The Art of Manliness - #284： This Will Make a Man of You

00:00:00.000 brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well last summer

00:00:18.600 i had leslie bloom on the show to talk about her book everybody behaves badly which gives

00:00:22.620 the story behind the story of hemingway's first big novel the sun also rises on today's show i

00:00:28.900 talked to an author of another book about this landmark novel who instead of providing the

00:00:33.100 historical context of the sun also rises explores the ideal of manliness hemingway is trying to get

00:00:38.600 at in the book his name is frank miniter he's a journalist and the author of previous books like

00:00:43.080 the ultimate man's survival guide his latest is called this will make a man out of you one man's

00:00:46.960 search to find what makes men and in this podcast frank and i discuss hemingway's project of creating

00:00:51.400 a new myth of manliness that combined traditional notions of masculinity with modern sensibilities

00:00:55.540 how frank sinatra killed the rugged gentleman and made cool a defining feature of modern manliness

00:01:00.900 and what the running of the bulls can teach us about rites of passages into manhood

00:01:04.900 we end our conversation talking about hemingway's attraction to and repulsion from bullfighting

00:01:09.940 and why the matador was hemingway's ideal symbol of manliness great show if you've read the sun

00:01:15.180 also rises uh you'll get a lot of great insights if you haven't read the book there's some spoilers

00:01:19.820 in here so you might want to read the book first before you listen after the show's over check out

00:01:25.100 the show notes at aom.is slash man of you

00:01:28.460 frank miniter welcome to the show thanks brett good to be here with you uh so long been a fan

00:01:42.780 of your work uh you wrote a book the ultimate guide man's guide to survival or something that

00:01:47.700 came out the same time as my book my first book the art of man is classic schools and manners

00:01:51.160 so it's fun to see that it's a really handsome looking book you've written some other stuff but

00:01:54.940 your latest is one that i just absolutely loved because it's about a book one of my all-time

00:01:59.380 favorite books the sun also rises by ernest hemingway um and a few months ago we had a gal

00:02:04.760 on the podcast um who did sort of like the the history of that book how it came to fruition

00:02:10.900 of hemingway's time um in in paris and what was there but what i loved about your book

00:02:16.540 is you really focused on hemingway's exploration of manliness and his sort of code of manhood that

00:02:24.640 he was trying to get at with the sun also rises and uh you talked a lot of scholars on hemingway

00:02:31.620 you actually went to paris you went to spain did the running of the bulls that the sun also rises

00:02:36.860 made um famous um so you just give these great insights that i never really thought of

00:02:42.800 so uh start off like what inspired you to do this exploration of the sun also rises and to go to

00:02:50.360 spain to do the running of the bulls and to watch bullfights yeah right i'm a journalist and as you

00:02:56.100 noted i wrote the ultimate man survival guide and that got into the question of what makes men through

00:03:02.300 what are the skills a man should know and all that kind of stuff uh but that really okay that's the

00:03:06.180 beginning of that conversation a lot of people coming to me saying okay that's interesting and

00:03:10.140 great we enjoyed the book but what really makes men you know what is it that creates character what

00:03:14.360 builds these people what are we losing today that it's supposed to build people into into all

00:03:18.520 they want to be to men well they're supposed to be so i started asking that question of myself and

00:03:23.100 it's just a very philosophical and hard question to answer and as i looked around it and i thought

00:03:27.380 okay ernest hemingway was kind of the icon for man unless especially in the early 20th century

00:03:32.080 but he was attacked especially in the late 20th century by the feminist movement and so on 0.92

00:03:35.920 as being a parody of what a man was supposed to be he was supposed to be a chauvinist pig and all 0.76

00:03:39.780 this he did have four marriages and loved alcohol and these kinds of things and they started to 0.86

00:03:44.020 lampoon him and destroy him and i thought okay if he's been attacked this much first loved so

00:03:48.320 much his writing is still loved so much but attacked so much then there's a lot there's a lot in his 0.63

00:03:53.820 writing and who he was and who he was trying to become about manliness about answering that

00:03:58.020 question so let me start to investigate just for my own before i even started writing let me figure

00:04:01.920 this out so i started actually following that path and ended up with this crazy bunch of people

00:04:06.260 this wonderful bunch of people uh men and women who follow that hemingway trail uh every year from

00:04:11.780 paris to demplona which is that route from the sun also rises that that those expats took

00:04:16.900 on that pilgrimage um so i ended up with this incredible group of people in the history of

00:04:21.380 paris in the cafes of paris seeing that intelligent side that hemingway was supposed to also personify

00:04:26.740 and he believed in that whole dichotomy of man where you were the sophisticate yet you were the

00:04:30.800 adventurer as well one was not uh without the other you were that well-rounded ideal and then we

00:04:36.120 went to spain and and ran with the bulls in uh in pamplona and went through that whole intense

00:04:41.900 route of passage and i ended up finding out that there's just so much more there than i ever imagined not

00:04:46.360 just with the sun also rising those characters and going where they were but why hemingway took

00:04:50.500 us there and why he found so much depth in that place in those times uh and it ended up turning

00:04:55.840 into a book into a real answer to that question what makes men yeah we'll get into some of those

00:05:00.580 insights that those uh rituals or those rites of passage can teach us but throughout the book you

00:05:05.360 said you were on the search for what you call the hemingway man and you mentioned just now that you

00:05:10.640 know part of being a hemingway man is uh is being well-rounded being a sophisticate

00:05:15.260 also this rugged adventurer but what other attributes does a hemingway man possess

00:05:19.720 yeah it's that grounded in something real and something actual it's why he was a hunter in my

00:05:26.900 opinion and a fisherman that that's reality when you go hunting and you become actually a part of

00:05:31.400 nature um it might not be for everybody i'm not making that argument but it certainly is real uh and

00:05:36.760 those spanish bulls that he also loved are real um and he loved that an ideal of the authentic life and

00:05:42.580 the only way to get to the authentic life is to deal with reality you know we're dealing with

00:05:46.360 generations now who interact more through social media and enjoy video games and other kind of

00:05:51.100 pursuits which are all fine and good but if that becomes your reality that's an alternate reality

00:05:55.340 that's not real reality that doesn't shape someone into who uh we really want them to be and who

00:05:59.660 they really want to be it takes reality to do that's what the hemingway man was all about that's

00:06:05.440 why he was real in those paris cafes and why he was friends with pablo picasso and f scoff as gerald

00:06:10.800 and a lot of those painters and writers of that age but he also made fun of the cafe trash he didn't

00:06:16.740 like the posers the fakers the wealthy who came to that that part of paris to live a certain bohemian 0.87

00:06:22.640 kind of life because he saw them as fakes they weren't really artists they weren't really suffering

00:06:26.980 to become what they wanted to become they were faking it they were wearing the clothes of it but

00:06:30.860 they weren't really becoming that thing and so he ended up mocking those people and really being

00:06:35.060 attacked in the end by those people a lot of the critics uh who you know those people became um so

00:06:39.680 what the hemingway man really was and was supposed to be is somebody who bases himself on reality

00:06:45.540 right and that's why he sought out adventures his whole lot his whole entire life was an ambulance

00:06:49.840 driver during world war one did the hunting boxed fished um all sorts of adventures because it was it

00:06:57.100 was real yeah he went to war he actually went into the spanish war as you noted he went to war one

00:07:03.600 was an ambulance driver he sought out those real adventures um you know the deep sea fishing he went with

00:07:08.940 his you know where he was actually looking for u-boats at one point in time uh in world war ii he

00:07:12.880 went back in in a slightly controversial way um into when paris fell back into the hands of freedom

00:07:18.500 i know he'd like to be at the cusp of all those things the real things that developed character

00:07:22.660 it's why he said that a bullfighter was the only one who lived life all the way up because they were

00:07:28.660 standing toe to toe with a bull who could kill them and does kill a lot of meditators i've been in

00:07:33.100 bullfights have seen uh bullfighters uh get get put down it happens a lot if it's a very real

00:07:38.340 experience even say what you want about it uh he was after that real experience the authentic life

00:07:43.100 right and uh early on the book you had this great dichotomy about um you know the ideal of that ideal

00:07:49.500 of manliness that hemingway uh captures and our idea of manliness that we have today and a lot of

00:07:56.200 people have they in modern cultures this difference between being cool and the old school gentleman and

00:08:01.520 you said uh this idea of cool uh kills the old school gentleman how did that happen and can you

00:08:08.140 explain that a little bit more yeah i was i was quoting the late uh michael kelly was killed in the

00:08:14.040 the war in iraq a journalist a great writer um he noted that okay frank sinatra was the king of cool

00:08:20.300 he was really our first big time pop idol right and he came in after the smart set in fact he redid the

00:08:26.840 smart set smart set believed beforehand the humphrey bogart kind of ideal was that you lived the right

00:08:31.460 life you were that stand-up person and by being good you were good and you became all you were

00:08:36.740 supposed to be well he looked at that and he said well wait a second no i'm the king of cool and i'm

00:08:41.460 personifying this idea where you know there's a fight that has to happen you know i have guys who

00:08:45.820 will take care of that and you've kind of stood back from what that was supposed to be at least his

00:08:50.020 image did i don't think he really did as a person but that became the image and michael kelly noted

00:08:54.680 that and said wait a second this killed the smart set it no longer was cool to do the right thing

00:08:59.180 now it was cool to do the wrong thing it was a big shift in culture that led us to where we are today

00:09:04.580 with pop culture moving this direction you know i would look back to james dean and his iconic role

00:09:09.480 rebel without a cause is really as a part of that whole movement the beginning of that i mean through

00:09:13.860 that movie he's james dean is weak i mean he's this iconic wonderful character in a great movie

00:09:17.640 but he's so weak and he keeps asking his father what does it take to really be a man and his father

00:09:23.080 through the whole movie never has an answer for him uh which is what that movie is about i mean that's

00:09:27.020 the theme but you know that's what back in 1950s and since then we really haven't answered that

00:09:31.760 question at least our society our mainstream society hasn't so where frank sinatra took us

00:09:35.700 where michael kelly was noting uh that king of cool cool killing what is supposed to be right and good

00:09:39.960 um is where it's left us and we need to you know guys like us you're trying to answer that question

00:09:44.900 for ourselves and find the answers for people need to get out there as we are um to show people that

00:09:50.000 wait a second being right and good and being that courageous upstanding guy uh isn't necessarily a bad

00:09:55.140 thing that's actually who you want to be being this the sarcastic person who's kind of off to one side

00:09:59.820 and who doesn't really get what that is what that basis of them really is they're lost and they're

00:10:04.460 going to stay lost until they re-find uh what hemingway was showing us right yeah i feel like

00:10:08.840 the the culture of cool is just sort of an indifference you don't want to appear like you're

00:10:12.280 trying too hard um because that's not cool like cool is just like hey you're like the fonds like you 0.99

00:10:18.060 could just hit the jukebox with your elbow and everything happens magically

00:10:21.880 right people back in in the in the greatest generation right world war ii they went to war

00:10:27.400 all all segments of society joined the military and went to war and fought for that cause now we're

00:10:32.240 in a period in post-vietnam you know right rightly so where we no longer believe we can really fight

00:10:37.060 for good we can't really know what's good and wrong right and wrong you know good and evil are

00:10:40.660 not simple concepts the way they were to previous generations so we're kind of lost in this moral

00:10:45.340 relative universe um people are searching for it though it's it's here um i think we can find

00:10:51.520 our purchase again um but it's going to be up to this generation to read and think as we are uh

00:10:56.700 to find these answers again because it's it's there and i think the people who who are that stand-up

00:11:01.120 person who create that business and become that person they really wanted to be are the are the type

00:11:05.600 of people who have found that foundation under themselves but how did hemingway capture that

00:11:10.560 idea of uh you know old the old school gentleman the smart set because you know one criticism or

00:11:16.300 one you know people say that what hemingway did he was very cynical about things like honor in war

00:11:22.700 because because of his experience in world war one and a lot of his characters they seem a little

00:11:27.580 detached from ideals because they've just been burned uh but you argue in the book that it might

00:11:33.280 appear like that on the surface surface but hemingway was actually i don't know trying to capture

00:11:37.920 those old ideals and somehow uh make it a bit more modern yeah he was trying to reform them

00:11:44.460 into something that's palatable today i mean joseph campbell put this very well he said

00:11:48.420 every generation has to create a new myth and it's what the myth becomes is a way to finding that

00:11:53.560 answer that might be the same answer but it's a way to understanding that answer because it's going

00:11:57.120 to evolve over time as we evolve as society evolves i mean hemingway what wrote the sun also rises and

00:12:02.580 published in 1926 i mean women got the right to vote in 1920 you know he was at a very different age

00:12:07.580 than we were at uh but he was trying to look at those old ideals have been dashed in world war one

00:12:11.940 um and say how do we bring them forward i mean how do we take them and and give them to this

00:12:17.500 new generation now we're several generations past that but how do we find them again what are they

00:12:22.100 and what are they what are they supposed to be i know hemingway has often been a lot of writers

00:12:26.460 have said a lot of uh scholars and we look at hemingway have said that he was always in search

00:12:30.720 of the code he was kind of obsessed with the code uh even you know what is his code he never really

00:12:35.700 articulates it in a list of rules um but if you read his body of work you find out that he

00:12:40.420 absolutely was obsessed to a code uh based on things that he thought were authentic and what

00:12:45.540 what were some of those things that were part of his code you know being that stand-up guy it's it's

00:12:52.120 back to his favorite metaphor of the bullfighter right or or the hunter in the in the short happy

00:12:56.640 life of francis malcomer in that story francis wounds a lion and then when they need to go in and

00:13:02.960 finish off that line which is a dangerous thing to do he chickens out and runs away when the lion

00:13:06.860 charges and the professional hunter has to kill the lion well then you have francis without his

00:13:11.600 manhood and he has to re-find his manhood the only way he can do that is to stand up and prove himself

00:13:16.840 physically again which he does right at the end of story with a charging cape buffalo okay but he's a

00:13:21.820 tragic figure he gets killed uh by his wife shot in the back of the head in that story uh whether on

00:13:26.480 purpose or not hemingway leaves open but he gets killed and a lot of hemingway's heroes are like that

00:13:31.200 santiago and the old man in the sea catches the great fish but it gets taken by sharks you know

00:13:36.200 always losing these kinds of whom the bell tolls the hero gets killed in the end the hero is always

00:13:40.660 dying uh or losing as we're all going to we're all mortal we're all going to die but he's making the

00:13:45.520 point that you can't always decide what's going to happen in your life you can't always you can't

00:13:48.680 control very many things in your life but what you can try to control is how you take it so if you

00:13:54.300 can stand up the way that bullfighter does to that charging bull and stand up with full of courage and full

00:14:00.020 of you know not not to be not to put down the bull or something but to stand up to that ideal

00:14:04.960 um and keep your feet straight and your back straight and so on um then you're doing what's

00:14:09.940 right you're doing what we need because a man and a craft a person in the crisis men or women in a

00:14:13.520 crisis who keeps their head they're the ones who save a life they're the ones who help us other

00:14:17.820 ones who stop the lynch mob and so on uh that's the stand-up kind of guy he was pointing us towards

00:14:22.700 all these different metaphors right he has that famous line um about you know you're going to face

00:14:27.760 defeat that famous quote the world breaks everyone and afterwards some are strong at the broken

00:14:32.960 places like so he really believed that sort of this this idea of the furnace of affliction that

00:14:37.860 would make us stronger in the end right he also said the thing that makes a writer is an unhappy

00:14:44.180 childhood you know these kind of ideas that you do have to suffer in order to learn absolutely yeah

00:14:49.200 and one of the characters you talk about in the sun also rises it's sort of a contrast to uh jake

00:14:55.260 the main character who is sort of based off of hemingway in his life sort of by autobiographical

00:15:00.140 uh is robert cohen um and uh he sort of exemplified the the complete opposite of hemingway's code so can

00:15:09.800 you talk a little bit more about that yeah throughout the book robert is is weak um you know he's he can't

00:15:17.920 marry the woman he wants to marry or the second woman the woman he's dating in the beginning of the

00:15:21.780 novel in paris because he's too weak to do that um he can't stand up to that ideal um he ends up

00:15:27.540 running away and having a little fling with the the novel's heroine brett um but then she she throws 1.00

00:15:33.360 him off and just you know decides she's done with him and moves on to the next guy and he keeps

00:15:37.780 following her and haunting her and getting in the way and and being making all the situations very

00:15:42.140 uncomfortable because he's too weak to deal with that to get over that as a man and it's throughout the

00:15:46.440 book even fights the bullfighter in the end because that bullfighter is then having an affair with

00:15:50.600 with brett ashley and he can't stand that he keeps knocking down the bullfighter in the end of that

00:15:55.240 book because robert was a boxer knew how to fight when the bullfighter did not um but the bullfighter

00:16:00.340 continually gets up again and again i forget how many times he gets up but it's so many times

00:16:03.980 that finally robert just can't hit him again he just doesn't have the the gumption to do it he just

00:16:08.800 thinks this is wrong somehow you know robert is kind of stuck in this boyhood code where the toughest

00:16:13.440 guy uh on the street is is the man uh he hasn't grown into that mature ideal uh there's a time to

00:16:19.800 fight the time not to fight and pretty much you shouldn't fight unless you're in self-defense

00:16:23.080 uh so he keeps knocking down the bullfighter just won't stop so he runs into a guy living on a code

00:16:29.540 a guy who stands up to his own life um and it's a pretty deep metaphor for how a man should be and

00:16:34.960 when you contrast robert with jake and how they how they behave and how they treat people and how they

00:16:39.840 forgive people then you really see uh what heming was showing us about being a man right and also

00:16:45.200 robert exemplifies as a great symbol of you said he's he's like stuck he's like um arrested development

00:16:51.480 right he's still in adolescence because he right right i mean he like he's still he still talks

00:16:57.720 about his glory days in college like i was this at princeton i was a championship boxer blah blah blah

00:17:02.300 but like throughout the novel he's always talking about well i want to go do this maybe i'm going to

00:17:07.240 go to south america oh maybe i'm going to like he's so he just talks about these abstractions right

00:17:12.520 but never gets down to living real life unlike jake he wants to go off to the purple land the

00:17:19.660 dreamland right that he read in a novel about about south america and uh yeah the main character there

00:17:25.200 jake uh basically hemingway is telling him that there's no such place that if you want want to

00:17:29.880 live your life all the way up start living it right here in paris you know start looking under your feet

00:17:33.500 because the foundation is there which becomes the vehicle for the whole novel because they go on a

00:17:37.620 pilgrimage which uh i i would argue and harry stoneback does it very well um is really a

00:17:43.280 religious pilgrimage it's it's following a a pilgrimage um to saint james uh which has been a

00:17:49.440 a through the middle ages it was a religious thing to go and find yourself on that long path

00:17:55.160 uh to the shrine at saint james yeah well let's talk about that in a bit but yeah i mean that robert

00:17:59.200 cohen if you are a young man who's feeling uh restless like you just feel like you're you're you

00:18:04.300 can't move on your life you need to read the sun also rises pay attention to robert you don't want

00:18:08.300 to be like robert i mean that's that's thing never gotten that fight in high school and i'm not saying

00:18:13.320 we all should fight but never physically prove themselves and are kind of stuck in this place

00:18:17.640 and if someone could just help them that right man was in their life to help them live up to who

00:18:21.920 they want to become they could just do anything you just feel sorry for them and you want to help

00:18:26.460 them and most of them find their way eventually but it would sure help them if they had the right

00:18:30.000 mentor earlier right let's talk about this religious religious pilgrimage because like i had no idea

00:18:34.820 about this um the the religious undertones behind the sun also rises which doesn't make any sense

00:18:41.020 because it begins with the bible verse from ecclesiastes um but throughout the book it's just

00:18:46.060 infused with all this religious symbolism so you talk about this pilgrimage they went on from paris to

00:18:50.460 spain it was who who originally started that pilgrimage uh was a saint of some sort well they're

00:18:57.240 going to see uh one of the 12 apostles saint james uh whose legend has it uh his his body was moved

00:19:04.260 uh and buried uh there at that that church at saint james um so that's what the path is going to to

00:19:10.520 see that shrine um but the religion it's really about the pilgrimage not so much about actually

00:19:15.380 you know kneeling down at that shrine um it's that pilgrimage it takes two to three months depending

00:19:19.700 what path you take uh walking uh that path that through nature through that whole experience um

00:19:26.320 it's supposed to shape you and you're supposed to then find yourself and your purpose in life

00:19:29.880 um so that's what that has always been about and that's what he was taking those people on

00:19:34.940 um through that novel right so jake was the one leading these um these lost generation guys

00:19:40.080 to this pilgrim so hopefully they would find themselves along the way and he never preaches he

00:19:44.940 never tells them that and it's that's a lot a lot of the reason why it's lost i mean it was

00:19:48.880 hemingway's theory of omission uh you know that iceberg you know 90 of it's underwater um and it's

00:19:54.280 beautiful because if the depth is there and you can feel it but you're not being hit over the head

00:19:57.880 with it and he practiced that in the sun also rises so that's why a lot of people do miss it

00:20:02.000 yeah i mean i i missed it completely um but i think another thing you talk about is hemingway's

00:20:06.340 catholicism and how it influenced so he was born a protestant correct and you later converted converted

00:20:11.600 catholicism right it converted uh during the second marriage and and how did that influence his

00:20:17.140 writing after uh his conversion you know i don't think it did i i think it's the protestant

00:20:23.460 upbringing that influenced him throughout his life uh concerning to catholicism he was divorced from

00:20:30.320 hadley and he joked you know i don't know how serious he was when he said this that he became

00:20:35.120 impotent um really from from guilt um from cheating on uh and then divorcing his first wife and marrying

00:20:42.240 pauline pfeiffer and sometime during that period his second wife said well okay why don't you go to

00:20:48.740 this chapel the catholic she was catholic go to this chapel convert um ask for forgiveness for

00:20:53.980 your sins uh maybe that'll bring your mojo back which he does he goes and he converts and he gets 0.89

00:20:59.880 he gets forgiven for his sins um and he says from then on he could you know he could keep you know he

00:21:04.980 could he was a king of bed and i forget how he put it exactly in a very coarse kind of way you know

00:21:09.560 everything with hemingway was always that kind of if he wasn't conquering something outside of

00:21:13.380 himself he was conquering himself um and fine but i don't think that catholicism in that way shaped him

00:21:19.240 or changed him i don't think he was very devout kind of guy but he grew up as a protestant as a

00:21:24.680 christian um with with very religious mother especially um and so he learned the tenets to

00:21:30.640 that early on and he sought those answers when he even when he was in paris he he he found scholars

00:21:36.200 and i quote some of this in the book he found scholars who taught him about that pilgrimage

00:21:39.980 that he ended up taking the fictional characters on um in the sun also rises um so he found a

00:21:46.560 purchase for it so the depths of it were there but i don't think it was as much catholicism it was just

00:21:50.740 his childhood upbringing we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors

00:21:53.800 and now back to the show and yeah speaking to hemingway's uh you know he's had was married four

00:22:00.320 times i think it's interesting he always got a new wife before he started a new book like he always

00:22:05.420 divorced the wife when he finished the book and then he got a new one when he started a new one um all

00:22:09.380 right so let's talk about the um the running the bulls this festival in pamplona spain this

00:22:14.660 hemingway is the the guy that made this famous because i think before the sun also rises very

00:22:19.900 few people knew about it it was primarily um a festival that the people in spain took part in

00:22:24.800 the bosque um so what's the history behind the running the bulls and what when did it start and

00:22:30.020 why did they why did they do this thing where they have bulls chase them in the street 0.98

00:22:33.480 yeah it grew through the 17th and 18th centuries um they combined two festivals uh oh late 16th or

00:22:41.300 17th century um a religious festival with a fair um into one time frame that became the san

00:22:46.700 firmins the festival we know and they were taking to the bull the bulls to the arena uh through that

00:22:51.880 17th and 18th century and people just started going with the bulls it was kind of a here come the bulls

00:22:56.280 let's follow them and it just kind of developed into this run into this test of yourself by going with

00:23:01.860 these fighting bulls down the street and this isn't the only one in spain there's a lot of them in

00:23:05.620 spain actually this is just the most famous uh this is actually a very normal rite of passage for

00:23:09.800 spanish youth and as is getting in the into the ring uh with the vaquilla so those horn those cows

00:23:15.280 with lever on their horns which hemingway did do because hemingway actually didn't run with the

00:23:19.200 bulls so it grew out of all that through through those centuries um the time hemingway found that it

00:23:23.860 was a very mature uh fiesta um and he was there and witnessed it and he couldn't believe it i mean he

00:23:29.780 wrote some early uh uh stories for for the newspaper he was then writing for um the the toronto star

00:23:36.480 um where he talks about it he was more you read that again and it's kind of he's shocked about it all

00:23:41.180 he's surprised he's kind of following the crowd here and there and he can't believe it and that's when

00:23:44.280 he became addicted to it and then he came back again and again and learned about it and ended up

00:23:48.860 writing about it more and of course wrote the great novel right i mean what's your experience

00:23:52.620 with the running the bulls how many times have you done it i've been in the street 13 times with the

00:23:57.240 bulls um and i've had a couple very close calls but i haven't been injured um i've run every section

00:24:02.920 of it i've been very lucky as a journalist i've always been been taught i mean find a mentor right

00:24:08.380 find someone who can teach you because you're trying to write about it you need experts right

00:24:11.520 so find that expert and i found a guy named juan macho that's actually his real name he's a cuban

00:24:16.560 uh moved to miami when he was 12 years old he still lives in miami um but he was just drawn to this

00:24:23.300 fiesta uh being a lover of hemingway himself and hemingway scholar himself um in the early 1980s

00:24:29.360 and he's been running every year since then he's run well over 100 times uh with the bulls um and in

00:24:34.700 the last decade or so he started to take people um under his wing he wants to teach them he's found

00:24:39.260 that a lot of americans especially but a lot of foreigners come in there they don't know how to run 1.00

00:24:43.140 with the bulls it's a real test and the spanish know about this but they don't know how to do it so 1.00

00:24:47.400 they end up doing stupid things in front of the bulls and really getting hurt when it wasn't necessary 0.96

00:24:51.020 to get hurt so he became my mentor and showed me how to run with the bulls um but of course he put 0.87

00:24:56.840 me in the street my first time all by myself because he says you face your mortality alone

00:25:00.880 and you when you go through something especially that first time running with the bulls because

00:25:04.840 what you have to do is you have to enter the street at 7 30 in the morning because they're

00:25:08.400 going to close the barriers at 7 30 but the bulls don't come until eight o'clock in the morning

00:25:11.900 um this happens eight days in a row so you're waiting there for 30 minutes for those bulls to come and

00:25:16.900 around you in the beginning of that everyone's kind of boastful and excited and we're going to do this

00:25:20.800 and that with the bulls because the street's always more than half full of first-time runners

00:25:24.080 um but as it gets closer to eight o'clock and that rocket's going to go up and the bulls are going to

00:25:28.220 come out and run down that street uh you see people start to fall apart and i i and i read about this

00:25:33.240 in the book my first time running a guy next to me from chicago was boasting about what he was going

00:25:38.140 to do by the time it got close to eight o'clock he was losing and he kept picturing himself being

00:25:42.000 disemboweled by a bull and he decided i have to get out of here i have to get out of the street and he

00:25:45.420 tried to go under the fence to get out of the street and a spanish cop kicked him back into the street

00:25:50.080 looked at him and said you wanted to be a man and run with the bulls now you must be a man and run

00:25:55.360 with the bulls they don't let you out of that street once once they close those barriers and

00:25:59.060 they do that for a reason because if people try to pile out they panic and try to get out of that

00:26:03.340 street you'll end up with a log jam in the street and these bulls will come hit it'll hit that log jam

00:26:07.260 they have forward-facing horns i mean there's 12 1500 pound bulls of forward-facing horns if there's a

00:26:12.180 if there's a big knot in the street they're going to kill people so they're doing that for everyone's good

00:26:16.300 actually but this person didn't understand that and he went under the barrier for a second time

00:26:21.340 and this time the cop didn't get around he just hit him boom boom boom put him down and i'll bet you

00:26:25.400 he spent that night in a spanish jail that cop was showing us he was kind of kind of the drill sergeant

00:26:30.680 to our to our real rite of passage there showing us you had to stand up now you're in the street now

00:26:34.640 you got to stand up and you got to be a man so yeah you said earlier that this this running the bulls is

00:26:39.280 is a rite of passage uh for spanish youth it used to be primarily uh for men but now uh women like

00:26:45.760 there was a time when women couldn't do it but now women can but but but a major theme throughout the

00:26:50.380 book and um as you followed hemingway's footsteps uh is this idea of a rite of passage you know from

00:26:58.060 your experience of following hemingway from paris to spain and doing the running the bulls

00:27:02.620 what did you learn about what makes for an effective rite of passage into manhood

00:27:08.120 yeah this is what i did with the table of contents and the whole structure of the book because

00:27:12.760 this is so key and i went through this in military school and i and i've talked to people um who've

00:27:18.140 gone through special forces and for uh it became new york firefighters and all sorts of type of

00:27:24.780 occupations that have real rites of passage and they always kind of the same way there's always the

00:27:29.120 same structure and it's really interesting they're first designed to the scare that

00:27:32.600 heck out of you somehow to reset you um to take you down a notch um so they can they can build you

00:27:38.860 up into what you really need to become through this rite of passage and running with the bulls

00:27:42.960 that first one of course is that first time you run it just tears you up you can't believe how much

00:27:46.420 it changes you it's it's wonderful stuff um but but so it's good you know if you go to at the boot

00:27:52.480 camp which is a really classic kind of rite of passage that follows this kind of structure

00:27:55.520 you know that first day when you have a drill sergeant yelling at you and you had your hair shaved off and

00:27:59.340 you go through that whole metamorphosis of yourself uh you also go through that that that first

00:28:03.720 trial by fire where you you okay now you've been burned down you got to be built back up

00:28:08.500 then it starts to build you up you need a guide it always has to be a guide any real rite of passage

00:28:12.200 and then you need a gauntlet that will take you through that you prove yourself through step by step

00:28:16.520 because you know one time running with the bulls is great i think it's wonderful a lot of people just

00:28:20.200 do it once and they walk away from it they're they've got a great cocktail story to tell

00:28:23.760 and they're probably a little bit changed by it but it's not what really grew them up into something

00:28:27.880 you know dealing with the the people that i know through through this now who've run again and again

00:28:32.740 hundreds of times with the bulls um it's it slowly changes them and builds them and they find their

00:28:38.160 courage through it um and they learn to respect the bulls very deeply because of this um you know

00:28:43.140 they don't molest the bulls in the street for example if you do that that's breaking the code that's

00:28:47.220 beneath it it's also part of the big rite of passage every rite of passage has a code if you molest 0.75

00:28:51.120 a bull he's going to turn around in that street he's really going to hurt people you grab his tail

00:28:55.240 you do something to him so there's a there's a code to it and every rite of passage there's always a

00:28:59.220 code uh beneath it you got to find that code and then you have to live up to that code and that's

00:29:03.480 what every rite of passage does and this certainly does as you go through this process at the end of

00:29:08.480 it you respect the bulls you understand why you're doing it you learned your courage through it

00:29:12.100 and you walk away a very different person which is always what a rite of passage was supposed to do

00:29:17.280 to build a boy into a man or or now a girl into a woman i mean it's wonderful now that women run 1.00

00:29:22.960 with the bulls as well yeah this idea of the code and respecting it i think when people outsiders

00:29:28.300 look at the running the bulls and bullfighting in spain they think this is sort of um just it's

00:29:32.800 barbaric right but like there is this like very serious code that you must follow and if you do not

00:29:38.040 follow it there are serious repercussions like you talk about the vaquias is that what they're

00:29:41.360 called like the the cows that go into the arena uh they have leather horns and um you can kind of

00:29:47.360 run away from them but you're not supposed to like touch them and what happens if you do mess with

00:29:51.560 them yeah if you molest a vaquia which i i saw firsthand right in front of me people who just

00:29:56.800 didn't know the rules tried to jump on them and grab their tails and so on uh the spanish mozos 0.84

00:30:00.760 the spanish guys that went to this kind of thing they will literally beat the hell out of you um in a way 1.00

00:30:05.800 that would get them arrested in america and have lawsuits and shut down the whole thing but no one will

00:30:10.620 stop you in the crowd there'll be 20 000 people watching when this happens because what happens

00:30:14.260 is okay you run the bulls and if you want to you can run all the way into the arena then they close

00:30:17.920 the the barrier behind you and the bulls go out and then they let these vaquias in one by one

00:30:22.260 which these things travel town to town it's like rodeos right the bulls they travel town to town

00:30:27.420 these vaquias travel town to town uh and they know how to throw people you can't fool them with a 1.00

00:30:32.780 cape or something because they know they know how to get the person so if you watch it from above

00:30:36.480 you'll see people just popping up over and over again as these vaquias run circles around

00:30:40.060 nailing everybody which is a classic spanish rite of passage but you're right if you break that code 1.00

00:30:45.780 you molest that vaquia boy i've seen a couple of people get put in the hospital i mean just 0.69

00:30:50.200 totally taken down and beaten down uh for breaking that code yes there's a strong sense of honor that

00:30:56.260 you have to follow and if you do not follow it you will be shamed and possibly physically beat

00:31:00.600 right and a lot of the americans i talk to don't understand that and they how dare they how can they

00:31:06.040 possibly do this when you go through all this process of explaining to them well there's a

00:31:09.700 reason why they're doing all this then they go oh okay and they just didn't know they didn't

00:31:13.500 understand that i think an interesting point too you make about rites of passage is that

00:31:17.820 it's not a one and done thing i think a lot of guys i get a lot of men who who've written me it's

00:31:23.180 like i never had a rite of passage uh into manhood um and they try to go seek it out through some sort

00:31:29.140 of vision quest or they do some sort of adventure and i think a lot of them they think that's going to be

00:31:33.860 the thing that's going to make them feel like a man but then they come back sort of disappointed

00:31:38.280 and let down because it didn't um but i think it might be because like you can't just do one it's

00:31:43.540 not a one and done thing you're always developing your character there are certain native american

00:31:49.540 tribes that used to used to earn a new name uh as you went through life and you proved yourself

00:31:54.700 according to this new rite of passage you went through i that was a real direct way of saying what

00:31:59.200 you were trying to do but yeah as you go through life you're going to find there's different ones

00:32:03.000 understanding the rules this is why i went to such pains to explain them in the table contents

00:32:07.140 and the structure of my book uh it helps you find them it helps you understand them it helps you

00:32:11.620 grow through them but yeah you're going to run into different ones as you go hopefully through life

00:32:15.700 different challenges as you each time try to grow up into a new ideal uh if you're going to stop in

00:32:20.580 time somewhere well that's your choice but then you become just a case of arrested development like

00:32:24.320 we were talking about earlier you know that person who still talks about their their glories as the

00:32:28.060 quarterback in high school uh you know you have to move on to the next thing and the next

00:32:32.080 challenge and grow up into that new one that's that's what being a man is all about right so

00:32:36.300 constantly seek out rites of passage it's not a one and done thing um let's talk about bullfighting

00:32:41.460 because this was interesting it's it's a an extremely controversial sport um for obvious reasons

00:32:46.880 but can you give us a little bit of the background of bullfighting like why do

00:32:51.100 the spanish why do spanish cultures have bullfighting where did that originate from

00:32:55.120 well you can go back to the romans when they fight bulls in the amphitheater but

00:32:59.720 they were doing it which is still done in spain they were doing it on horseback with spears

00:33:03.300 um but in the 15th century um somebody came along who i think they were actually knocked off their

00:33:10.500 horse um and someone ran out to save them with with a piece of cloth and end up keep keeping that

00:33:16.720 bull off of them until they saved him and that they kind of got that idea wait a second this is what we

00:33:20.640 can do and then you ended up with some people trying it and it became a famous way of fighting the

00:33:26.140 bulls um actually on your feet with that cape and then killing them with a sword uh which is a lot

00:33:30.900 more heroic than doing it on a horseback uh so it develops slowly um over a long period of time

00:33:35.880 but it's you know you look at it now and it's it's what four or five centuries old at least

00:33:39.780 um with with a lot of pomp and a lot of uh you know if you go to if you go to one in spain

00:33:45.140 you know it's full of music it's it's it's set up in a very regimented way um a very choreographed

00:33:50.980 way um where that bull comes in and he goes through three steps i mean hemiway looked at this

00:33:55.960 and he said i'm not going to defend bullfighting bullfighting isn't a sport it's a tragedy and he's

00:34:01.340 right it's a great tragedy played out right before your eyes it's a hunter killing his game i mean it's

00:34:06.020 any of us who who any of us who live on this planet i don't care if you're a vegetarian because

00:34:09.640 you're a vegetarian uh you're still eating vegetables and some farmer has to protect those

00:34:13.520 crops in order to grow them in order to protect those crops it still has to kill deer or mice or geese

00:34:17.420 or something that might be eating on eating his crops if not he's just going to be growing crops

00:34:21.160 for those for that for that wildlife so we're all a part of this system this bullfighting is just a

00:34:26.360 very loud and visual way of seeing that putting it right in front of your eyes and showing you and

00:34:30.680 celebrating that that circle of light that we all are a part of you know my first bullfight i sat there

00:34:36.740 and as a long time hunter and stuff you think i wouldn't i'd be immune to this but i sat there and i

00:34:40.160 was in tears my first bullfight uh it was so emotional for me um where i literally had an old

00:34:45.100 spanish woman in front of me who was giving me some cakes and some wine and stuff before the 1.00

00:34:48.460 bullfight started and then by the time it started i was in tears and the guy next to me is also upset

00:34:53.040 with two americans in her first bullfight and she turns to us and looks at us and goes oh you're just

00:34:57.120 like all the rest of the americans you're just so weak you can't handle this reality and and you know

00:35:02.600 she had a point at the time i thought what does she mean and it took a long investigation for me

00:35:06.700 as an american who grew up in the american culture to understand what they were trying to show us so

00:35:11.120 as i look at it now i think it's a it's a celebration of life actually uh with that bull

00:35:16.620 dying a bull that really wouldn't even exist it's bred for this purpose if it wasn't for bullfighting

00:35:20.580 um but i think if somebody watches it and tries to understand it and has a problem with putting this

00:35:26.700 kind of death of that bull on display for for applause from a spanish audience um okay i can

00:35:33.280 understand that viewpoint and i could be against i could see them being against it as long as they're

00:35:37.160 trying to understand it but unless they're trying to understand it and they're just opposed to

00:35:40.920 bullfighting then okay they're knocking down a culture they don't understand and they really

00:35:44.960 need to open their eyes and educate themselves i mean so what are some of the things that people

00:35:48.500 misunderstand about bullfighting or maybe the ethics of bullfighting yeah it's it's that death

00:35:54.180 of the bull that gets them and it is bloody um you know they the picadors come out first and and so on

00:35:59.420 and it starts to bleed they're weakening the neck by literally bleeding the bull's neck um until it's not

00:36:04.760 picking its head up high enough so the guy in the end after all all the runs with the cape and all that

00:36:08.980 he can kill it with the sword um which to kill it with a sword that takes a perfect thrust over the 0.96

00:36:13.840 top down through the chest into the heart or heart area um so that bull just goes down and dies 0.99

00:36:18.960 immediately but what happens is if that that matador doesn't do it perfectly if he's not pulled off if

00:36:24.780 he's especially messing up the end with the sword but whatever he's doing or he's showing cowardice in

00:36:28.720 the arena whatever he's doing he's failing as the ideal is supposed to be he's not killing as cleanly

00:36:33.240 as he's supposed to that spanish crowd i mean they will go nuts they will start hissing they'll start 1.00

00:36:38.340 throwing their seat cushions uh in the extreme uh the governor of it will actually pull that bull 1.00

00:36:43.080 fighter out and really embarrass him uh someone else have to go in and kill that bull um you're

00:36:47.420 supposed to go in and do it ethically and cleanly and quickly when it comes down to actually doing

00:36:51.180 the kill so there's a whole code beneath how that's supposed to happen showing deep respect for that

00:36:56.420 animal and but i understand that it's hard for somebody not of that culture to understand that

00:37:00.220 this is actually respect for the bull by killing the bull this way i mean all these bulls are eaten i've

00:37:04.340 eaten the bulls that i've seen killed in the arena um you know but it's just hard for someone to

00:37:08.300 understand that just as it's hard for someone who doesn't hunt understand hunting and how could

00:37:12.060 somebody kill a deer or a bear whatever and then be seen in the picture smiling with that dead animal

00:37:16.400 even though they can eat the animal later that to them as a non-hunter that that's kind of an appalling

00:37:20.760 idea um but i challenge people to understand the nature of the world we live in and who they are

00:37:25.980 and the whole process to the thing before they condemn something they really just don't understand

00:37:30.740 right so bullfighting brings it's all about bringing reality back and putting it right in

00:37:35.440 front of us front of us there's cows getting slaughtered like all the time that you eat in

00:37:39.760 your pre-packaged you know container saran wrap container um and here's this is how it's done you

00:37:45.960 need to see this basically i actually jumped down with juan ones right when they after they killed the

00:37:50.060 last bull and got into the place in peplona there uh at the plaza de toros to where they cut up the

00:37:55.300 bulls and got to meet the guys and they do it fast and they put them up and it's it's like seeing beef

00:37:59.600 boom boom boom boom it gets caught up and it's being sent to the restaurants there in pamplona

00:38:03.940 so you see that whole process and each each part of it and you realize that they're just showing us

00:38:09.240 in a very visual display that we're all connected to the world we live in right and then going back

00:38:14.160 to this idea of man manhood and you know uh hemingway said that the the matador is like probably the

00:38:18.940 ideal of manliness because it just as you were describing it they're on display in front of everyone

00:38:25.320 and if they don't do it right they don't follow the code they're going to be shamed uh and booed

00:38:31.700 and hissed out of there and possibly taken out which is just even more shameful um so yeah i mean

00:38:37.600 there's that that connection of bullfighting and just trying to show this ideal of spanish manliness

00:38:44.300 in a very visceral upfront way yeah it's public it's on display um and if they show the least bit

00:38:50.800 of cowardice in that arena or don't kill cleanly um if they don't follow that code to the ideal um

00:38:57.440 yeah that that they'll they'll go right down uh and a huge embarrassment and maybe they'll be

00:39:02.820 hurt badly in the process right so going back to this idea of codes uh we talked about jake's code

00:39:07.840 we talked about robert's lack of code um but i feel like we live in a culture today where we sort of

00:39:13.420 look down on codes of honor with uh skepticism and cynicism why do you think that is

00:39:18.860 well one reason is we see them as being too simplistic we don't really believe anymore

00:39:24.980 that a person could be heroic in the sense they're fighting for something good because we don't believe

00:39:29.960 a person can know what's good what's right and what's wrong we used to believe that that we knew

00:39:34.100 that was a religious idea but we believed we could fight for good uh we've lost that idea and there's

00:39:39.860 some good from that because it led to a lot of depth but then you put a code of honor in front of

00:39:44.460 somebody and i put a lot in the back of this book for this reason um and they look at it as just

00:39:48.020 being too simplistic but when i look at it i say yeah but you're trying to articulate a foundation

00:39:52.920 for yourself so you look at these codes and try to develop your own code which i think every man

00:39:57.160 should do because no one of these codes can be relevant to themselves they have to write their

00:40:00.940 own and think about this process then when you find yourself in those situations in life um your

00:40:05.980 first reaction if you follow this code will be to do the right thing because you've already

00:40:10.760 established who you are and what you're living up to um so that's what a code always did but

00:40:15.520 their society thinks they're too simplistic they're tearing them down but they also look at

00:40:19.200 them look those knights codes and the code of bushido and the gentleman's code and they think

00:40:23.740 they look back at them especially in this feminist idea and look look at them and they see them 0.99

00:40:28.000 perpetuating a certain um chauvinistic kind of ideal um you know that gentleman of the 19th century

00:40:34.000 um who repressed women and you know as i said women didn't get the right to vote until 1920

00:40:38.260 i mean they're still fighting for some of their rights so you know they look at that and they say oh

00:40:43.100 you're trying to push us back to some kind of ideal from before and bring these chauvinist

00:40:47.660 uh values back up and we don't want to live back in that society and we've reached a new one when i

00:40:52.680 say wait a second really look at codes and look at how they developed you notice that codes really

00:40:56.640 became purified in the early 20th century uh during the feminist movement um and in the 1930s 1.00

00:41:02.720 1940s you could see that clearly in film uh where they became much less the chauvinism dropped the

00:41:08.700 racism was was dropping away it was becoming clean they were becoming good and right at that same

00:41:12.720 time we decided codes codes were useless because they were pointing backwards well i say wait a

00:41:16.860 second write your own code look forward make a better code make a code that isn't racist and

00:41:21.120 sexist and all these kinds of things and fine of course but i think also if you look back at those

00:41:25.020 codes you won't find the racism and sexism written in those codes even the code of bushido the old

00:41:28.780 japanese samurai's code said everyone is inherently equal you know that was you know samurai's actually

00:41:34.360 saying that um so they always saw that ideal as well um but i think today we have to understand

00:41:39.680 that again refashion that to ourselves and understand you can have that basis again without

00:41:43.780 that basis i don't say you could possibly be the stand-up guy you want to be so we said earlier that

00:41:48.480 hemingway was uh trying to fashion a new myth a new ideal of manliness this sort of uh a look to

00:41:55.140 the old codes while uh transforming it and making it new what do you think that ideal looks like what

00:42:02.040 do you think hemingway what did hemingway end up creating through that sort of metamorphosis

00:42:05.800 that he was trying to do yeah you feel it through all of his literature um and it's it's this guy

00:42:10.840 and it's jake and it's hard to put your finger on jake and the sun also rises that main character

00:42:15.200 because he'll never come right out and say he's showing instead of saying what he's living up to

00:42:19.700 i mean there's several times in that book where he takes brett to different chapels to pray and she

00:42:24.180 feels uncomfortable doing that but to him that fits the old values um you know the whole that the

00:42:28.800 roland that i talk about the ancient myth the song of roland uh is behind a lot of the

00:42:33.740 hemingway's writing um and there's a reason for that that was one of the chief mythological knights

00:42:40.000 became mythologized in the song of roland uh from the middle ages it was their ideal

00:42:44.440 through the middle ages of that stand-up person living this upstanding uh bigger way so jake is

00:42:50.380 trying to show that to the characters and so on uh but he never comes right out and says it and i

00:42:54.640 don't think hemingway ever decided to come out and preach that kind of thing you know even reading

00:42:59.340 all through his letters you see him telling you how to behave but never really telling you never

00:43:03.600 really spelling it out here's the rules you have to follow let me just show you stand up to yourself

00:43:08.380 be courageous um how you take life which is his chief metaphor on everything how you take what

00:43:14.400 comes to you if you can take up take it as that stand-up guy um then you're going to grow into the

00:43:19.060 ideal you want to be and it's understanding then what's surrounding us underneath you in that process

00:43:23.760 that will grow you into the man you want to be well frank this has been a great conversation there's a

00:43:27.860 lot more we could talk about but uh where can people learn more about the book and your work

00:43:31.440 oh this will make a man of you is on amazon it's on burns and noble uh really whatever books are

00:43:36.240 sold uh you can find me at frankminiter.com i also write a column uh weekly home for forbes um you

00:43:42.000 can go to forbes.com and find me there um so i'm all over the place fantastic well frank miniter thank

00:43:46.480 you for your time it's been a pleasure thanks brett my guest today was frank miniter his book is this

00:43:50.720 will make a man out of you it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere you can also find more

00:43:55.100 information about frank's work at frankminiter.com also make sure to check out our show notes at

00:43:59.480 aom.is slash man of you where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this

00:44:03.580 topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and

00:44:12.840 advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at art of manliness.com if you enjoy this

00:44:17.160 show i'd appreciate it if you give us a review on itunes or stitcher that helps out a lot as always

00:44:20.840 thank you for your continued support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

00:44:25.320 do

00:44:26.960 you

00:44:29.660 you

00:44:44.100 you

00:44:44.480 you

The Art of Manliness - March 07, 2017

#284： This Will Make a Man of You

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