For many men, movies of vengeance are a great pleasure.  Law-Abiding Citizen is one of the finest and most original.

I was keen to see Law-Abiding Citizen because I am a fan of F. Gary Gray’s movies.  His “Italian Job” (reviewed here, scroll to bottom of article)) was a fine, funny movie, with assured and exciting direction married up with a clever heist plot. I also liked “Be Cool” though it did not have the tight plotting of The Italian Job.  But still, a pretty good track record for someone directing a modern thriller.

 Law-Abiding Citizen opens with Gerard Butler’s Clyde Shelton getting ready for dinner with his wife and young daughter.  The little we see of their house suggests a comfortable middle-class existence.  There is not much time to see it, as a knock on the door signals a brutal house invasion.  Two psychopathic killers beat, bind and stab Butler, leaving him for dead.  As he bleeds out, they murder his wife and child.  All of this is (mercifully) shot in quick cut-aways.  This is the first shock, how brutal and uncompromising this movie is willing to be.     

 A long shot across a wintry Philadephia tracks to Jamie Foxx, the prosecuting attorney responsible for prosecuting the two killers, now in captivity.  Foxx, more concerned with keeping up his conviction rate than with justice, makes a deal with the most evil of the two murderers, who as a result gets off with a light sentence.  Unfortunately for Foxx, Butler, who has survived, see the murderer shake Foxx’s hand.  Butler, denied justice and shocked beyond comprehension, wanders off, a broken shell of a man.  The movie pauses, we take a breath, evil and brutality have traded off to cynicism and injustice.  Law-Abiding Citizen has already taken us through the wringer and it is only the first act.  

Vengeance

The stage is set but for what?  Time passes and suddenly horrific revenge is taken against the two men.  Butler’s Clyde Shelton reappears and makes it plain that he will kill and kill until he brings the whole rotten system to the ground.

Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler) captured

 The beating heart of the movie are the head-to-head confrontations between Gerald Butler and Jamie Foxx, each trying to bend the other to his will.  Foxx has all the power of the state and Butler has nothing to lose.  Gerard Butler is magnificent here and shows us a clever complex man, with a hole burnt through his soul.  Clyde Shelton could have been played as a ranting angry man.  Instead Butler gives us a quick, coldly intelligent man who we believe can bring down the Philadelphia legal system.  More than that we sympathise with him, even as he commits atrocious acts of revenge.  Butler produces some magnificent acting, never playing to type, never softening the character, yet he still manages to engage our sympathies. 

Attorney Nick Rice (Jamie Foxx) threatens Clyde Shelton (Gerard Butler)

 Jamie Foxx is almost equally good as the prosecuting attorney Nick Rice, whose conscience is troubled but not enough to give Butler what he wants.  On-screen, these two game each other, mis-direct and lie, looking for a weakness.  Watching them try to intimidate each other is electrifying.  Even outside the orbit of these two men, the ensemble playing by some very good and seasoned actors is perfect and builds real depth into the movie.

 Law-Abiding Citizen is a tone-poem in coldness.  Philadelphia looks bleak and bright in the cold winter sun. Breath steams, the metal of cars is too cold to touch, grey ice and snow drape the depressingly ugly buildings of old-town Philadelphia.  Everyone in the movie feels alone and powerless, further dehumanised by F. Gary Gray’s signature helicopter tracking shots.  Grey, cold and bleak.   

Detective Dunnigan (Colm Meaney) at the scene of one of Clyde Shelton's crimes

 Above everything else this is the director’s movie.  Exciting and incredibly tense, what makes this movie special is that Gray absolutely refuses to pander to thriller stereotypes, either in the story or with the characters.  In fact Gray plays with us.  Ruthlessly.  You think you know where this story is going to go?  Think again. 

This is not a movie for everyone.  It takes a strong stomach to watch some of the things Gerard Butler does in his quest for vengeance.  If your impression of F. Gary Gray was formed around the charming, cuddly criminals of Italian Job, then be warned, this is very different.  Completely without warmth, completely uncompromising and very tense this is one of the finest thrillers of recent years.  LAC is immensely satisfying, as it refuses to submit to cliché and movie convention and instead tells a rip-roaring story.  Even the twisty ending has a satisfying note to it. 

 There will be no better thriller this year.

Law-Abiding Citizen is on general release in England from the 27th November

 There was so much to Charlton Heston, he was masculine, intelligent and charming.  Onscreen he had a dynamism and vitality that few actors have.  He was passionate about acting and an astute judge of people.  Today, October the 4^th, is his birthday.   

 In his book Manliness, T Harvey Mansfield talks of manliness as a quality that men have.  That man have more or less of the quality and that it is possible to change the amount of  manliness.  In his time Heston was an icon of manliness, playing the man who stands for all others, who is willing to stand for justice.  Imposing, dignified, handsome and sincere, it was as if he was made to play roles that defined male greatness.

Cast as Judah Ben-Hur in the movie of the same name, Charlton Heston showed the qualities that would make him a movie star.  Heston brought strength and nobility to the role, and a dogged determination to do what was right.  Heston’s great strength as an actor was that he could make us believe that a man of principle could be stronger than evil or coercion and win through.  He did this by having guts, by enduring pain and defeat, by never letting go of his goal.

Charlton Heston as Judah Ben-Hur

 For an actor who played such physical roles, Charlton Heston was a very cerebral actor.  In every role he looked for what made the character different, what made the man real and tried to bring that to the screen.  For me this is what makes Heston’s movies so watchable and in some cases classic.  His portrayals of great men are made real by his revelation of the man inside the public persona.

 He did it again with El Cid, which is one of his greatest roles.  He plays Rodrigo Diaz (The Cid), one of the great figures of Spanish history, the medieval knight who drives muslim oppressors from his homeland of Grenada.  Heston’s Diaz is a good man, without malice, who faces the unavoidable truth.  If he wants to be free, he must fight.  So Diaz becomes an almost Job-like figure, estranged from the woman he loves, enduring pain, sorrow and trial by combat, in the quest for freedom.  The movie works because of Heston.  Only a man of such obvious strength can convince us that he will defeat such overwhelming odds.

Rodrigo Diaz - El Cid

Charlton Heston was a life-long student of classical theatre and a passionate believer in the classic Shakespearean dramas.  He believed that an actor had to be able to play the classic Shakespearean roles.  Heston saw Shakespeare’s roles as the test of an actor, playing Julius Caesar, Macbeth and Antony (and Cleopatra).  Most notably he played these roles on stage as well as in the movies.  He was that rare thing, a true movie star who was also an actor.  And it is this depth that he brings to the epic movies he was cast in.  His Moses, Ben-Hur, El Cid, all have a Shakespearean grandeur that make them compelling to watch.   

 His love of movies did not blind him to the difficulties and contradictions of their  making.  His journals reveal a wry acceptance of the fact that movies are a collaborative undertaking and that only persistence of vision gets makes for great movies, and sometimes not even then.  His own passion drove him to become a producer, in order to make movies that he believed in.  

 For my own part I am grateful for his passion, because in doing so he gave us three of my favourite movies. 

The first is The Warlord, a movie that has been completely overlooked and is very undervalued.  It took Heston four years to bring Warlord to the screen.  He nurtured it from its beginnings in a stage play, paying for a screenplay to be written and finally putting up a large amount of his own money to get it into production.  The Warlord is the tale of an impoverished Norman knight, sent to rule a wild and (secretly) pagan province.  Heston got Franklin Schaffner (later to direct Patton: Lust for Glory) to direct the movie.  This was an act of genius, as Schaffner was a poet of telling stories about manly men.  He made Heston’s knight a hero, a warrior of iron disciple who does not know his own self.  Under Schaffner’s assured direction Heston reveals a complex man drawn into a journey into his own soul.  This is a superb movie, dark, dramatic and exciting. For me, it is Heston’s finest performance. 

The second movie was Will Penny.  It was Charlton Heston’s persistent advocacy of the screenplay by Tom Gries, that got the movie made.  Here is Heston as an aging cowboy who meets a woman trapped by winter snow, in a cabin in the wilderness.  It is a subtle, sensitive performance, powerful and knowing and a thrill to watch.  Will Penny did not make a lot of money at the box office but was hugely well received by movie-lovers and is now viewed as a minor masterpiece.  Heston playing a role in a minor key is as compelling as the fire and thunder of his Moses in the 10 Commandments and WIll Penny anticipate the realistic Western genre by several years.

Charlton Heston as Will Penny

 The third movie is The Omega Man, A solitary man tries to survive in a world overrun by vampire-like homicidal mutants who only come out as night to kill the remaining humans.  Heston plays a military scientist, solitary and besieged, hunted by these creatures.  Heston’s Robert Neville is both a Christ-like figure and a lonely man, the two sides of his personality co-existing in one of the most frightening worlds that Hollywood has ever created. 

 I think that Heston’s respect for the material is important here.  Back in the 70’s Charlton Heston was one of the few major stars who treated Science Fiction stories/movies with respect and in this movie it really shows.  There are some wonderful scenes in this movie, in which Heston takes his masculine warrior persona and lifts the veil on how horrible it is to be the only man still alive.  Omega Man is a good script, tidy direction, but it is Heston’s performance that elevates the movie above the ordinary. 

So this is a celebration of a man and an actor, the like of whom we will probably never see again.  Charlton Heston’s movies always did exceptionally well in Japan.   He once asked a Japanese journalist if he knew why that was.  The journalist told him that he (Heston) embodied the four Confucian values of Responsibility, Justice, Courage and Moderation.  They got that right. 

 Thank you Mr Heston, for your intelligence, positive spirit, your love of freedom and the individual and some magnificent movies.

Here are my 10 Favourite Charlton Heston movies.

 The Warlord 

Heston’s Chrysagon is a Norman knight who knows only war.  Commissioned by his lord to protect a province from sea-born raiders, his mettle is tested less by the pirates than by the beautiful pagan woman he encounters.  An dventure which goes deeply into what makes a warrior.  Richard Boone is marvellous as Bors, Chrysagon’s deadly seargeant at arms.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

El Cid

Heston’s presence dominates this picture.  The battles are cleverly staged, the swordplay is clever and exciting and the devious Spanish nobility captivating in their treachery.  However Heston’s El Cid is always the centre of the movie, a man imbued with the power to change history.  

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

Ben-Hur

The chariot race of course.  Even today it is one of the most exciting action sequences ever filmed.  But also for Heston’s powerful performance as Ben-Hur, a man who cannot be defeated.   

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

A Touch of Evil

Heston plays Miguel Vargas, a straight-arrow Mexican detective forced to fight Orson Wells corrupt police chief in a Texas border town.  Often considered to be Heston’s finest role, he makes Vargas a worthy adversary for Wells.  Can good triumph over evil when evil is so much cleverer than good?

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

 The Omega Man

Exciting, beautifully paced and very scary apocalyptic SF movie.  As we engage with Robert Neville, the last man alive, we wonder if his own lonliness will kill him before the homicidal mutants can.  The Omega Man’s intelligent story and plot integrity make this a really satisfying movie to watch.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

 The Ten Commandments

Moses as we would believe him to be, a powerful patriarch, tested by his God and by Pharoah.  Colourful, inspired and inspiring, a classic Hollywood movie.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

Major Dundee

As Major Amos Dundee, Charlton Heston gave us the definitive warrior who is lost without a war.  Heston keeps us guessing throughout the movie, as to whether Dundee is a man who can put war in perspective or a killer who knows no other trade.  A near-masterpiece of a movie, an absolute masterpiece of a performance.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

Antony and Cleopatra

Not a popular choice, as it was panned on release.  However Heston’s Antony is a classic performance and his direction, if a little over-respectful, does give the play time to “breathe” onscreen.  My personal view is that it will be re-appraised and I like it for its unabashed love of the play and the language.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

 The Three Musketeers

I could not get used to Charlton Heston being the bad guy here.  But once I did, I realised he was the heart of the movie.  With everybody else playing for knockabout comedy, Heston’s manipulative and powerful cleric gives the movie a solid core that everyone else revolves around.  The more I see this movie the more I think it is a great performance.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

 Planet of the Apes

As directed by Franklin Schaffner, Heston is the essence of masculine power.  Beaten, stripped naked and tormented by apes, Heston remains powerful and dignified.  A more potent statement of manly power would be hard to find.  Franklin Schaffner makes this movie dramatic, hard-edged and brutal.  It is hard to think of another science-fiction film that has this level of perception and maturity.  Charlton Heston shows us the god-like qualities of the free man.

Get it in the UK here or in the US here

The Goldsmiths Fair starts Monday! 

The best creative jewellers in England take stands at the fair to display their work.  Goldsmiths Fair is a wonderful opportunity to see beautiful, original jewellery.  For men’s jewellery, the Fair cannot be beat, showcasing jeweller-designers who specialize in unique pieces, designed around their own highly individual styles.    

The Goldsmiths Guild is the professional association of goldsmiths and jewelers in England.  They host the Goldsmiths fair each year in their magnificent Guildhall in the City of London. 

The Fair takes place from the 28th September to 4th October (Week One) and 6th October to 11th october (Week Two).  In order to showcase all of the Guild’s jewellers’ weeks one and two feature different jewellers.  

The Fair takes place in the sumptuously beautiful Goldsmiths Hall.  I do not use sumptuously lightly, this is one of the most beautiful Guildhall’s in London, the fair is worth attending simply to be able to view the building.  Goldsmith’s Hall is at Foster Lane EC2V 6BN (nearest tube St Pauls) and the cost of entry is £7.00, which also gets you a catalogue of the exhibition.  The Godsmiths Company website is here  

I will write more on the 2009 Fair after I have attended it, but in the meantime, here are some very beautiful items to whet your appetite.

First, Henry Simple’s stylish pen overlays…. 

Henry Simple: Precious Metal Pen Overlays

Justin Richardson’s strikingly original watches…  

Justin Richardson: Red-Gold watch

Joseph Koppman: Cufflinks in Obsidian (top) and Agate (bottom)

 Emmett

One of the best ready-to-wear English shirtmakers, Emmett pride themselves on the quality of their tailoring and their colourful extravagant style.  Emmett shirts are finely finished with a slightly Italianate style, collars, cuffs and seams are just that little bit crisper than many other brands.  They also have some quirky stylistic touches, such as using contrasting fabrics on some shirts, on the reverse of the collar and cuffs,

Emmett shop, City of London

 Above all else Emmett are the masters of colourful, manly fabrics.  At the moment their collection has some bold checks, striking (and often edgy) stripes and some bright solid colours.  The majority of their shirts are build around a Prince of Wales (classic) collar so, allowing for conservatism, most of their shirts are suitable as work wear.  They come in single and double cuff, with the single cuff shirts being in noticeably quieter colours, pale blues, muted checks etc.  Emmett also have a slim-fit shirt which is basically the same model, cut a little closer to the body.  They also make casual shirts, of which I like their linen stripes.  There is a classic English summer style about them combined with some rather clever stripe patterns.  

For me Emmett is the prefect shirt for work-into-leisure activities.  Their business shirts are formal enough for your day job, but fun enough to go out and look good in. 

Buying Information

Emmett shirts start at around £85.00 and sell both in their stores and on their website (details below)  They also have a made-to-measure service (check store for availability) starting at around £125.00.  

 Emmett

 112 Jermyn Street,

St James

London,

SW1Y 6LS

+44 (0)20 7925 1299

 And:

 4 Eldon Street

City,

London

EC2M 7LS

+44 (0)20 7247 1563

Emmett website here 

 Thomas Pink

 The master of English shirtmaking.  Thomas Pink shirts are made in Ireland at one of the last shirt-tailoring factories in the United Kingdom.  Their shirts are well-tailored in very good quality cottons.  As soon as you put a Pink shirt on it feels good against the body. 

 As befits the most successful ready-to-wear shirt brand in England they have a really wide range of shirts. Their standard business shirt comes in solid colours, checks and stripes.  The patterning on Thomas Pink shirts is stylish and sophisticated, with clever colour combinations.  Collars are Prince of Wales, regular business collar with a smattering of cutaway Windsor collars.     

Thomas-Pink-Jermyn-Street

 Style and fit.

The business shirt comes in double and single cuff, though fabrics and patterns vary across the two styles.  Like Emmett, they mostly sell a standard Prince of Wales collar, with a few button-downs.  Pink sell a neat button-down, in solid colours and fine stripes.  Like Emmett they also sell a slim-line shirt.  Pink’s slim-lines are very stylish, with a lighter collar, less visible stitching and bright colours and designs.

 Pink shirts also come in several sleeve lengths, which is a huge boon for tall chaps like me.  I dress in the classic English style, with a half-inch of shirt cuff showing below the cuff of my jacket.  Pink shirts give me the sleeve length to do that.  If you are not sure what collar size/sleeve length you require the staff at Pink will be happy to measure you.  Service is courteous and knowledgeable at Pink stores.      

 Pink have a really good flagship store in Jermyn Street, where their full range of shirts are on display.  They also have a “White shirt bar” where they have more than a dozen styles of white shirt, for every occasion, business or formal. 

 My tip with Pink is if you see it, buy it.  Pink have short-run shirt ranges, with sophisticated patterning and stylish variations in cut.  I have been caught out on several occasions when I have returned to a store for a shirt only to be told that the run is sold out.

Buying Information

Pink shirts start at around £85.00 and sell both in their stores and on their website (details below).  They also have a made-to-measure service starting at around £130.00.  Pink have many stores, two are listed here and I recommend a visit to their flagship store in Jermyn Street.

 Thomas Pink

 Flagship Store,

85 Jermyn Street,

St James,

London,

SW1Y 6JD

 +44 (0)20 7930 6364

 And

 16 Blomfield Street
London
EC2M 7AD

+44 20 7374 2800

Pink website here

Eton Shirts

 These are interesting shirts.  Regardless of the name, Eton shirts are a Swedish company, founded in 1928, they have a process which “improves the hydrophilic quality” of the shirt and makes the shirt resistant to creases.  Eton say their shirts will remain wrinkle-free though-out the day.  If that is true I suggest that Eton shirts are bought by Summer Interns in Banking, as many of them seem to be incapable of ironing a shirt. 

Eton shirts, Kingsway, London

The shirts themselves are classic Prince of Wales collar, (Eton refer to the style as “cutaway”).  In inspecting Eton shirts my take on it is that the collar “wing” down to the point is a little larger than a similar shirt from Pink   They would look good on bigger men, framing the neck appropriately. 

 The shirts come as single and double cuff in a variety of colours and patterns.  My experience of Eton is that their designs are classic, with tried and tested colours and patterns.  They also have a longer sleeve option.  They also make a regular button-down, in the same crease-resistant fabric.   

Buying Information

 Eton shirts start at around £100.00 and sell both in their store and on their website (details below). 

 Eton

65 Kingsway,

London,

WC2B 6TD

 +44 (0)20 7490 1433

Eton website here

Boggi

Let’s look at some Italian shirts.  Boggi are a Milanese company who have recently opened stores in London.  Their shirts are well-made, in good cotton.  However what makes Boggi remarkable is their flair for colour and design.  Their shirts are richly dyed and their shirts, particularly their striped cottons, are vivid and colourful.  They have a wholes spectrum of blues, lavenders and mauves, in a wider range of shades than most other stores.  Their contrast stripe shirts (royal blue/white, magenta/white) are bold and fresh.  These are shirts for the man who knows his style and wants a bold shirt in classic patterns.  Great shirts for younger men with a slim body shape, Boggi are cut slightly tighter than a comparable English shirt for a more graceful fit.        

Boggi - Jermyn Street, London

Buying Information

Boggi shirts start at around £80.00.  They have a shop in London’s Jermyn Street, as shown below:

 Boggi

49 Jermyn Street,

London,

SW1Y 6LX

+44 (0) 20 7629 2495

Boggi website here 

Hilditch and Key

Classic English shirtmakers since 1899, Hilditch and Key are best known for their made-to-measure shirts.  I mention them here because they also have an extensive ready-to-wear collection at their shop in Jermyn Street.  As you might expect, they sell a classic Prince of Wales collar, with two sleeve lengths, regular and long.  Their styles are classic and their solid colour shirts are very handsome.  Their tailoring is excellent, as are their cottons.  I particularly like their heavy oxford cotton solid-colour shirts.  Mine have lasted a long time and looked good all the while.  A great buy.  Their Sea Island cotton shirts are particularly fine and dress up a suit beautifully, especially when a tie is required.

Though slightly off-topic, their ladies shirts are a superb buy for businesswomen.

Buying Information

Hilidtch and Key’s oxford cotton shirts start at around £80.00.  Their Sea-Island cotton shirts start at around £125.00  

Hilditch and Key

 73 Jermyn Street,

St James,

London

SW1Y 6NP

+44 (0)20 7930 5336

Hilditch and Key website  here

 T. M. Lewin

These gentlemen are at the competitive end of the ready-to-wear shirt market and sell to men in business through-out London.  They have three ranges, the Lewin 100, the Royal, the Lewin Luxury, at various prices from £25.00 through to £90.00.  I find the Lewin 100 a little thin but the Royal and Luxury are good shirts for a man looking to setup an outfit on a budget.  As with other brands they sell a classic Prince of Wales collar but they also sell a racy cutaway collar in a wide range of colours and fabrics.  They also have a longer sleeve option.  Lewin stock a huge range of colours and fabrics so it is a good place to visit for something different.  My experience is that their shirts are not as hard-wearing as some of the other ranges described in this article but good shirts all the same.   

Lewin Flagship Store - Jermyn Street, London

 It is worth visiting T. M. Lewin for their John Francome range.  This is a designer range, including some eye-catching (read bright) fabrics and colours.  These shirts have two-button collars, with a taller collar-bridge.  This makes the shirt stand up under a suit (without a tie) and make your look much more stylish.  So it you work in a tie-free environment then these are shirts to wear under your suit. 

Buying Information

 T.M. Lewin shirts start at around £25.00.  They have many stores around England and two of the London stores are listed.  They sell in their stores and from their website (details below)  

 T.M. Lewin

 103-108 Jermyn Street,

London,

SW1Y 6EQ

 +44 (0)20 7839 3372

 And

 19 Holborn,

London,

EC1N 2JS

 +44 (0)20 7430 2040

T.M. Lewin website here

Canali

Back to Italian shirtmakers.  Canali make great ready to wear shirts.  Their Italian cottons are superb and feel really good on the body.  Their patterns and weaves are unsurpassed, managing to be both stylish and bold at the same time.  Canali shirts are defined by clever stripes, rich colours and finely finished stitching.  Wear these, look stylish, it’s a simple equation. 

Canali - Bond Strret, London

 There are some differences between Canali shirts and most English brands.  Canali are of course famous for their sleek tight cut and their shirts are no exception, they are cut close to the body, relative to other brands.  If in doubt, ask their staff, you may need to go up a half-size.  Canali are also a little shorter in the arms and the shirt length (once again, cut for Italian men) so not such good shirts for the large or tall man.  Also, unlike English brands, Canali sell more single cuff (button-cuff) than double cuff.  Also the collars have integral boning, so they are a good thing for those men who are always loosing plastic collar bones.  

However Canali shirts really make you look good.  There is a finish to a Canali shirt that really lights up a suit or jacket.  And these are the most hardwearing of shirts.  The collars really hold their shape and do not wrinkle (This also makes them easier to iron).  These are shirts that wash up well and look good every time.  Recommended.   

Buying information

Canali shirts start at around £109.00 and they have two shops in London as well as some concessions.  Their website is a general one and will give you a feel for the Canali product range. 

Canali

 122 New Bond Street,

London

W1V 1DT

 +44 (0)20 7499 5605

 And

 Liverpool Street (18-31 Eldon Street)

EC2M

 +44 (0)844 93 93

Canali website here

Hackett

For those men who want classic English style, Hackett shirts are a well-priced ready-to-wear option.  Hackett are of course the brand for re-interpreting classic English fashion for the modern stylish man. 

 These are English shirts in traditional style, classic stripes and discreet checks on good heavy cotton.  Double and single cuff, with classic prince of Wales collars.  Hackett also sell a beautifully tailored Eton collar shirt and a handsome button-down.  Not too traditional though, because Hackett make a slim-fitting shirt (The Brompton) which allows one to look true-Brit without wearing yards of fabric.  Colours are perfectly matched to classic blues, greys and pinstripes.  Quiet style and perfect for a business suit.  For the man who instinctively dresses well.

 Hackett shirts embody classic English style, with Prince of Wales check, Herringbone and other traditional patterns.  They have also updated the contrasting collar (white on blue, white on grey) for the modern age.  Great value shirts.  

Buying Information

 Hackett shirts start at around £70.00  They have many stores across England and sell from these and their website (details below).  They have a made-to-measure shirt service at their flagship store in Sloane Street (ring the store for details).  The flagship store is definitely worth a visit.

 Hackett

 Sloane Street
137/138 Sloane Street
London
SW1X 9AY

 +44(0)20 7730 3331

And

 Bishopsgate
117 Bishopsgate
London
EC2M 3TH
+44 (0)20 7626 7020

Hackett website here

 Brooks Brothers

From classic English to classic American.  Brooks Brothers business shirts are of course amongst the best ready-to-wear that one can buy.  They are famous for their button-downs but also do a classic Prince of Wales collar.  The PoW collar is a little smaller than that of most English brands and lends itself to the current fashion for a slimmer tie with a smaller knot.  The fabrics, colours and patterns are of course classic and their oxford cotton is beautiful, light and tightly woven.    

Brooks Brothers - Regent Street, London

These shirts are the epitome of reliability and endurance.  They always wash up good, look good on and they last a very long time.  I have Brooks Brothers shirts that are over ten years old and still as presentably (I still wear them for business) as when I bought them.  Great shirts, highly recommended.

Buying Information

Brooks Bothers shirts start from around £90.00  They have two stores in London. 

 Brooks Brothers

 lagship Store
150 Regent Street
London, W1B 5SJ

+44 (0)20 3 238 0030

 And

 City Store

Old Broad Street
London, EC2N 1DW
+44 (0)20  7256 6013

Brooks Brothers website here

Eterno

From the classic to the extravagantly beautiful.  Regular readers will know that I am an Eterno fan.  Eterno are an Italian company that make beautiful, striking and dramatic shirts.  They are not really collar and tie shirts but they look superb under a suit (their collars range from the high to the very high and almost all are two-button).  If you want a dramatic, eye-catching look, then an Eterno shirt will transform the dullest of suits. 

Eterno - Conduit Street, London

Eterno are Italian shirtmakers based in Salerno.  They produce their own fabrics, sophisticated patterns woven in dark colours like chocolate, maroon, French blue, deep red.  They make dazzlingly bright yellow, ice-blue and white cottons.  They excel at bold stripes and clever print patterns. They tie these up with a high-collar, two-button barrel cuff shirt pattern that is elegant and eye-catching.  Their regular cut is slim and the Italian darting (different from an English shirt) accentuates the chest and the shoulders.  If you can’t look good in these shirts you must be already dead.  You really want style that the ladies are gonna spot? Here are your shirts.  Very recommended.

Buying Information

Eterno shirts start at around £130.00.  They also have a made-to-measure service in store, which starts at around £140.00

Eterno

 19 Conduit Street

London,

W1S 2BH

 +44 (0) 20 7493 5603

Eterno website here 

These are ten of my best ready-to-wear shirtmakers in London.  There are others and I hope to write about them soon.  As always, if you have an opinion, or a shirtmaker you want me to write up, drop me a comment or an email.

News from N. Peal, who as many readers will know, produce beautiful knitwear in fine wools and cashmeres.  N. Peal was one of the favourite shops of Cary Grant, who often wore their mens knitwear.  Today they produce luxury knitwear that is notable for its original and classy designs and rich sophisticated colours.  In my opinion they are better than ever, with some strikingly stylish sweaters in their current range.   

The summer sale is now on and it coincides with the launch of N. Peal’s new website which has an e-commerce shop that enables you to buy a selection of their knitwear on-line (details below).  So if you cannot make the journey to London’s Burlington Arcade, here is your source for some of the best knitwear in England. 

N Peal shop

Buying Information

N. Peal knitwear starts at around £140.00

N. Peal,
37-40 Burlington Arcade, London, W1J 0QD
+44 (0) 20 7499 6485

www.npeal.com

Michael Mann has been on our radar recently.  We wrote an article about his movies on the occasion of his birthday (here) and also wrote a review of his new movie Public Enemies (here). 

Now the British Film Insttute is running two screenings of his rarely-seen early movie The Keep.  If you want to see what the director of modernist thrillers like Heat and Miami Vice does with Carpathian castles, demons and Nazis then you can get tickets here.  I have seen The keep and it is an interesting movie, with some truly evil moments.  Even at this early stage, Mann’s stylistic vision was individual enough to stand out and make this a very different horror movie.  It also has some bravura acting from Scott Glenn and Jurgen Prochnow. 

Scene from The Keep, directed by Michael Mann

As regular readers will know, we are big fans of Grenson shoes here at What Makes a Man.  We like their combination of traditional British craftsmanship and Italianate flair.   So I was pleased to hear that the Grenson sale was on.  I went along and took these photographs. 

The picture below shows some of Grenson’s brogues and heavier shoes.  Most of the brogues pictured are actually much lighter and easier to wear than a standard brogue.  This is because the leathers are lighter and finer and the soles are slimmer and more flexible than a traditional brogue.  I particularly liked the pale grey suede.

Grenson brogue ranges

Here is a close-up of a pair of Grenson Alberts, which sharp-eyed readers will see is a modern take on the American Gibson shoe.  Thse are made up in Bookbinder leather, a hard, gloss-finish leather that takes a very high shine.  This is a naturally wide shoe-shape and a comfortable and stylish (two words that do not always go together) wear for any man who takes a wide fitting.   They are of course the ultimate Preppy shoe and, strangely enough, go really well with jeans (though I am not so sure about the Black). 

Grenson Alberts

Here is a picture of some brogues in the Abraham range.  The mid-grey shoe with the contrast stitching is pretty cool.

Abraham

Here is picture of Grenson’s Kent range of Oxfords.  Grenson have two ranges, the competitively priced Rushden range and the Rose collection, which top the £200 mark and are worthy competitors to Church and Crockett and Jones shoes.  The Kent Oxfords are in the Rose collection.  This is part of why I like Grenson so much, that even in their top-end range, they are enterprising enough to produce original and adventurous shoes like the green/brown suede Oxford in the picture.

Grenson Kent Oxfords

A picture of Grenson Jodphur boots.   Grenson are of course famous for the quality of their boots and they manage to be both hardwearing and stylish enough for City wear.  I personally rate Grenson town boots very highly and own three pairs.      

Grenson Jodphur boots

And here is the man who makes the shop work.  Keith John is the manager at Grenson and an absolute goldmine of information about Grenson shoes and shoes generally.  I like to ask Keith’s advice about the clothes that the shoes might be worn with, he has a real stylist’s eye.  If you want skilled and unbiased help, you can do no better than let Keith assist you.     

Keith John, manager at Grenson

And here are the pair of shoes I got on my visit.  These are a pair of Grenson Salisburys, in a pale chocolate brown.  They are of course Oxfords, with a slightly squared-off toe, which for me gives them a slightly more stylish look than traditional round-toe Oxfords.  I also like the subtle, neat styling, espeically the raised tab at the join of the vamp and the eyelets.  The visible stitching, especially across the toe-cap is very fine, and superb craftmanship.  I think they look subtly Italian and have understated style.  I have an Italian suit in Cobalt-blue and intend to wear them with that, I think the paleness of the chocolate-brown will set the suit off perfectly.  Superb shoes.

Salisbury Oxfords

The sale is now on, there are excellent discounts on the shoes.  Go see for yourself.  If you cannot get to the sale, Grenson also sell their shoes from their website (see buying information below).

Keith at the counter at Grenson

Buying Information

Grenson are open from 10.00am to 6.00pm Monday to Friday

Grenson,
Unit 24, Great Eastern Hotel, Liverpool Street, London, EC2 7QN
Tel: 44 (0)20 7618 5050

www.grenson.co.uk

Here are a pair of Cheaneys that I bought a couple of days ago.  The Cheaney sale is on and I had gone there to look at their shoes.  I am, as regular readers know, a fan of Cheaney.  However, the shoes I wanted were not in the sale.  Sometimes it just happens that way….

Cheaney Monkstrap - side elevation

I had been looking at these monkstraps for some time.  They are a rather daring departure for Cheaney and stand apart from their more classic ranges.  They are less rounded, with a longer vamp/toe shape than other, more traditional Cheaney shoes.  They have a strong Italian influence and are a bit of hybrid and in my opinion a very successful one.

What do I like about these shoes?  Firstly I like the shape of the Quarter (that is the piece of leather that rises up either side of the shoe to form the bridge for the buckle).  The Quarter rises sharply and then sweeps back to form the collar of the shoe.  It is flamboyant but perfectly proportioned so the overall design looks stylish, rather than loud.  The buckle follows that logic, it is smaller than the buckles on most monkstraps, and the straight rectangular design (most monkstrap buckles are rounded) echoes the clean linear line of the shoe.  It is also quite subtle, which matches my personal style.  I like to think I have a classy, understated and cultured style.

Cheaney Monkstrap - profile

I like the long narrow vamp (front piece) and square toe, which gives the shoe a racy, modern feel, whilst the Cheaney craftsmanship lends it a classical feel.  I like the single line stitching detail around the vamp of the shoe; it makes it more interesting without being over-complicated.  The slope of the vamp from the buckle to the toe is sleek and long., once again giving a contemporary feel to the shoes.  The low heel block adds to the sleek look of the shoe.

Wearing these shoes

Until I had bought these shoes and worn them I was unsure about wearing them for work.  As regular readers know, I work in banking in the City Of London, the financial district.  Now, no-one in the city has a problem with monkstraps, they are one of the more stylish aspects of English menswear.  In fact, one of the few English menswear products that Italian and French bankers like to buy is a pair of bench made monkstraps.  Americans do not seem to care for them, though I would be interested to hear from any American readers who have a different view.

Cheaney Monkstrap - top view

No, the problem is with narrow, long-vamp shoes.  A lot of younger guys in the City wear them and wear them badly.  This is not to pick on young City guys, a lot of older City guys wear those appalling synthetic leather Oxfords with black crepe soles and what looks like an inflated welt around the collar of the shoe.  Not a good look.  The problems come with cheap long-vamp shoes which are generally not Goodyear welted.  This means that the uppers tend to “rise” if they are not looked after carefully, the shoe curls up and takes on the appearance of a harem slipper.  Added to this, it is easy to scuff the toe of a long-vamp shoe.  Once again, if they are not taken care of, they look tired and ugly very quickly.  All I can say is there are a lot of shoes like this and they do their wearers no credit.

But the Cheaneys are beautifully made; Goodyear welted, and will hold their shape, so I am in no danger of inadvertently wearing harem slippers.  Also, their sheer class is obvious; no one is going to mistake them for cheap shoes.  I am looking forward to wearing them, they are very stylish shoes.

Buying information

I bought the Cheaney monkstraps from their store in New Bond Street, London.  They currently cost £215.00.  They are part of a new range (which I recommend) and seem not to be listed on the Cheaney website.  If I hear differently from Cheaney I will update this article.

If you are new to Cheaney and want to know a little about them, I wrote about them before here

If you want to know about caring for English benchmade leather shoes, our article on the subject is here

Update March 2012 – Store now closed

The Cheaney Store in Bond Street is no longer operating.  For a list of Cheaney stores in London, go here.

10 Quotes and 10 Books from Robert Heinlein

Here is part two of my article on Robert Heinlein.  The first part is here.

 Robert Heinlein’s was one of the finest writers to come out of the Science Fiction genre.  His writing was honed by years of writing to tight deadlines for small magazines.  He was a stylish and lucid writer, terse and elegant and his quick, engaging style allowed him to explore complex ideas in a way that ordinary readers could easily understand.

 His gift for elegance led him naturally to write pithy quotable lines.  Here are my ten favourite Robert Heinlein quotes.

 Quotes 

We each have a moral obligation to conserve and preserve beauty in this world; there is none to waste – Friday (1982)

Cheops Law:  Nothing ever gets built on schedule or within budget – Time Enough for Love (1973)

“Tanstaffl”  Means “There aint no such thing as a free lunch” The Moon is a Harsh Mistress (1966)

Ponse was not a villain.  He was exactly like the members of every ruling classi n history: honestly convinced of his own benevolence and hurt if it was challenged Farnham’s Freehold (1964)

We have a tradition of freedom, personal freedom, scientific freedom.  That freedom isn’t kept alive by caution and unwillingness to take risks.  Rocket Ship Galileo (1947)

Almost every thing about a human creature is ridiculous, except its ability to suffer bravely and die gallantly for whatever it loves and believes in. Job: a comedy of justice (1984)

A dying culture invariably exhibits personal rudeness.  Bad manners.  Lack of consideration for others in minor matters.  A loss of politeness, of gentle manners, is more significant than is a riot. Friday (1982) 

There are things which cannot be taught in ten easy lessons, nor popularised for the masses; they take years of skull sweat.  This is treason in an age when ignorance has come into its own and one man’s opinion is as good as another’s   Glory Road (1963)

Easy times for individuals are bad times for the race.  Adversity is a strainer which refuses to pass the ill-equipped.  Beyond this Horizon (1942)

Mighty little force is needed to control a man whose mind has been hoodwinked; contrariwise, no amount of force can control a freee man, a man whose mind is free.  No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything – you cant conquer a free man, the most you can do is kill him.  If this goes on……  (1940)

 10 Novels by Robert Heinlein

Everything Robert Heinlein wrote is exciting, intelligent and beautifully written.  Everybody has their favourites, here are mine.

 Starship Troopers.

In Heinlein’s future, humanity is under threat of extermination by the Bugs, an insect race that have a single hive mind.  Outnumbered and outgunned, the human military has to resort to strategic cleverness and sheer courage.  All of this is told in the journey of one recruit, Juan Rico, from boot camp to battle-hardened officer.    

Starship Troopers explores, bravery, the value of adversity and aggression to the human race, the brotherhood of men, the nature of courage and how a man must lead.  It celebrates the courage and heroism of the military and has always been controversial.  Its insights into the true nature of men are perceptive and intelligent and beyond value.

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

Stranger in a Strange Land  

Michael Valentine Smith is an Earthman, brought up from babyhood on Mars by the powerful, virtually immortal Martians.  On his return to Earth he exhibits incredible powers which the US government wish to understand and exploit.  However Smith eludes the government and sets out to discover his native country.  However Smith’s greatest provocation is to setup a new religion of love and spiritual power, under the noses of the powerful.    

 Satirical, funny, blunt and provocative, Stranger in a Strange Land was a huge bestseller when it was published in 1961.  It supplied some of the intellectual underpinning for the emerging counter-culture, especially around the concepts of guilt-free sexuality and non-standard family types.  Read today, its outsider view of modern society is still very fresh and insightful.  A bold and original story.

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Luna is a penal colony, harsh and dangerous.  To survive takes intelligence, courage and quick wits.  When the tyrannical governor tries to tighten the screws on the already beleaguered colony a small group of Lunarians decides to brew a revolt, with independence the goal.  The ill-equipped group are Manuel O’Garcia Kelly, a computer scientist, Professor Bernardo La Paz, an activist shipped up from Earth many years before, Wyoming Knott, a beautiful freedom fighter and Mike, the only intelligent computer in the universe.

The desperate fight our heroes find themselves in is leavened by the warm, slightly crazy feisty lunarian lifestyles of their friends and family.  The question is how do you make a country and a fighting force out of radical individualists?  Answer: it is very difficult…..   

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

Glory Road

E.C. Gordon, freshly demobbed from South East Asia, is enjoying life on the Cote D’Azur in the early sixties.  Whilst enjoying the nudist colony of Ile Du Levant, he meets the most beautiful woman in the world.  She leads him from Earth into exotic adventures and in quick succession he fights Igli the giant, the Horned Ghosts and the Cold Water Gang.  Gordon finds out that he has signed up to rescue the great egg of the universe, the only problem being that it is a mission most deadly….   Heinlein serves up the ultimate hero fantasy with a slightly sardonic edge. 

Every man should read this book, it is all heart and all adventure.  Romance, glory and swordplay for grown men.  Just wonderful.     

Get it in the UK here and the US here

The Puppet Masters

A covert operations team discover that their enemy is a race of telepathic slugs that have the power to control individual minds and ride humans as puppet masters.  Robert Heinlein was never better at describing the loss of freedom than in this creepy, paranoid, violent story of alien invasion.  This is a story that starts fast and accelerates to a deadly conclusion.     

Get it in the UK here and the US here

Double Star

The story of Lorenzo Smythe, failed actor is a slightly different type of Heinlein.  Older than most of Heinlein’s other heros, Smythe is a rueful, sad man living in the shadow of his much more famous actor father, now deceased.  He is picked to impersonate a famous politician, John Bonforte, who is the target of radical political groups who wish to sabotage Bonforte’s  attempts to bridge Earthly and Martian civilisations. 

The characters in Double Star are very carefully drawn, as they rally around a man who they believe will successfully lead Earth into an alliance with the ancient Marian civilisation.  It is a novel of politics and personal growth, as the lowly Smythe finds the courage to grow in support of humanity’s future. 

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

Revolt in 2100

America in 2100 is a religious dictatorship in which the Church of the First prophet holds absolute power.  John Lyle is a young junior army officer, whose devotion to the church is troubled by the unholy behaviour he observes when he is assigned to the Prophet’s capital of New Jerusalem.  His beliefs shaken, john Lyle falls in love with one of the Prophet’s virgins and things really start to go wrong……

Events cause Lyle to join the resistance movement and the story plays to Heinlein’s strengths as he tells a tale of advanced military technologies and strategies.  Robert Heinlein’s faith in principled, intelligent people is at the heart of this story.  Revolt is a fast-paced future war story, with a determinedly cynical view of politics.  In Revolt Heinlein expands on Churchill’s dictum that Democracy is the “least worst” system of government.

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

Time Enough for Love

The story of Lazarus Long, a 2,300 year old man.  Robert Heinlein had explored longevity before, in the novel Methuselah’s children, where the Howard group of families have been (unbeknownst to them) bred over successive generations, for long life.  Lazarus Long is their most successful descendant.

 In Time Enough for Love, Heinlein uses Long’s outsider status to look at sexual politics, family life and American politics from a different angle.  Time Enough really consists of four novellas which allow Robert Heinlein to write about these subjects.  Woven around these novellas is the story of Long’s desire.  His hope is that by retelling his story he will find an inspiration that will bring newness into a life now filled with ennui.

 Towards the end of his life Robert Heinlein wrote a number of long novels that explored difficult metaphysical questions such as why are we here.  Time Enough for Love was the best of these, focussed, filled with the observations of one of the sharpest minds that America has ever produced.  Difficult and provocative, less story and more essay, Time Enough for Love rewards the reader who is willing to set aside judgement and consider original ideas.  

Get it in the UK here and the US here

Red Planet

This was an early novel and it establishes many major Heinlein themes.  The need for a man to have the skills and social understanding in order to thrive in a world dependent on technology.  The need to be manly and competent in a harsh environment (the book is set in ne of the first human colonies on Mars). 

 Jim and Frank are two boys in the process of becoming men.  They stumble upon a plot to enslave the free colonists of Mars.  The implications of the plot make it likely that the elder Martian race will be affected, with the potential for catastrophe for both races.  Red Planet was one of Heinlein’s first attempts at building an alien culture that was so radically different men would struggle to understand it.         

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

The Man who sold the Moon

A collection of short stories, The Man who sold the Moon is as relevant today as when it was published in 1951.  In the book as in the real world, the space race has faded away and one visionary businessman decides that only private enterprise can get man to the moon.  The stories follow the adventures of D.D. Harriman as he pursues his obsession to get to the moon.  The Man who sold the Moon is a funny, wry, swashbuckling paean to free trade and free men. 

 Get it in the UK here and the US here

Robert Heinlein

Today is the birthday of Robert Anson Heinlein.  As many readers will know Robert Heinlein was a science fiction writer whose heyday was in the fifties and sixties.  Like many Science Fiction writers of that time he wrote about a future where space travel and aliens were, if not commonplace, at least part of the known world(s).  Unlike those other writers, who have mostly faded into obscurity, Robert Heinlein is still read today and his ideas still have a currency that lends them to be debated.  In this respect he is almost unique.  I would like to share a few observations about why that is.  If it seems a little odd to be celebrating a science fiction writer on a web-magazine about men and style, then I have to say that Robert Heinlein had some very important things to say about men.  

I have read Robert Heinlein all my adult life and he shares a comparable place in my literary gallery with Ernest Hemingway.  Indeed there are some real similarities between them.  There is much to write about Robert Heinlein and it cannot all be contained in one article.  For now I will concentrate on Heinlein’s men.  I hope to write more in due course. 

Robert Heinlein

Robert Heinlein brought an intellectual maturity to SF and a willingness to make his stories explore complex and important ideas.  His stories inhabit a consistent future history, where starships, ray-guns and technology have taken men to new worlds.  However Robert Heinlein had a rare ability to use the SF form to write provocative novels about subjects as diverse as race, politics, the function of the military and the place of rituals in modern society.  In his later novels he turned to metaphysics and the hard questions of why are we here?, what happens after we die?  However his real genius was to write adventures that men could relate to, be excited by and enjoy.

Man Alone

Heinlein’s men are heroes, though they do not start out that way.  In Double Star, a failed actor becomes a double for a politician under threat of assassination, and inadvertently becomes the bridge between humans and an ancient and sophisticated Martian culture.  In Starship Troopers, Juan Rico is a spoilt rich boy who finds his manhood as an infantryman in a war against a genocidal race of alien bug creatures. 

 Robert Heinlein believed passionately in self-reliance, the need for an individual to avoid conformity and follow his own ideas and visions.  He coupled this with a intelligent and worldly understanding of modern western society, characterising it as technically dependent and with a need for conformity.  His ability to write elegant lucid stories with a mature adult sensibility brings these two contradictory worlds together in colourful and provocative adventures.

 We read his stories because they ask the question “How does a man live in a world he has not made?”  It is the same question we ask ourselves.

 I think that one of the reasons we read him is that he never cheats us.  His future societies may have starships and rayguns but they are realistic, they suffer the same problems that every complex society has, bad laws, stupid people, natural upheavals.  The effects of these societies feel real to the protagonists, and they feel real to us.  Heinlein’s men have to understand their society and decide what their moral principles are.  Which we all have to do. 

 For Robert Heinlein never gives his heroes a free ride.  They have to form themselves mentally and morally, usually while getting caught up in a plot to enslave all human colonists on Mars (Red Planet), freeing a future America from a religious dictatorship (Revolt in 2100) or trying to stop an invasion of alien mind parasites (The Puppet Masters).  With Heinlein it’s always running and putting your jacket on at the same time.  I believe this is one reason why he is still so readable.  The stories have a breakneck excitement, complex ideas are explored in prose of Hemingwayan terseness and every mistake the hero makes could cost him his life.  The hero’s resources are his skills, his moral principles and his self-reliance.  It could as easily be us as the hero.

Real men and real communities

Heinlein’s view was that government was a necessary evil.  The societies he approves of, (the ones he imagines in his books) are American in spirit, filled with free thinking individuals, intelligent decision makers and a desire for progress that is joyous and unafraid.  In “The Moon is a harsh mistress” he came the closest anyone has every come to describing a working libertarian community.  His luna is a penal colony, filled with convicts and ex-convicts, all transported by the governments of Earth.  Their fight for independence from a tyrannical Earth, is funny, inspiring, heartwarming and exciting.  Nearly fifty years after its publication The Moon is a harsh mistress remains an inspiration for libertarians. 

Here is the great contradiction in Robert Heinlein’s writing.  He is utopian enough to want good government but knows the price of it.  He writes perceptively of the need for good communities, for shared moral principles and good manners, for hierarchies of abilities and the need to recognise the importance of critical knowledge and skills.              

However shared values are among the things that deny his heroes their freedom.  In Stranger in a strange land, his best-selling tale of an Earthling raised by Martians and taught great powers, Robert Heinlein asks the question how do you build a society when each man has the power to stand outside of it, or destroy it.   

 For Heinlein politics is a necessary evil but definitely evil.  He values liberty over government, is scathing about politicians (he was a political activist before becoming a writer).  He saves the worst of his venom for repressive societies that destroy the human spirit, communism being the foremost amongst them.  Time of course has proven him right but in the sixties novels like Starship troopers, The Puppet Masters and Revolt in 2100 were a crusade against socialist conformity.

 Heinlein sees humanity’s best hope as free people tolerating (at best) a weak government, a kind of federated universe.  Even here he knows that freedom will be constrained.  In Glory Road, The Moon is a harsh mistress and Farnham’s Freehold, Heinlein makes it plain that freedom is on the frontier, where civilisation and its rules have not yet encroached on life.  No-one has written more perceptively about the innate contradictions between men and their community.  Real men assert themselves for justice and the community resists this.  Heinlein knew this and makes heroic stories out of this.     

Men and magic

But we do not read Heinlein for his socio-political shading, gripping though that is.  We read him for his men.  Juan Rico and his journey from spoilt kid to courageous and honourable fighting man, the actor Lorenzo Smythe,an unlucky man who gets a second chance late in life and has the courage to take it,  “Oscar” Gordon, the man who does not fit in, who answers a newspaper ad starting “Are you a coward?”, who gets the chance to slay dragons.

Men and magic and adventure

These novels are men’s adventures, from a tradition that goes back thousands of years.  Robert Heinlein may be a master of political thought, hard science and military history but it is the adventure that is the thing.  One man against the world.  His heroes are modern Francis Drakes, D’artagnans, and dragon slayers. 

 The simple truth is that Robert Heinlein’s books are a joy to read.

 Robert Heinlein says it better than I can.  I have the following excerpt from Glory Road pinned up in my office:

 “I wanted the hurtling moons of Barsoom.  I wanted Storisende and Poictesme, and Holmes shaking me awake to tell me ,  “The games afoot!” I wanted to float down the Mississippi  on a raft and elude a mob in company with the Duke of Bilgewater and the Lost Dauphin.

 I wanted Prester John, and Excalibur held by a moon-white arm out of a silent lake.  I wanted to sail with Ulysses and with Tros of Samothrace and eat the lotus in a land that seemed always afternoon.  I wanted the feeling of romance and the sense of wonder I had known as a kid.  I wanted the world to be what they had promised me it was going to be – instead of the tawdry, lousy fouled-up mess it is.   

Robert Heinlein’s men are risk-takers, lovers and fighters.  Great men have that sense of wonder.

 What did I learn from Robert Heinlein?  Adventurers have the best lives. 

Thank you Robert Heinlein.