Youth is a frequent preoccupation of artists and philosophers. From 19th-century poetry to educational philosophy, the concept has inspired a plurality of works. Few however have dared to re-experience childhood completely, as in the case of Javier Zamora’s memoir Solito (little “solo”), a tale of transformation and struggle. Solito takes on the perspective of himself as a 9-year-old and his journey to America. In light of the concepts theorists Smith and Watson develop in their Reading Autobiography, Zamora offers a compelling bildung of his own so-called “I” — from childhood to maturity, but in a Salvadorean context.
Smith and Watson describe a form of autobiography concerning the “cycle of aging”: We begin in vitality, but this fades. According to them, “Autobiographical narratives are often written in later life and construct a retrospective storyline that extends from childhood to the present moment of narration” (203). The writer begins in youth and arrives at their current age, they depict the former from the position of the latter. Zamora too begins in youthful naivete, although this will evolve: Initially, as a 9 y.o., Zamora’s narrative is highly internal and oblivious to the outside world. He can only describe it in very inarticulate and precious ways. On his journey, he describes, “My body feels funny. Ants crawl inside my head. My eyes want to pop out. My tummy growls. I have a lot of energy. My heart beats fast. I keep thinking of different things, random things, like Michael Jackson’s video where the sidewalk lights up. If we could do that here, each of our steps would light up the dirt” (226). He adds, “We’re a fat caterpillar. Even the occasional cactus would be lit. Thick cactuses every once in a while that are my height, sometimes taller” (226). He is innocent.
Zamora lacks the language to characterize the dread of the world. The only thing that he comprehends is his own basic feelings of discomfort: his body is not right, he feels disoriented, and so on. He relates to his surroundings in highly elementary ways, via comparison. The mention of Michael Jackson as a pop culture figure also adds to the childlike quality, as Zamora can only understand his world through innocent figures such as pop stars. This is the “child stage” Smith and Watson speak of. Childhood however does not last, and the process of migration gradually chips away at it. At the end, he has fully undergone the “cycle”: At the end of the book, over 2 decades later, he reflects, “Similar to my parents, I didn’t dwell on what happened to me those seven weeks from El Salvador to California. I never forgot Chino, Patricia, Carla, Chele, Marcelo, and every other person I encountered, but remembering them was painful” (380-1). Now as an adult, Zamora can contemplate in retrospect. He understands what he is feeling, he can speak in developed sentences. Although not so much as it was happening, Zamora fully realizes the significance of his “second family”. Although, in some sense, he still is that very “child”, simply with a different context. The playwright Goethe once wrote, “Age merely reveals what children we remain”.
As demonstrated above, selfhoods usually entail progression, moving from “young” to “old”. Otherwise, the self would be incoherent (which it often inevitably is). The bildungsroman, or the coming-of-age story, accomplishes this, depicting the growth from childhood to age. Perhaps one could interpret Zamora’s work as a kind of updated bildung. Smith and Watson introduce the concept as an autobiographical means of depicting growth. They state, “It is often regarded as an “apprenticeship novel” narrating the development and social formation of a young person who, after extensive travels and encounters, learns to be integrated in a socially acceptable manner” (221). In sum, the bildung depicts the growth of a subjectivity. Although not as highfalutin as Goethe or James Joyce, Zamora’s depiction of his youth echoes this. Interestingly, the time span for Zamora’s case is quite short, and yet his narrative contains such significant development — a “miniature” bildung, perhaps, in which he depicts so much in so little duration. Migration is a kind of bildung — the child develops as they traverse their environment. The image of a centipede, a long creature (like a life), is fitting. Zamora writes, “I’m still half-asleep, but I’m walking. … Deep voice walks fast, but not as fast as last night. The Centipede looks smaller” (323). The centipede symbolizes people leaving, but also the gradual chipping away of Zamora’s childhood. The typical bildung would envision the centipede as growing or increasing, but for Zamora on the contrary, childhood is subtracted, erodes. Zamora walks with uncertainty, towards the foreign land of America. His old life, naivete, and companions gradually fade. In fact, the perspective of being a 9 y.o. As a whole will fade, and this is necessary for his coming of age.
Albert Camus once wrote “Age is moving from passion to com-passion”. This is in some sense true of Zamora — he elevates the “inarticulate” experiences of his youth and immigration, into a coherent memoir.
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