What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men [Paperback]

Gentle participation in this public world assumes a veil over the other, more private one, an arena of secrets shared in whispers. Between what we say and what we might like to say is a gulf of bubbly chatter hiding explosives. Since civil society does not care for any unscheduled eruptions, we seek out the shadowy corner and the soft, reassuring shoulder, the friend and colleague who can be trusted to share but not divulge. The tête-à-tête concerning some public scandal or sexual misadventure has a long and honourable history. Likewise, accumulated pressures can be relieved, and poison gas diluted, perhaps even neutralised, through lively debate, unhampered by politesse.
Gender prejudice persuades us that women unveil in private with more, perhaps obsessive, regularity than men. That the shrill voice and the waving hand, the traditional semaphore of matrons in distress, does not always translate into wisdom acquired through bitter experience, is no secret, but Dropped Threads, Marjorie Anderson and Carol Shields’s 2001 essay anthology on what “catches women unprepared,” and “experienced gaps between female experience and expression,” certainly gathered sufficient provocation and evocative insight into one spot that, despite its somewhat limiting bourgeois heterosexual orientation, should place it on any CanLit lover’s bookshelf. The same goes for its rather tamely titled 2003 sequel, Dropped Threads 2. Though many of the contributions are along the lines of what cynics would think of as typical postfeminist chick talk-puberty, birthing, abortion, menopause-a great deal also goes beyond the parameters of the trendy and is delivered with vitality, daring, and aplomb.
As a lifelong lover of the personal essay form (I’m a fan of the American, Philip Lopate, whom I consider one of is finest contemporary practitioners), I am delighted that such anthologies can garner interest and respect. For me, the occasional essay is still a largely unexplored mansion, while the much-vaunted short story is a shabby cabin, rickety from constant and careless overuse. I look forward to the day when one can speak with the same rhapsodic tones of George Woodcock’s lovely 1989 collection Powers Of Observation as others do of, say, Hugh Hood’s Around The Mountain or Alice Munro’s Dance Of The Happy Shades.
Editor Ian Brown, inspired by the above-named anthologies, has decided that although men are unlikely to read essays by other men, women sure will, especially if beans they hadn’t ever suspected existed get spilled. He has boldly ventured into the perilous waters of guydom, and, with a little help from his friends, produced, with no small flourish, an entertaining and prejudice-provoking compendium of the many ways in which lads just like you and me view the thrills and spills of their reckless, riveting ride through life.
A lot gets discussed along the way, some of it predictable, some pleasantly surprising. Rather more flesh than spirit, and a tad too much like journalism for this reader, but amidst the admirable honesty and bare-knuckled achievement on display, such comments would likely be seen as mere quibbles. Perhaps these concerns could be handled in the sequel.
In the meantime we can sample from the abundance of riches, not the least of which is Jake McDonald’s delightful portrait of Carol Shields herself, deftly woven into his mid-life automotive crisis memoir. There are many views of the “secret male psyche,” devoid of the locker room, but not, unfortunately, the barstool, on view herein, but McDonald’s balances sensitivity, self-deprecating humour, and subtle insight in a delicate bouquet bested only by Ron Graham’s unflinching portrait of his emotionally rigid father, “Goodbye To All That”. Still, in a volume with so many articulate contenders, it would be unfair, if not downright daft, to pick winners. Ray Robertson’s meditation on manhood, America and guns, “How Wichita, Kansas, Made Me A Man”, in which he discovers that Great American Writing cannot be cleaved from Psychotic American Society, is an entertaining romp through familiar territory. And Philip Preville’s festive tip-toe through that holy grail of women’s mysteries, shopping, is a virtual revelation. I uttered ‘ouch’ more than once.
I could’ve done without David Eddie’s priapic bragadoccio and Bert Archer’s tiresome gay boosterism, with its all too predictable girls-are-squishy and marriage-bondage schtick. Been there, done that boys. Time to move on; your life awaits you. But I guess two out of twenty-nine ain’t bad going. Martin Levin somehow manages to make commitment-phobia sound fresh and interesting, which, given something so well past its due date, is no mean feat. Ian Brown’s confession of his strip club compulsions is intriguing enough, but fails to take the reader anywhere he hasn’t been before. Peelers, their punters and predicaments, have become somewhat passé of late. Russell Smith’s solemn delineation of the bondage games shared with his pouty partner make one wish that P.G. Wodehouse was still around to witness and warble such determined antics. A recitation of the paraphernalia alone is good for at least one giggle eruption.
The danger with books like this, especially if they’re knocked into shape by journalists tapping their journalist friends for contributions, is that the final product can veer dangerously close to a themed issue of, say, Saturday Night, with all the shared assumptions and professional tedium that implies. Matters of form and content are, on the whole, dealt with smoothly rather than bravely. The project could’ve used some more daring and innovation along the lines of Michael Redhill’s ironic interview with his mother-that and an editor who can get his Blake quotes correct. That’s “the lineaments of gratified desire”, Mr. Brown.
Gordon Phinn (Books in Canada)
-- Books in Canada

Are the men you know obsessed with strange details? Do they sometimes seem to have less interest in you than they do in box scores and the history of the bolo tie? Do they become sexually aroused at unusual moments—perhaps while reading a history of the Battle of Trafalgar? Why are they fixated on cars and heroes and strippers and silence? Do they ever think about anything but sex? Are they ever faithful? And how can a man be so headstrong about not asking for directions and such a wimp about pain?

What I Meant to Say: The Private Lives of Men answers these and other questions about the male animal—whether you’re a woman seeking enlightenment, or a man looking for company. After all, there’s a lot to clear up. Thanks to the women’s movement and gay liberation, contemporary manhood has changed beyond recognition in the past forty years. At the same time, the age-old preoccupations of men—their unreachable loneliness, the unstoppable physicality of their bodies and desires—remain as bewildering and mysterious as ever.

Until now.

What I Meant to Say presents new and unpublished work from twenty-eight of Canada’s most thoughtful and articulate male writers, as they map the uncharted terrain of men’s private lives. At once touching and hilarious, insightful and provocative, What I Meant to Say is a personal tour of the secret male psyche, but this time it’s open to men and women alike.