Iron John: A Book About Men [Paperback]

(1) This is not a work of academic sociology. Do not come to Iron John for suggestions about social policy for your dissertation or articles. He does not regard professors as intellectuals, but rather puts them in the same category as businessmen or others trapped on soulless career tracks. Creative people are driven from academe quite early, in grad school, and Bly knows it. (2) This is a suggestive, exploratory, poetic attempt to use myth as a form of guidance for people in their real lives. That is, Bly seems more interested in throwing out powerful images and myths concerning men and men's lives and trying to make sense of them within our context of media-saturated consciousness than he is in traditional academic argument. It's an alternative to academic approaches, not in competition with them, and that is partly what makes it so wonderful: we're free to grasp at what interests us and leave what doesn't. Swimming in the questions is a beautiful thing. (3) Bly was an old 60s activist. If you can't bear the thought of someone not being conservative then don't read Bly. If, like me, you're conservative but not Republican, you'll be fine. (4) Having spent ten years in academe before running, screaming, in the opposite direction, I can tell you that Bly is no kow-towing feminist and no victimologist. Anyone who thinks Bly is too feminist needs to be stranded in a Women's Studies department for an afternoon. Then you'll come to him begging forgiveness. Bly is too careful of the feminists, I agree, but they're after him every step of the way trying to shut him up. He's despised by gender fascists, who see him as an advocate of violence against women. For them, a man is merely a potential rapist, end of discussion, and any attempt to portray them otherwise is seen as a pure wish to attack all women and bring harm to them. As for victimology, Bly is not seeing men as victims, alone, but as people who don't fit the above feminist profile everywhere and all the time. There are sick, brutal men, of course, but Bly wants to help men to see that they can be happier and more fulfilled if they dispense with both the feminist cliches and mass-media stud cliches and try to get in touch with something deeper, something with a lineage back into the furthest reaches of history, and something profoundly important to all men. He's very conservative in this way, as am I, and wants to restore some of the virtues of a strong, responsible, mature man whose strength is not a danger to women. Is that so evil? (5) Bly has mean things to say about New Age, contrary to what people seem to think would be the case. He treats New Age as what it is: floating, indecisive, maleable, pleasantries that never really provide a basis for anything. Bly wants grounding for men in myths and initiations that are robust and strong, and New Age is anything but that. (6) Read Bly with his poetic vocation in mind: poems do not make point-by-point arguments, but rather engage the mind, the senses, the feelings, and leave an impression. That's Iron John all over, and if that leaves you wanting something else, there are Men'Studies departments in the universities who will provide what you want. This is a book for the imagination as well as the mind, and that is why it is very engaging and beautiful.

Joseph Campbell does a much better job of interpreting myths and fairy tales. For example, Bly will take the image of the three-legged nag that the prince is given to ride to war on, and develop a whole theory of how the lame leg is a shamed leg and how all twelve year old boys carry shame around in them. Then he goes on to postulate what a harmonious number four is, bringing in the apostles, the four directions, and who knows what else as examples, in the meantime completely ignoring the fact that three is considered a pretty significant number as well. Arbitrary is the word. The writing is surprisingly (?) muddled for a poet, but the interspersed poetry is even more sloppy: a haphazard generation of images with no real rythm or melody, let alone insight. Pass this one by. Sorry for sounding so vitriolic, but I was driven to it.