具体描述
White men still hold most of the political and economic cards in the United States; yet stories about wounded and traumatized men dominate popular culture. Why are white men jumping on the victim bandwagon? Examining novels by Philip Roth, John Updike, James Dickey, John Irving, and Pat Conroy and such films as Deliverance, Misery, and Dead Poets Society -- as well as other writings, including The Closing of the American Mind -- Sally Robinson argues that white men are tempted by the possibilities of pain and the surprisingly pleasurable tensions that come from living in crisis.
作者简介
Sally Robinson is associate professor of English at Texas A&M University and the author of Engendering the Subject: Gender and Self-Representation in Contemporary Women's Fiction.
目录信息
"Marked Men: White Masculinity in Crisis is an intelligent, wide-ranging, clearly argued and thoroughly femnist book about the shifting meanings of dominant masculinity in American culture....Robinson makes appropriate but not heavy-handed use of other theorists and literary critics, often developing their insights in original directions....Robinson is an astute critic of cultural images." — Judith Kegan Gardiner, The Women's Review of Books
"In the past two decades, white men have proclaimed themselves the new victims—buffeted by feminism and other forces out of their control, and often even 'falling down.'In this textured and nuanced reading of central works from that era, Sally Robinson helps us understand the crisis of white masculinity and thus chart a course away from victimhood and towards accountability." — Michael Kimmel, author of Manhood in America
"Brilliant and timely, Marked Men pries open the workings of American masculinity in the cultural wars of the 1970s and 1980s with piercing intellect and wit—bringing critical attention to a broad range of pressing contemporary issues. Robinson deftly interweaves interdisciplinary readings of cultural texts, from novels and movies to academic theory and self-help books, to deliver a stunning critique not only of white male anxiety but also of the more general cultural fall-out plaguing American society in the aftermath of the 1960s." — Marlon Bryan Ross, author of The Contours of Masculine Desire
"In Marked Men, Sally Robinson argues persuasively that the white male role of individual victim serves to turn social and political issues into purely personal matters—an analysis that explains contemporary American masculinity more cogently than either the judgment that now men are behaving badly out of a pure 'backlash'against feminism or that they have been 'stiffed'by uncontrollable cultural forces." — Judith Kegan Gardiner, editor of Provoking Agents: Gender and Agency in Theory and Practice
"Marked Men turns the emergent field of whiteness studies on its head: where other scholars posit that making whiteness and masculinity visible as specific forms of embodiment is an inherent critical insurgency, Sally Robinson shows that such critical strategies are actually complicit with the dominant project of white masculinity in the public sphere. This book is the single most important and concise revisiting of the social and scholarly terrain of white masculinity to date." — Robyn Wiegman, author of American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender
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读后感
用户评价
说实话,我对这种基调比较沉重的书籍通常持保留态度,总担心会陷入无休止的压抑。但《Marked Men》这本书,却成功地让我体验了一场酣畅淋漓的情感释放。它的语言风格极其独特,用词精准且富有画面感,很多段落的描述简直可以单独拿出来当作散文来欣赏。比如对某个场景的氛围渲染,那种潮湿的、带着金属味道的空气感,隔着书页我都能真切地感受到。更让我感到惊喜的是,故事中的女性角色塑造得极其立体,她们不再是传统意义上的配角或附属品,而是拥有自己完整的世界观和强大的内在驱动力,她们的选择和挣扎,甚至比男性角色的线索更让我揪心。这本书巧妙地避开了道德审判的陷阱,它只是呈现,让读者自己去评判,去感受。在处理冲突时,作者没有选择简单粗暴地解决问题,而是让矛盾在人物的内心不断发酵、升级,直到最后那个爆发点,带来的不是毁灭,而是一种近乎重生的平静。这是一部非常“干净”的作品,它洗涤了读者的心灵,留下了深刻的思考余地。
这本书的阅读体验,就像是进行了一次长时间的心理治疗。它不像那种情节飞快的惊悚小说,它更像是一部慢火细炖的浓汤,需要时间去品味其中的层次和味道。我尤其欣赏作者对“时间”这一概念的处理。在故事中,时间似乎是扭曲的,过去的影响力被拉得很长,现在的每一步都走得异常艰难,而未来则笼罩在一片迷雾之中。这种非线性叙事,非但没有让人感到混乱,反而增强了命运的宿命感和无力感。它让你不断回溯,去寻找某个关键的决定点,去追问“如果当初……会怎样?”。同时,书中对环境的描写也是一绝,那些被遗忘的角落、破败的建筑、工业区的废墟,都成为了角色内心世界的延伸,场景和心境达到了完美的统一。读完之后,你会有一种被掏空又被重新填充的感觉,那些曾经被忽略的情绪和感受,都被这本书强行拽到了光天化日之下,让人不得不直面。
我必须承认,最初被这本书吸引,是冲着它那近乎冷酷的现实主义笔触去的。然而,读进去之后才发现,它的内核远比我预期的要复杂和温暖得多。作者似乎拥有一种近乎残酷的诚实,他毫不避讳地揭示了社会底层那些难以启齿的困境与人性的阴暗面,那些压抑、不公和无望感几乎要透过纸面溢出来。但妙就妙在,在描绘这些黑暗时,作者又总能精准地捕捉到一丝微弱却坚韧的光芒。也许是一个陌生人伸出的援手,也许是一个约定俗成的承诺,这些小小的火花,在巨大的黑暗背景下显得格外耀眼,让人在心生悲悯的同时,又燃起了莫名的希望。这本书的结构也很有意思,它采用了多线叙事,不同角色的视角互相交织、印证,拼凑出了一幅关于时代变迁和个人命运的宏大图景。每一次视角转换,都带来一种全新的解读和震撼,迫使读者不断修正自己对事件的认知。它要求读者付出专注的注意力,但回报是极其丰厚的——你会得到一次深入了解复杂人性和社会肌理的独特旅程。
这本小说简直是年度惊喜,它用一种极其细腻却又充满力量的方式,描绘了几个在命运漩涡中挣扎的灵魂。作者对于人物内心的挖掘达到了令人咋舌的深度,你仿佛能感受到他们每一次呼吸的重量,每一次抉择背后的撕扯。故事的主线看似围绕着某种宏大的冲突展开,但真正吸引人的是那些微不足道的日常片段——清晨咖啡杯上凝结的水汽,雨夜中霓虹灯模糊的倒影,这些细节被赋予了非凡的意义,构建出一个既真实可触又充满象征意味的世界。叙事节奏的掌控更是高明,时而如平静的湖面,让你沉浸在角色细腻的情感交流中;时而又猛然加速,将你卷入意想不到的转折与高潮,让人完全放不下书卷,恨不得一口气读到天明。最难得的是,它没有用廉价的煽情去堆砌情感,而是让人物的痛苦、挣扎和最终的和解都显得那么自然而然,仿佛这一切本就应该如此发生。读完之后,脑海中久久不能散去的是那些鲜活的面孔,以及他们为了生存与自我和解所付出的巨大代价。这是一部需要细细品味的文学作品,它不仅仅是在讲述一个故事,更是在探讨人性的复杂与韧性。
这本书的魅力在于它的“不可预测性”和“真实性”之间的微妙平衡。你永远无法猜到下一页会发生什么,但当你读到那个转折时,你又会恍然大悟:是的,对于这群人来说,这才是唯一的、必然的结局。作者构建了一个完整且自洽的逻辑体系,即使故事背景设定在虚构的环境,你依然能感受到其严谨的内在规律。书中对权力结构和阶级固化的探讨非常深刻,它没有提供简单的答案,而是抛出了一系列尖锐的问题,迫使读者反思我们自己所处的世界。我喜欢它对白的处理,那种充满地方色彩和潜台词的交流方式,比那些直白的独白更具张力。你必须仔细辨认字里行间隐藏的愤怒、恐惧和渴望。总而言之,这不是一本用来放松的书,它更像是一面镜子,照出了人性的光辉与阴影,非常值得所有热爱深度阅读的同好们入手。