In the play The Lion in Winter, two princes are in a dungeon, waiting to be executed by traitors. They hear footsteps approaching their cell and Prince Richard says "They won't get the satisfaction of seeing me beg."
His companion says, "You fool, as if it matters how a man falls down."
And Richard replies, "When the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."
I grew up, like a lot of people, in a pretty screwy household. I have two siblings, a brother and a sister, both younger than me by six and seven years respectively. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't the Donna Reed show either. (I use that example because my crackpot mother named me after the son in that show.) My parents, who I get along with fine now, were just not good at being parents. I don't blame them for it, they were 22 when they had me and god only knows what I'd have been like as a parent at 22. I'm almost forty years old now and my choices and my life are my own responsibility. I'm just mentioning it as a quick background comment, to sort of dispense with it as I blog onward.
As a teenager, I didn't have a really clear idea of how a person is supposed to act, and didn't have any useful role models. And in a weird way I've come to realize that whatever I know about being a man, I learned from reading the <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spenser_(fictional_detective)">Spenser novels</A>, by Robert Parker, which are hard-boiled detective novels set in the present but with a tone and style that are more like the 1950's, and very heavily heavily influenced about equally by <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler">Raymond Chandler</A>, <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell_Hammett">Dashiell Hammett</A> and <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway">Ernest Hemingway.</A>
I was reading them for entertainment, but without thinking about it I absorbed a lot of the ideas and principles that the books explored. As Spenser would work his way through a case, he would have to constantly examine his own code of honor and choose not just what to do, but how to do it.
A TV show was made from the novels in the 80's, and since it was the 80's it certainly can't be said that it was "good." But for the time, it wasn't as bad as a lot of what was being shown in that three-channel universe.
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The stories always boiled down to a moment where Spenser had to make a hard choice about what to do, and then the final chapter would be him and his girlfriend analyzing it and putting it into context, why what he did was right, or necessary, or sometimes just wrong and painful.
One in particular that I always remember vividly is a scene where Spenser is trying to rescue someone who he KNOWS is probably going to try to kill him, and he's talking to his partner about whether it's smart to try to confront him.
The partner tells Spenser, look, you know he'll probably try to kill you if you give him a chance. And Spenser says, "I still have to try. It doesn't matter what he does, it matters what I do." So he goes in to confront him and ends up getting shot four times.
His companion says, "You fool, as if it matters how a man falls down."
And Richard replies, "When the fall is all that's left, it matters a great deal."
I grew up, like a lot of people, in a pretty screwy household. I have two siblings, a brother and a sister, both younger than me by six and seven years respectively. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't the Donna Reed show either. (I use that example because my crackpot mother named me after the son in that show.) My parents, who I get along with fine now, were just not good at being parents. I don't blame them for it, they were 22 when they had me and god only knows what I'd have been like as a parent at 22. I'm almost forty years old now and my choices and my life are my own responsibility. I'm just mentioning it as a quick background comment, to sort of dispense with it as I blog onward.
As a teenager, I didn't have a really clear idea of how a person is supposed to act, and didn't have any useful role models. And in a weird way I've come to realize that whatever I know about being a man, I learned from reading the <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spenser_(fictional_detective)">Spenser novels</A>, by Robert Parker, which are hard-boiled detective novels set in the present but with a tone and style that are more like the 1950's, and very heavily heavily influenced about equally by <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raymond_Chandler">Raymond Chandler</A>, <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashiell_Hammett">Dashiell Hammett</A> and <A TARGET=NEW HREF="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernest_Hemingway">Ernest Hemingway.</A>
I was reading them for entertainment, but without thinking about it I absorbed a lot of the ideas and principles that the books explored. As Spenser would work his way through a case, he would have to constantly examine his own code of honor and choose not just what to do, but how to do it.
A TV show was made from the novels in the 80's, and since it was the 80's it certainly can't be said that it was "good." But for the time, it wasn't as bad as a lot of what was being shown in that three-channel universe.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/rdKoVxaYxNk&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/rdKoVxaYxNk&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
The stories always boiled down to a moment where Spenser had to make a hard choice about what to do, and then the final chapter would be him and his girlfriend analyzing it and putting it into context, why what he did was right, or necessary, or sometimes just wrong and painful.
One in particular that I always remember vividly is a scene where Spenser is trying to rescue someone who he KNOWS is probably going to try to kill him, and he's talking to his partner about whether it's smart to try to confront him.
The partner tells Spenser, look, you know he'll probably try to kill you if you give him a chance. And Spenser says, "I still have to try. It doesn't matter what he does, it matters what I do." So he goes in to confront him and ends up getting shot four times.
