Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

This text explores, reveals and challenges the male psyche. Using the classic Grimm brothers' tales of Iron John it casts a backwards look to a time when a model of masculinity was neither Rambo or wimp, but is more in the mould of Odysseus.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• Preface
• Chapter 1 The Pillow and the Key (p. i)
• Chapter 2 When One Hair Turns Gold (p. 28)
• Chapter 3 The Road of Ashes, Descent, and Grief (p. 56)
• Chapter 4 The Hunger for the King in a Time with No Father (p. 92)
• Chapter 5 The Meeting with the God-Woman in the Garden (p. 123)
• Chapter 6 To Bring the Interior Warriors Back to Life (p. 146)
• Chapter 7 Riding the Red, the White, and the Black Horses (p. 180)
• Chapter 8 The Wound by the King's Men (p. 207)
• Epilogue: The Wild Man in Ancient Religion, Literature, and Folk Life (p. 238)
• The Story of Iron John (p. 250)
• Notes (p. 260)

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Bly, a major American poet who won a National Book Award in 1968, appears regularly at workshops for men. The book's title refers to a mentor-like figure in a Grimms fairy tale who serves as Wild Man, initiator, and source of divine energy for a young man. This marvelous folktale of resonant, many-layered meanings is an apt choice for demonstrating the need for men to learn from other men how to honor and reimagine the positive image of their masculinity. Bly has always responded to Blakean and Yeatsian intensities, preferring to travel the path lit by mythic road signs. His intent here is to restore a lost heritage of emotional connection and expose the paltriness of a provisional life. For many men capable of responding imaginatively to allegory and myth this will be an instructive and ultimately exculpating book. Others may regard it as an inscrutable attempt, intuitive at best, to find merit in male developmental anxieties. For all collections emphasizing family or gender studies.-- William Abrams, Portland State Univ. Lib., Ore. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Publishers Weekly Review

Bly redefines masculinity in a groundbreaking book that went to (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

CHOICE Review

Using fairy tales and myths from various cultures (especially the story of Iron John, written by the Grimm brothers but based on ancient legends), Bly presents his view of men's psychological developmental needs that (he claims) are exigent and transcultural. He believes that American men, in the wake of the women's movement (which he supports), are deeply confused about what it is to be a man, and are extremely depressed at what they think is probably the answer to such a question (e.g., a killer, a rapist). Most males in US society are raised by families in which mothers and often fathers denigrate masculinity and in which fathers (themselves raised in such environments) are poor or nonexistent role models. Bly claims that young men today badly need older males to initiate them into manhood. He argues that awareness of ancient legends of various cultures helps provide a definition of healthy masculinity and may offer clues about how to initate young men into healthy male roles. Useful reading for students of sex role stereotypes at all levels. -R. W. Smith, California State University, Northridge

Booklist Review

The PBS special "A Gathering of Men," broadcast last winter, featured Bill Moyers interviewing poet Robert Bly, who spoke eloquently on the male psyche and all things masculine. This companion volume further develops and crystallizes all of Bly's brave new ideas on what it means to be a man among both men and women. Drawing vitally upon such diverse sources as ancient mythology, classic literature (including his own poetry), anthropology, psychology, and even the responses of the real-life men who have participated in his seminars ("gatherings"), Bly staunchly redefines male identity, emphasizing the importance of what he calls "warrior energy" and all its positive implications. Artfully, Bly reaffirms the need for men to assume their organic roles--as servers of their king; as mentors to other, younger men; as teachers and parents; as experiencers of "rich interior lives." Bly disputes the Freudian and Jungian emphasis on critical maternal influence, stresses the need for the individual to come to grips with the life and legacy of his own father, bemoans the contemporary trend--especially as seen through the media--to view men as inadequate and insensitive, and meaningfully describes and correlates the male initiation rites of primal cultures. Bly's comprehensive view of mythological precedences often gets in the way of his most compelling passages, i.e., those that attempt to clarify the modern male sensibility and also confirm the male ideal. This, however, is a small caveat in what is mostly a refreshing, daring, and truly liberating study. ~--Martin Brady

Kirkus Book Review

Strong words about strong and weak men from poet and critic Bly (American Poetry, p. 845, etc.). Using as his metaphorical text the Grimm fairy tale ""Iron John,"" Bly offers ""an initiatory path in eight stages"" to allow men to recapture a sense of healthy, responsible masculinity. He advocates a male role-model midway between he-man and nerd--a man ""in touch with the Wild Man"" within. In so doing, Bly condemns the ""soft male"" so sought after--he says--by many feminists of the 60's and 70's, arguing instead for a return to the ""deep masculine."" He lauds the ""joyful hunting"" of young boys, suggests that a loving clout from father to son can be a useful thing, and recommends the psychic process of Katabasis, or descent, as a complement to the desire for ascent and purity. Such thoughts harken back to traditional ideas of father-son relations, and Bly bolsters bis views with references to various ancient mythologies--Celtic, Greek, and older. He also leans heavily on psycho-jargon (""bringing the inner king back to life,"" etc.) and seems to have little sensitivity to orthodox religious views of the family. Fortunately, his sometimes pop-eyed beliefs rest on a firm foundation of personal experience, both his own (""I count myself among the sons Who have endured years of deprivation. . ."") and that of the many men who have attended his workshops on ""initiation"" into the ""male spirit."" Tough-minded and bracing, but too workshoppy. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Robert Bly lives on a farm in his native state of Minnesota. He edited The Seventies magazine, which he founded as The Fifties and in the next decade called The Sixties. In 1966, with David Ray, he organized American Writers Against the Vietnam War. The Light Around the Body, which won the National Book Award in 1968, was strongly critical of the war in Vietnam and of American foreign policy. Since publication of Iron John: A Book About Men (1990), a response to the women's movement, Bly has been immensely popular, appearing on talk shows and advising men to retrieve their primitive masculinity through wildness.

Bly is also a translator of Scandinavian literature, such as Twenty Poems of Tomas Transtromer. Through the Sixties Press and the Seventies Press, he introduced little-known European and South American poets to American readers. His magazines have been the center of a poetic movement involving the poets Donald Hall, Louis Simpson, and James Wright.

(Bowker Author Biography)