Apparently, women aren’t the only ones who complain that a good man is hard to find.
Author Neil Oliver, in “Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys” ($25.99), remembers the long-ago days when “real men” walked the Earth — men who stood tall in battle, men who explored the world’s most dangerous corners — and he hopes tales of their adventures will inspire the next generation of manly men.
It’s a premise that some might find old-fashioned, even insulting. After all, any man who performs honest labor and takes care of his family could be called a “real man.”
But to Oliver, a man is more than that. He extols the virtues of manly men — the sort who traveled to undiscovered shores, who carved a nation from the wilderness, who “lived defiant lives and damn the consequences.”
In “Amazing Tales for Making Men Out of Boys,” Oliver makes his point with 18 stories of such men. Many of the tales are well-known and most are told with eloquence and colorful action, although he sometimes tries a little too hard to make his point.
The soldiers who landed at Normandy on D-Day. The 300 Spartans who defended the pass at Thermopylae to the death.
In some cases, he acknowledges that history may have inflated the accomplishments of some men.
Consider his story of the Demons of Camerone — some 60 members of the French Foreign Legion who fought to the death against 2,000 Mexican troops in 1863. After relating the entire story, Oliver acknowledges the facts may have gotten embellished as they were passed down through the generations. No big deal, he says.
“The important thing is to believe such behavior is possible,” Oliver writes.
Maybe that is the important thing. Despite some flaws in “Amazing Tales,” the author can be forgiven for the earnestness of his goal — to see boys grow up with a sense of courage and adventure.
It sounds like Oliver was such a boy. He comes across as an adult who hasn’t outgrown the superhero dreams of his youth.
“If you don’t instantly remember wanting to own a Bowie knife when you were about 9 years old, then it’s quite possible that you are in fact a girl,” he writes.
As understandable as his zeal might be, it’s still hard to get past the implicit bias. History, after all, is written by the winners, and Oliver seems to have bought into the traditional western ideas of who the good guys and bad guys were.
For example, the Mexican troops who killed the French Legionnaires may have been just as heroic, just as willing to die for their ideals and their country. But Oliver ignores them.
He also ignores the idea that females can be heroic. A fleeting mention of Florence Nightingale is all that women get.
Despite its flaws, “Amazing Tales” is still an entertaining read. Oliver, a sparkling storyteller, has chosen classic stories that are compelling from the first page.
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