Sucheta Dasgupta

Kathmandu:

If you take the boy from the man you haven’t got much left...

Masculism meets Randian hero worship in this myriad assortment of coming-of-age tales, all written by male authors, edited by one and allusive of events and decisions in the lives of male protagonists of every age and description: soldiers, businessmen, criminals, musicians, teenagers, senior citizens, studs, widowers, husbands, et al. In today’s world of postfeminist consciousness, where women have claimed most virtues, work, authority and roles as their own, there still exists a few qualities that distinguish the male sex. These are simplicity, responsibility, confidence and camaraderie. For, the heros in the stories share an essentially simple outlook that aids them in deconstructing and dealing with their complex situations unlike their psychologically more varied female counterparts who, on the other hand, hail from simple, practical worlds; they all have responsibility of the traditional father/son/husband/leader mode, which they relish and thrive in or fail to meet with; they are all entitled to certain exclusive privileges or skills which stem from the responsibilities and give them a certain confidence of manner and they uphold friendship, teamwork and fellow feeling and share a certain camaraderie usually unknown to women as they often do not make friends, form support bases and network sufficiently among their own kind. The book seeks to explore and celebrate these qualities. Its theme centres around “what it is to be a man”, in both the generic and the specific senses of the word.

There are 16 stories and one novelette in the book. Outstanding among these are “Until Gwen” by Dennis Lehanne, “Two Things” by Daniel Woodrell, “Douggie Doughnuts” by Don Winslow, “The Boy and Man Booker” by Reginald Hill, “Like An Arrangement” by Bill James and last, but not the least, James Sallis’ “Concerto for Violence and Orchestra”. Coincidentally,

crime is a subject in all of these stories. Dennis Lehanne tells the story of a 21-year-old delinquent who walks into a death trap laid for him by his father, the man who earlier obliterated Gwen. The poignant, almost poetic rendition, juxtaposed by a dramatic opening, terse language and the unbelievable cruelty and violence of the storyline easily makes this the most exciting story of the compendium. Lehanne’s is a story of choices, but it also a story of youth — its ironies and innocence and haunting hopelessness. James Sallis echoes the stark passion in “Concerto”, transporting the reader, almost cinematically, across Arizona and beyond, accompanying the hero, a Zen-like figure on the run. Sallis skilfully combines first, second and third person narratives and clutters the sequence of events just enough to create this other-worldly appeal to his tale, even as its car “borrowing” hero, so reminiscent of Robert E Pirsig’s Phaedrus, the motorcyclist saint, of “Leela” and “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, loses and gains pages of his mental life. Fathers and crime recur in the very brief “Two Things”, all about a dialogue between a working class, much suffered man of the world and a lady social worker from the more affluent classes. They discuss the petty thief, opportunist son of the man. The language of the story is colloquial and experimental but effectively carries forth the unsophisticatedly accurate logic and simple dignity of the protagonist’s final decision. He, too, rejects his own son, but for what different reasons! Fathers appear many times throughout the book: good, bad and ugly, in virtual flesh or as voices in the minds of the main actors. In fact, they appear in as many as eight stories. Neopatriarchist? Hardly, given that Andrew Coburn’s cheerily elegant entertainer at the end of the book, which is all about how deep rooted tendencies and destiny combine to make and break one family, is titled “My Father’s Daughter”. Talking of family values, the first two stories: Mark Billingham’s “Dancing with the Blade” (about an African American teenager drawing on male rites etched on his collective subconscious to face up to bullying, street crime and outlaw bikers) and Lawrence Block’s “Points” (a date and a dinner between a lawyer and his grown son) together offer a study in contrast. They analyse both the positive and the negative sides of the construct.

Bill Moody and John Straley’s contributions (“The Resurrection of Bobo Jones” and “Life Before the War”) make for enjoyable reading, though they are a bit underdone, intellectually. They attempt to portray adults coming to terms with the emotional requirements and discipline of their respective jobs and careers. Bill James and Reginald Hill together offer another study in contrast, this time, of male sexual personae: the touchy and discerning soulscape of a lonely, lustful bachelor and the flawed formulae of an aging stud. “Dancing” and “Shadow on the Water” deal with survival and the journey through fear to courage. Courage, according to both authors, is rarely about knowing the unreasonability of fear beforehand. Mostly, it is about carrying on, regardless.

Vincent, Quentin, Keller, Brew: the names of the boys/men are strong, distinctive and, almost forbiddingly, adult. Though after all the coming-of-age experientialism, one might agree “if you take the boy from the man you haven’t got much left”. Distinction is still a quality of this volume which researches the yang, its mood varying from the sombre to the ironic to the darkly humorous, its language reminiscent of that used in the single man’s living room: broad, spare, pithy, precise, often staid and stolid, and, at other times, crafted with ingenious design. Which is all very delightful. And supportive of the assumption and fact that after the success of feminism and the boom of chick lit and women writers in the past decades, it is time now for some, perhaps, to see the same world from a different, if male point of view.

(‘Men From Boys’, edited by John Harvey, 429 pages, William Heinemann, London)