Real men read books
Mark K February 3rd, 2008
I was told men don’t like to read. Men aren’t very good at getting together unless it involves competition, bloodshed, or gambling spoils. Men don’t do book groups.
So I joined a women’s book group.
It was great. The women read the books. They got together monthly. They talked about feelings and had deep discussions.
There was only one problem – they didn’t always get around to actually discussing the book.
That’s when I came up with Men Who Pause.
I would prove the world wrong. Men, I knew, really did long to come together in ways that didn’t require icepacks, peace treaties, or taxidermy. They could gather, using literature to stimulate good conversation.
Each month we would choose a theme with a corresponding book and movie. We would meet and talk about ideas which the book and movie inspired. Men are good at what the child psychologists call parallel play – two little boys can’t jump in a sandbox and have a heart-to-heart, but give them a toy truck, a couple of sticks, and some dirt and they know exactly what to do.
No one knew what to expect. The first film was Grizzly Man and the book was Into the Wild. The theme amounted to: “If you make a really bad decision out in nature, you will probably have an unfortunate experience at one of two ends of the food chain.” Discussion questions were assigned. One member spoke for many, smirking as he dismissed these stories about “two idiots who had it coming.”
Each month, it got a little better – the discussions were deeper and livelier. There was only one small problem: Unlike the women, our members seldom read the book.
We tried “dumbing down” the curriculum; read one chapter, use Cliffs Notes, just read the dust jacket. Some showed up with brand new books, then offered strong opinions, quoting liberally from the first three pages. Leadership was questioned; rotating leadership was instituted. It appeared there might be torn rotator cuffs and mayhem after all.
Then came the successes. A former nonreader admitted that he had now become a book-finisher. During a Jack Kerouac discussion at a San Francisco bar, we were told by young hip women that it was cool to see old guys talking about books. A stranger at a restaurant, overhearing our discussion of The Catcher in the Rye, offered a fifteen-minute monologue about a guy he once knew named Holden.
Then last summer, we planned a campout and only three of us showed up. After dinner, we sat around the campfire and Ashwin cautiously pulled a never-before-shared manuscript from his backpack. He proceeded to read incredibly personal, painful stories that he’d written about his childhood in India. Patrick and I sat in the dark and listened in awe.
We still have a lot to learn about how to do this whole book group discussion thing. But I’m confident that pages, chapters, and someday, entire books will be read. And discussed.
- favorite posts , men's group
- Comments(5)
Hi Mark,
I’ve already joined Redroom though I haven’t done anything with it yet. I just went and read your essay–which I enjoyed. Your men’s group is a worthwhile experiment.
I’ve been to only a few book discussions in my lifetime, but I must say, each experience has added greatly to my understanding of what I had read. (You mean “Animal Farm” isn’t about animals and farms?
And it’s fun! I imagine that there are plenty of women’s groups that have had problems getting off the ground, too. Or the leader, who was the cohesive factor, moves, dies, etc. and the group falls apart.
Sounds like you have already had some “quality” time with the other men and clearly mattered to you more than the number of pages read, etc. A perfect example of “Pause for Purpose!”
Susan Alcorn
I loved your Redroom story. It prompted this memory.
Despite being an avid reader, the only book club I’ve ever been a part of was the one I joined when I lived in Sandpoint, Idaho, way up by the Canadian border. It was a women’s group, but once a year around Christmas, we’d invite the husbands to join in. Hence, a manly book was chosen: The General’s Daughter by Nelson de Milne. For those of you lucky enough to have escaped this tawdry tale, it had to do with sado-masochism and the murder of a young woman on a testosterone pumped army base. So when I sat down with a group of Idahoans that included a quaker couple, a church-going realtor, and a couple of monosyllabic males, I had no idea what to expect.
After one man blathered on for twenty minutes on how the book clearly proved that women weren’t suited to the military (I almost had to tie myself to the chair on that one), I decided to change the subject. “What about the sado-masochistic tendencies in the book?”I asked sweetly. Silence. Then from the quaker women with white hair and the face of an old-fashioned school teacher, “Oh, I wouldn’t mind being tied up during sex. That’s if Henry was game.”
Henry, looking like a blushing teenager, and clearly wanting to be obliging, answered that if it was alright with her it was alright with him.
Silence ensued. And then, from one of the mono-syllabic husbands. “You were right honey, I should have read the damn book after all.”
Mark,
Thanks, you do right by all men by continuing to insist that they can gather together for intelligent, compassionate conversation because they like one another’s company, not because they’re looking for one more excuse to compare and compete.
Mark,
This essay captures perfectly the sense of purpose I get from being a Men Who Pause man. In spite of several long-ish books that now reside on my bookshelf with unbent spines, I really HAVE read a dozen good books in the past 14-15 months, and engaged in many lively discussions about them. (And a lot of other things. All without ice packs or swagger. Not even much beer.)
Very interesting to read about Mary Thompson’s experiment with her group yonder in the Northlands… Wonder what our spouses would think of joining us for dinner and discussion? Wonder if our spouses could even get away to do so?
I’ll go on wondering. You go on writing like this and we’ll be reading your works in Salon and Narrative and Zyzzyva (or whatever it’s called). As Jack said, “Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind”. Uh-huh.
See you on the Camino.
Is the book group still meeting? Any openings for new members?