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Let's hear it for the boys



 
 
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Old July 27th 06, 03:13 AM posted to rec.scouting.usa,misc.kids,alt.parenting.solutions,rec.arts.books.childrens,soc.men
Fred Goodwin, CMA
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Default Let's hear it for the boys

Let's hear it for the boys

http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/childrenandteens/story/0,,1797080,00.html
http://tinyurl.com/r7g4v

Is a new book of chap-like pursuits good clean fun, or does it hark
back to a nostalgic, colonial past?

Dave Hill
Wednesday June 14, 2006
The Guardian

Valiant as a Spitfire pilot, fearless as an Elizabethan seafarer, a big
red hardback called The Dangerous Book for Boys has soared to number
one in the Amazon chart. Part miscellany, part homage, part pastiche,
the brothers Conn and Hal Iggulden's bumper collection of Useful
Skills, Ripping Yarns and Jolly Interesting Facts is already a
publishing phenomenon. As I write, Amazon can only promise to dispatch
within seven to 10 days, suggesting that demand has far outstripped
supply. And without getting too, you know, girly about it, the book's
success demands that we desist for a bit from building that go-cart out
of things retrieved from skips and reflect a while on what it means.

The authors' introduction gives a big clue. "In this age of video games
and mobile phones," they declare, "there must still be a place for
knots, treehouses and stories of incredible courage." Perhaps they're
right. "Is it old-fashioned?" they inquire. "Well, that depends. Men
and boys today are the same as they always were, and interested in the
same things. They may conquer different worlds when they grow up, but
they'll still want these stories for themselves and for their sons. We
hope in years to come that this will be a book to dig out of the attic
and give to a couple of kids staring at a pile of wood and wondering
what to do with it."
Such craving! Such nostalgia! Such faith in and yearning for an
unfashionable model of boy and manhood that transcends the passage of
time and can be handed down male generations like an adventuring gene!
Authorial tongues may be tucked at times into their cheeks, especially
in the (very small) section on girls, but there's idealism, the sense
of a mission to assert certain upright principles in the face of
history's mocking. Right at the front Sir Frederick Treves is quoted,
on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the Boy's Own Paper: "The
best motto for a hard march is 'Don't grumble. Plug on.'" He concludes:
"Keep clean, body and mind."

The book is beautifully accomplished, from its instructions about
hunting and cooking a rabbit to its diagrams explaining how to wrap a
parcel in brown paper and string. ("Not a very 'dangerous' activity,
it's true, but ... extremely satisfying.") But does the chord it has
struck also reveal the stubborn prevalence of some rather foolish and
deluded fantasy vision of British boyhood? Of a past less noble and
less real than it may seem in hindsight, a past which those books and
comics that inspired this one would have us believe?

I suppose the answer is mostly yes. I'm old enough to have grown up in
a time when the sorts of virtues championed here - wholesome curiosity,
diligent teamwork, pluck and decency - still enjoyed some currency,
especially in schools and in the cub scouts. However, while boys of my
generation enjoyed a freedom to roam and to construct bows and arrows
and to play football until dusk, those good-egg moral virtues were
often scarce in reality. Boys who were not "hard" or sporty got picked
on by boys who were, just as happens now. Bob Cherry, the brave and
hearty hero from the Billy Bunter series, was very much a fictional
character.

Is this book, then, purely romantic? That's quite a tricky one to call.
I'm wondering why it is called "dangerous". Does the choice of
adjective simply express that hankering after a time when parents were
less fearful about their children? Or is it some sort of a comment
being made to the effect that it is dangerous these days to insist that
boys are totally different creatures from girls? A chapter called The
British Empire (1497-1997) repays careful rereading. It's all battles
and rebellions and good intentions that didn't always work out, but
were still good intentions anyway. It is hard to see this as anything
other than a conservative reading of the imperial centuries, which
makes me inclined to see The Dangerous Book for Boys and its popularity
as of a piece with a modern lament about the loss of an old gender
order under which a chap knew what a chap was meant to do and the world
was a happier place.

I don't believe it ever was that simple, and pining for it will do none
of us much good. Yet there remains much that is admirable here. Some
more advice from Sir Frederick Treves: "Don't swagger. The boy who
swaggers - like a man who swaggers - has little else that he can do ...
It is the empty tin that rattles most. Be honest. Be loyal. Be kind.
Remember that the hardest thing to acquire is the faculty of being
unselfish. As a quality it is one of the finest attributes of
manliness." Not much to quarrel with there.

http://davehill.typepad.com/temperama

 




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