현대 대중소설 속의 젊음과 성숙: 『하이 피델리티』와 『어바웃 어 보이』에 대한 교양소설적 논의

Abstract

The bildungsroman is a typically modern genre that seeks for a reconciliation between social reality and the individual. But in the mid-19th century it confronts a crisis, in the course of it, changes into the anti-bildungsroman, and reaches its last critical phase at the early 20th century. But reviving the notion of youth, maturity, and reconciliation, Nick Hornby's High Fidelity and About a Boy persist in the bildungroman tradition and try to reach a vision of reconciliation out of the contemporary social reality. In High Fidelity, Rob, a record-store owner and pop fanatic, faces a love crisis when his girlfriend, Laura criticizes his passivity in social achievement and relationship, and leaves him. But after his long quest for his own past with regard to his career choice and the failure in the relationship with his ex-girlfriends, he rejoins the community, returns to his previous work as club DJ, and proposes to Laura. Accomplishing the traditional reconciliation of bildungsroman in High Fidelity, Hornby goes on to make an extensive exploration of new contemporary bildungsroman in About a Boy. The grown-up hero, Will Freeman who wants to be aloof from everything and to be "cool" doesn't believe in the social achievement and relationships. But through the interaction between him and the other twelve-year-old hero, Marcus, Will gradually comes to recognize the essential human need for the social relationships. Socialized by Will, Marcus also suggests the new mode of social relationship, that is, "people in a pyramid", which is finally confirmed by Will and the narrator himself. Hornby significantly portrays the barren world where the genre of bildungsroman is annulled and explores a renovation of this genre in this novel.