Daniel makes stuff, and, in his spare time, writes about things like movies, kid culture, and geek stuff.
Jeremy Adam Smith Reviews "Manhood for Amateurs"

Jeremy Adam Smith, author of “The Daddy Shift” and blogger at Daddy Dialectic, reviews classic novelist Michael Chabon’s new book, “Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son.”

In short, manhood collapsed because men stopped believing in it – and it shattered, as did the formerly communist countries, into a Babel of smaller nations: patriarchal conservatism, metrosexualism, hip-hop hedonism, stay-at-home fatherhood, a dozen gay subcultures and more.

Across this ruined landscape strides Pulitzer-Prize winning novelist Michael Chabon, a nebbish colossus, essays in hand. But in “Manhood for Amateurs,” Chabon is not concerned with why manhood fell. No utopian, he is not even explicitly interested in building some shiny new city on the ruins of the old.

He’d rather play the role of pith-helmeted archaeologist, excavating the sites of his own private Sahara in search of fragments – Lego bricks, Wacky Packages, baseball cards, Jack Kirby comic books, his father’s stethoscope – around which he can weave clever little stories.

Leave it to the rather brilliant Chabon to tackle a subject so personally and poignantly. Oh, and: the book also features the now-trademark-Chabon style of cover art. Just breathtaking.

Oct 12, 2009 :: Tagged under: , , , , :: #