Comments on: Blind Reads: Young Men and Fire by Norman MacLean https://www.the-solute.com/blind-reads-young-men-and-fire-by-norman-maclean/ A Film Site By Lovers of Film Tue, 26 Jun 2018 18:49:00 +0000 hourly 1 By: wallflower https://www.the-solute.com/blind-reads-young-men-and-fire-by-norman-maclean/#comment-109732 Tue, 26 Jun 2018 18:49:00 +0000 http://www.the-solute.com/?p=36436#comment-109732 In reply to Son of Griff.

So glad I spent my time in grad school attending new music concerts and reading the scores, and books like this.

One of the things I found reading history is that there’s less of a compulsion to use the stories there as material for a conversation about the ideology du jour. (Less of a compulsion, not none; and of course for many it’s not compulsion but job requirement.) There’s more room for works like MacLean’s, born of a love (no other word) for the lives of the people. As @drunknapoleon:disqus sez, those last longer than ideologies.

I’m fascinated by how all the best writers in “environmental history” come from a deep love of and experience with the environment. Steve Pyne’s Cycle of Fire books come from a knowledge just as bone-deep as MacLean’s, and have a similar honest poetry to them; for them, nature is one more living thing that they owe a witnessing.

]]> By: Conor Malcolm Crockford https://www.the-solute.com/blind-reads-young-men-and-fire-by-norman-maclean/#comment-109705 Tue, 26 Jun 2018 17:21:39 +0000 http://www.the-solute.com/?p=36436#comment-109705 Great book. I agree that Part Two isn’t quite as successful for those of us who just aren’t as finicky with details but what MacLean uncovers is still enormously powerful. Oddly, the book made me think of one of my favorite songs, “The ’59 Sound” by the Gaslight Anthem – Brian Fallon is a younger man but he comes to the same conclusions and deeper feelings of witnessing death and the pain of that, of living on past another: “And they told me on the front lawn/I’m sorry I couldn’t go/But I still know the song and the words and the name and the reasons,” “Young boys, young girls/Ain’t supposed to die on a Saturday night.” Young people should not die, and that injustice can only be avenged with memory.

]]> By: Son of Griff https://www.the-solute.com/blind-reads-young-men-and-fire-by-norman-maclean/#comment-109710 Tue, 26 Jun 2018 14:01:00 +0000 http://www.the-solute.com/?p=36436#comment-109710 I also read this for a graduate seminar on American masculinity. The discussion there was rather different than this, focusing on codes of manhood, the mastery of nature, the books place in environmental history etc. In short, we really didn’t read what MaClean was trying to accomplish, or touch upon the epiphany he reached.

Just noticed how, structurally, this resembles James Ellroy’s memoir MY DARK PLACES. The Demon Dog can get dodgy when citing his literary influences, but this strikes me as something that runs parallel to his method of historical archeology.

Speaking of which– A source told me that Ellroy just sent off the manuscript to the new book to Knopf last week. It could be out in April.

Looking forward to the INHERENT VICE discussion.

]]> By: Son of Griff https://www.the-solute.com/blind-reads-young-men-and-fire-by-norman-maclean/#comment-109709 Tue, 26 Jun 2018 13:53:02 +0000 http://www.the-solute.com/?p=36436#comment-109709 In reply to Conor Malcolm Crockford.

The only thing I can say to that is, “Fuck Yeah!

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