Men
Subtitle: notes from an ongoing investigation
By: Laura Kipnis
Edition: First edition.
Publisher: Metropolitan Books
Published: 2014
Language: eng
Number of pages: 208
ISBN-13: 9781627791878
Subjects: Masculinity; Man-woman relationships; Men; Identity; Psychology
Description: "It's no secret that men often behave in mystifying ways, but in recent years we've witnessed so many spectacular public displays of male excess--indecent politicians, sleazy academics, philandering sports stars--that we're left to wonder whether something has come unwired in the collective male psyche. In the essays collected here, Kipnis revisits the archetypes of wayward masculinity that have captured her imagination over the years: the scumbag, the con man, the critic, the obsessive, cheaters, and many others. Examining men who have figured in her own life alongside the more notorious public examples, she draws out the masculine angst and sexual contradictions implicit in the erratic conduct of each. Far from the reactions of condescension and scorn that habitually greet such characters, Kipnis finds that they provoke in her complicated forms of sympathy and identification. Pushing past the usual cliche about differences between the sexes, Kipnis mixes intellectual rigor and careful analysis to give us an honest and compelling survey of the affinities, jealousies, longings, and erotics that structure the male-female bond"--