It could be clownish and a caricature. I enjoyed The Road but it makes me think of a critique of sci fi I read once, wherein masculine sci fi novels focus deeply on engineering problems and all but ignore human or environmental ones. Some books tackled this by demonstrating the presumptive and flawed approach sci fi writers take to biospheres / space stations / generation ships for example (Voyage from Yesteryear, A Half Built Garden) where despite all the engineering, the biosphere suffers. I suppose a part of why Dune made such waves was that it took a very human and ecological perspective front and center.
The Road could be seen as overly masculine in its portrayal of a man and his son against nearly the entire world, which is often the fantasy of male prepper types. Some oppositional takes to this would be e.g. Cory Doctorow's Masque of the Red Death, where he presents the dichotomy directly in a post-apocalypse world and argues for the more optimistic outcome, wherein people work together in a non-exclusionary way to overcome whatever the apocalyptic scenario is, which might be considered a more feminine perspective. Others taking that perspective would include Rebecca Solnit in "A Paradise Built in Hell."
In the Too Like Lightning series, Ada Palmer takes on the male/feminine sci fi angle directly by creating a near-utopian society of mostly gender neutral people. At one point in the novel a character argues that in fact they've created a feminine society of women, and therefore aren't prepared to handle the outlier class of people that want to create war, who have for the most part began to present explicitly as men.
> masculine sci fi novels focus deeply on engineering problems and all but ignore human or environmental ones
I'd say the Road is a full inversion of this in that it doesn't bother explaining why the world collapsed and purely focuses on how people are left to cope with it
It's a world where femininity and fertility have been completely eradicated and turned into a living hell by said survivalist men who vie to dominate what little is remaining
The only "good" to be found in it is the memory of the Man's wife and the family the child meets at its conclusion
Don't really understand this comment, I'm looking at the latest Pulitzer and Hugo winners and seeing what sound like pretty classic masculine tropes. James is about a man who escapes from slavery, fends for himself in the wilderness, violently avenges his wife and daughter, etc. Alien Clay is about a man who rebels against an evil government, is sent to a prison camp in space, bangs his boss (a woman), starts another rebellion, etc. I haven't read these books so maybe the descriptions are misleading, but I don't feel like I'm having any trouble finding masculinity here.
On the other hand I (a man) have read Blood Meridian, and while I loved it, anyone who reads it and thinks "fuck yeah these are real men" is a psycopath. Nobody should want to be associated with those characters (or the real people that inspired them) in any way.
> people feign to wonder where the male readers have gone
I haven't heard this concern, but if this is an issue I can't really believe awards have anything to do with it. Nobody is saying "yeah I used to like books but Hugo nominees these last few years weren't to my taste, so I just stopped reading". At least in my experience the average person doesn't really care about media awards, they are mostly for industry insiders and a small subset of major enthusiasts.
Very common modern disease to associate a description of something with approval of its existence
Loathing the inevitability of McCarthy to get the same posthumous treatment as Kerouac did and with those benevolent and corrective blows kill pure art just a little bit more
There really aren’t that many books with genuinely masculine men. I haven’t read the ones you brought up, but usually it’s not the specific events in the story that matter- it’s more about the overall vibe, the way the character carries himself. And a lot of the time, that’s where the sense of masculinity just doesn’t come through anymore, at least not in any way a young boy could look up to.
Oh I have read almost all of McCarthy’s novels including this one. That’s beside the point though, what’s wrong about something being overtly masculine?
I’m not certain it’s the case for McCarthy’s works, but I think inept attempts at manly men could certainly veer into accidental parody. An “overly masculine” character might just bring Johnny Bravo to mind. To offer an example, I tried watching “Untamed” recently and the highly concentrated gruff machismo coming off of that main character mostly had me wondering if he would ever do or say anything that wasn’t so cliche as to be scripted by predictive text. (Maybe it gets better, but the first few episodes did not hold me.)
Parent comment says overly masculine rather than overtly masculine. Overly anything as a subjective judgment is usually defined as a bad thing. The question instead is why does op think it pushes into overly.
It could be clownish and a caricature. I enjoyed The Road but it makes me think of a critique of sci fi I read once, wherein masculine sci fi novels focus deeply on engineering problems and all but ignore human or environmental ones. Some books tackled this by demonstrating the presumptive and flawed approach sci fi writers take to biospheres / space stations / generation ships for example (Voyage from Yesteryear, A Half Built Garden) where despite all the engineering, the biosphere suffers. I suppose a part of why Dune made such waves was that it took a very human and ecological perspective front and center.
The Road could be seen as overly masculine in its portrayal of a man and his son against nearly the entire world, which is often the fantasy of male prepper types. Some oppositional takes to this would be e.g. Cory Doctorow's Masque of the Red Death, where he presents the dichotomy directly in a post-apocalypse world and argues for the more optimistic outcome, wherein people work together in a non-exclusionary way to overcome whatever the apocalyptic scenario is, which might be considered a more feminine perspective. Others taking that perspective would include Rebecca Solnit in "A Paradise Built in Hell."
In the Too Like Lightning series, Ada Palmer takes on the male/feminine sci fi angle directly by creating a near-utopian society of mostly gender neutral people. At one point in the novel a character argues that in fact they've created a feminine society of women, and therefore aren't prepared to handle the outlier class of people that want to create war, who have for the most part began to present explicitly as men.
> masculine sci fi novels focus deeply on engineering problems and all but ignore human or environmental ones
I'd say the Road is a full inversion of this in that it doesn't bother explaining why the world collapsed and purely focuses on how people are left to cope with it
It's a world where femininity and fertility have been completely eradicated and turned into a living hell by said survivalist men who vie to dominate what little is remaining
The only "good" to be found in it is the memory of the Man's wife and the family the child meets at its conclusion
No kidding. Try to find an "overly masculine" book among Pulizer or Hugo nominees today. And people feign to wonder where the male readers have gone.
Don't really understand this comment, I'm looking at the latest Pulitzer and Hugo winners and seeing what sound like pretty classic masculine tropes. James is about a man who escapes from slavery, fends for himself in the wilderness, violently avenges his wife and daughter, etc. Alien Clay is about a man who rebels against an evil government, is sent to a prison camp in space, bangs his boss (a woman), starts another rebellion, etc. I haven't read these books so maybe the descriptions are misleading, but I don't feel like I'm having any trouble finding masculinity here.
On the other hand I (a man) have read Blood Meridian, and while I loved it, anyone who reads it and thinks "fuck yeah these are real men" is a psycopath. Nobody should want to be associated with those characters (or the real people that inspired them) in any way.
> people feign to wonder where the male readers have gone
I haven't heard this concern, but if this is an issue I can't really believe awards have anything to do with it. Nobody is saying "yeah I used to like books but Hugo nominees these last few years weren't to my taste, so I just stopped reading". At least in my experience the average person doesn't really care about media awards, they are mostly for industry insiders and a small subset of major enthusiasts.
> if this is an issue I can't really believe awards have anything to do with it
That wasn't what I intended to convey. They're altogether not published to the same degree they were.
> I haven't heard this concern
do a search
> I don't feel like I'm having any trouble finding masculinity here.
What were the exact words I used? They're right there. Read them again.
2 replies →
Very common modern disease to associate a description of something with approval of its existence
Loathing the inevitability of McCarthy to get the same posthumous treatment as Kerouac did and with those benevolent and corrective blows kill pure art just a little bit more
There really aren’t that many books with genuinely masculine men. I haven’t read the ones you brought up, but usually it’s not the specific events in the story that matter- it’s more about the overall vibe, the way the character carries himself. And a lot of the time, that’s where the sense of masculinity just doesn’t come through anymore, at least not in any way a young boy could look up to.
Just read it and you will find out. Is a really short book.
Oh I have read almost all of McCarthy’s novels including this one. That’s beside the point though, what’s wrong about something being overtly masculine?
I’m not certain it’s the case for McCarthy’s works, but I think inept attempts at manly men could certainly veer into accidental parody. An “overly masculine” character might just bring Johnny Bravo to mind. To offer an example, I tried watching “Untamed” recently and the highly concentrated gruff machismo coming off of that main character mostly had me wondering if he would ever do or say anything that wasn’t so cliche as to be scripted by predictive text. (Maybe it gets better, but the first few episodes did not hold me.)
Parent comment says overly masculine rather than overtly masculine. Overly anything as a subjective judgment is usually defined as a bad thing. The question instead is why does op think it pushes into overly.
[flagged]
1 reply →
[flagged]