Why the world needs Hemmingway!

Let Me Share With You a Story

I have never liked first wave feminism, the elementary level binary opposition of Man Bad, Woman Good that exists at the heart of a high school study of the subject should be embarrassing to any true educated feminist. Of course, this as a foreword to my tale could immediately turn some off. Well so be it.
Weeks ago now, my pals were sitting around a campfire, doing what over educated-under employed (or over educated-unemployed) people do--wax intellectually about mundane things. We are all readers, we began to discuss "great" books, and after one of them listed some "Only I have heard of them so they've gotta be good" titles I said, Old Man and the Sea. And you know what he said to me? "Hemmingway is rubbish." If there is one thing I can't stand, its English majors thinking they are English, I HATE when they use words not in common speech to appear superior. But I realized, his girlfriend there as well, is quite immersed in feminist literature, so my pal from high school is a bit different than his current post masters self. No problem in it, just not the answer I was hoping he'd say. I thought, then said, "Hey! We need Hemmingway! If not for his kick ass stories, then at least to man up our future sons!"

Part B: Cardigans Aren't Just for Hipsters

As I sit, weeks after the initial conversation with a glass of Jack Single Barrel in my left hand I have finally decided how to post. I don't fish often enough to say that I'm a fisher, I have never hunted, though, as I get older the yearning to conquer wild animals pulls stronger. I camp, but never off a designated camp site. I haven't been to Nam, or Korea, or Germany, I will never see "action" in the battlefield sense. And to that effect, neither has my father. But even my father hunted, fished and camped in the wild. Living where we do I have been offered a broader male, bildungsroman, as the Germans call it, than people living in larger cities.
Still as time trickles away and our fathers and grandfathers give up their guns because of paperwork, young kids get too freaked out about putting worms on fishing hooks (modern young fathers are no better), and the bears(or bugs, or whatever) keep fathers and sons from camping trips, where does the strong male role model come from? Males are subjected to pacification for so many reasons they can't be counted. There is nothing wrong with spending a weekend in the woods and giving a yell to hear your real voice, to know you are still alive. The Canadian Tire flyer, every week finds a new way to make some manly task less manly, portable camp kitchens, grippy, self locking wrenches, self inflating air mattresses.

III: The Fewer Blades on your Razor the Manlier

I admit my softness... well compared to a lumberjack. But I feel as part of the boy to man experience one must experience the conquering of something, and if not in the first person, as can rarely be done nowadays, then through a book, and no book captures the half grumpy grandfather you always wish you had better than Old Man and the Sea. Its not "rubbish" to me, its basically a blueprint to understand what being a manly man is all about.