 "Photo: Nicholas Badger")
As I sat down to read Michael Chabon's Manhood for Amateurs: The Pleasures and Regrets of a Husband, Father, and Son, I was a little wary about reading a collection of short stories that could possibly be, simply put, boring. However, once I finished the book, I was hungry for more of Chabon's thoughts.
Chabon, author of such novels as "The Yiddish Policemen's Union" and the Pulitzer Prize winning "The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay," delivers another breathtaking piece of work that touches on many subjects I know many of us, particularly males, have thought about.
Take for instance the standout essay entitled "I Feel About My Murse." Chabon tackles and solves the age-old question, why can't a man carry a murse, not unlike their female counterpart, the purse? Chabon claims the "fundamental axiom of masculine self-regard" is a male carrying around his wallet, change, pens, pencils and what have you in his pockets and that "a purse is basically a vagina with a strap." But through a series of different instances such as the harmful act of sitting on your wallet (It can cause damage to your sciatic nerve, leading to fat wallet syndrome) to using a diaper bag for his children, Chabon finally broke down and purchased a man purse. What he realized in the end, was he didn't care about what others perceived him as being.
With each discussion, he masterfully sculpts words to a point where you do not want his particular argument to end. An autobiography of sorts, he also delves into matters of his own family life. He is married to novelist Ayelet Waldman, who once wrote she would never be able to recover if something happened to her husband, and has four children, two girls and two boys. The particular love he conveys toward them all throughout his compositions should make this a required reading for every parent and aspiring parent alike.
There are many topics and themes Chabon includes in his novels such as, divorce, nostalgia and Jewish identity. One topic he addresses in Manhood is escape. In the "Mysteries of Pittsburgh," it is Art trying to get out of the past, or in Adventures, the main comic book character is called the Escapist. "The world, like our heads, was meant to be escaped from," Chabon writes. He states writers and readers alike "seek the high, small window leading out" which literature and books give you and "make a break for it." It is a deep look into the mind of a tremendous writer.
Along with being father, Chabon offers insightful muses into his past when he was a boy living with his divorced mother and younger brother. In the "Art of Cake," he discusses how he learned to cook. With his first dish being Bisquick Velvet Crumb Cake, he evolved to the primary feeder of his family, due to the fact that his mother would come home at night with little energy to cook for her two sons. Chabon offers credit to this act, in "a time of dissolving boundaries," for being able to recognize the processes of life that are unchanging, such as being a mother.
Maybe those of us who read this book will take his actions to heart. I think many, males and females included, can see themselves a little bit in this collection, a number of which appeared in Details magazine. I think all can take these writings to heart. If not, then it is your murse to throw away.
About the book
Author: Michael Chabon
Publisher:
Published: October 2009
Number of pages: 306
Cost: $25.99
4 out of 4 gig `ems
Patrique Ludan is a sophomore
physics major.
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