Customer Reviews

Fire in the John

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Alfred Gingold is some sort of humorist, I suppose. In this book, parenthetically titled (The Manly Man in the Age of Sissification), he lampoons the Men's Movement. The two main treatises, Fire in the Belly and Iron John, are here eviscerated, mocked, and otherwise brutalized.

An enlightened man like me felt really hurt, and shamed by Mr. Gingold's easy manner and brutish denial of his inner-most feelings. He ridicules the notion that erectile dysfunction may be caused by a disconnection to my, or one's, inner Warrior.

Still, if I allowed myself to let go of my shame and fear, and embraced my inner Trickster, the book might actually be funny. But that would take so much work!

(Does anyone have a hanky?)

I picked this book by chance in a yard sale, while on vacation. Practically every page I looked at had stuff that made me laugh out loud. After reading it from cover to cover -- it's perfect vacation reading -- I am pleased to report that this book is ABSOLUTELY HILARIOUS.

This parody of Iron John is an almost perfect mirror image of its target. It's funny, it made me laugh. You need to have at least tried to read Iron John to get a lot of the jokes. Like most parodies the joke wears a bit thin after 157 pages.

I suspect that this book will appeal most to men like me who didn't have the patience (and/or learning) to finish Iron John.

Still, Iron John had the last laugh. He's still in print unlike Fire in the John.