Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist and the Mimic Bildungsroman

Abstract

According to Tobias Boes the much-debated Bildungsroman has proven to be an “unparalleled success as a model by which writers and critics alike can understand the world around them” (p. 242). In the changing perception of the humanistic subject, the word Bildung (formation, development) has a precarious relationship with contemporary British fiction. Commenting on the representational possibilities of contemporary literary narratives, Mark Stein proposes that they “have a dual function: they are about the formation of the protagonist as well as the transformation of British society (Britishness) and cultural institutions” (p. 22). Drawing on these observations I argue in this study that Hari Kunzru’s The Impressionist is one such novel that mimics the classical Bildungsroman and problematizes it through its subversion of the traditional characteristics of the hero who is supposed to reach a stable and integrative end point in society and become the model citizen. Hari Kunzru’s The Betty Trask Award 2002 winning novel, The Impressionist is a multifaceted narrative that ranges across a multitude of geographical settings. Murat Aydemir (2006) contends, “The narrative tries out, tries on, different conceptualizations of inter- or cross-cultural identity” (p. 205). At the same time, the exploitative regime of “empire” manifests itself in the synchronized presence of connection and the segregation of the new “citizen of the world”. By focusing on how performativity resonates throughout the novel, I discuss the ways in which the novel mimics and performs the Bildungsroman, and offers new modes of belonging.