, but that load of crap expires the first time you realize that money can buy happiness and the peeps who have it ain't sharing. this is modeled daily in our gov't (apologies to bernie sanders and alan grayson for their work is noble and vast) which condones putting wars on credit cards, denying the unemployed extended benefits, and thinking it's ok to let social security be traded on wall street.
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DanielAdler
23 Fans
12:25 PM on 08/18/2010
It's in our blood. When you're English you grow up in a society waiting for you. In American you have to fight your way in. That, and the English love convention: http://www.entertainmedaily.com/2010/08/the-19th-amendment-and-virginia-woolf/
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JLTorres
Agitate. Agitate. Agitate.
228 Fans
10:47 AM on 08/18/2010
To answer the question above: because the American collective psyche is in arrested development.
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Nichole Boultas
24 Fans
 
12:17 AM on 08/18/2010
Mark twain was a great American author.
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deweydecimal
@DeweyMai on Twitter
2094 Fans
 
10:29 PM on 08/17/2010
Sorry, Catcher in the Rye is the self-indulgent navel gazing of an inordinately unaware teenager. Hated it in high school and hate it now. Terrible.
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thereisonlyoneparty
more amazing than you
326 Fans
 
08:57 AM on 08/18/2010
It is a truly awful novel.

And it is made all the worse by the number of people that are "inspired" by it.
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kmcv
337 Fans
10:52 AM on 08/18/2010
Whether or not you or thereisonlyoneparty hate it isn't really meaningful to the question posed. The fact is, coming of age requires an almost perverse amount of reflection and introspection (or, as you call it: navel gazing).

As a writer, JDS utilized a formula and developed a character that connected with generations of people. Most people can not give you meaningful details about the book, but can discuss in depth, the message/meaning as they found in it. For a writer to inspire that response, across generations and even across cultures is quite amazing.

Are there coming of age books that you do like? Some people are just bored and annoyed at the genre, altogether.
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c-tom
Badges we don't need no stinking badges
162 Fans
06:04 PM on 08/17/2010
America's great novel is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Perhaps American authors attempt to emulate the best.
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HekmagaJuximakLives
140 Fans
04:54 PM on 08/17/2010
Because we're all repressed retardds. At least I am. And you. What did you call me?
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Lev Raphael
Author of "Book Lust!"
441 Fans
 
03:35 PM on 08/17/2010
Are we better at it than the Brits? Or are there simply many more of us producing more novels per capita? Seems to me the Brits have been writing coming-of-age novels of various sorts longer than we've been a country, going back to Tom Jones. Pride and Prejudice, David Copperfield, The Way of the Flesh, The Voyage Out and many other classic British novels could be classed under the coming-of-age rubric.
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