Men -- Fictional

I don't read novels very often.  I'm even in a men's book club, and we don't read novels -- I guess that's for mixed company. But it's summer and now that I'm on vacation I have read two novels in the last week.  They have certainly helped me see what has happened to American men.

The first book I read is by a man I respect and who is one of America's major novelist of this century, Dave Eggers.  I read his first book, and even though I was a bit confused by it for a while, I liked it -- and it wasn't even fiction (mostly). The book I read this week is a Hologram for the King.

Then, while wandering around at a local town book sale I bought a book by Louis L'Amour, one of those about the Sackett family.
Louis L'Amour wrote 89 novels beginning in the 1950s and going until the late 70s, most of them westerns.

Well, the men in these books could not be more different.  Mr. Eggers' hero, Alan Clay, is constantly full of anxieties and doubts. He is hesitant, impotent, and indecisive.  He is plagued by thoughts of his ex -wife, his father, his daughter whose tuition he can't pay, the job he lost, the job he has, and his place in the world.

In complete contrast to this, all Mr. Sackett needs is a horse, a rope and a gun and he can solve any problem, sort out any situation, with the clear knowledge of what is right and what is wrong, and with very little concern about who may get killed along the way -- as they were obviously wrong. No issues of self-esteem are even conceivable.

The American male, and his place in the world has changed a great deal during the past 50 to 60 years. The world is much more complex and enmeshed. 

However, there are many, many people ho do not want to acknowledge this. They want to believe they can live the way Mr. Sackett did.  Most of the stories Mr. L'Amour wrote took place in about 1871. 

Things are different now.

Better? That's for you to decide.