Bildungsroman
Technically, of course, this term is a denotation of genre. It works for as a theme, too, however. The term is much more familiarly known to most as “coming of age.” This novel presents a snapshot in the life story of its young protagonist Kevin at a point in life when things are really changing for him in significant ways. It is not a coming-of-age of story in the generic sense of being about a particular incident that a kid that marks the moment in which a kid transforms into an adult—or becomes more adult-ish—but utilizes the conceptual scheme of the bildungsroman novel a suggestive way of informing the reader that this point and that point and this scene and that scene are intertwined and inextricably connected to Kevin’s process of maturation.
Life in These Canadian Provinces
The story is set in Lockhartville, Nova Scotia and it is not a particularly pretty portrait of this small town. One might be surprised, perhaps, to discover than even in tiny rural village in one of the lesser traveled Canadian provinces “there were two classes: the rich and the poor. Here, the rich were the half-dozen farmers and their families.” Think about that description for a second. Yes, it seems familiar to any number of American towns in that society is split along economic lines. But peer closer at who the rich people are Lockhartville: “farmers and their families.” That is a significant break from the traditional portrait of social disruption in American novels and so provides a greater shading of depth to a thematic exploration that could easily devolve into something far less interesting.
Sexual Pervsity in Nova Scotia
Part of the coming-of-age exploration is related to a focus on sexuality. The examination of sexuality in this novel, however, is, well, disturbing. It is situated within a context of hardcore fundamentalist Biblical belief in the nature of sin which naturally makes everything about it contextualized by guilt. This is a profoundly symbolic and metaphorical novel, however, and so sexuality is presented through the lens of the poet who wrote it rather than the novelist. The opening scene positively drips in mildly uncomfortable incestuous imagery. (Warning: some may find it more than mildly uncomfortable.) Unquestionably more disturbing is the young boy’s reaction to receiving a bare-bottom whipping from his father, a scene that is perhaps move beyond the constraints of mere metaphorical BDSM with the narrator’s closing penetration into Kevin’s thoughts: “He was a vile, worthless thing and he loved his father for having thrashed him.”
