Iron John
by Robert Bly · first published 1990
67% recommend25% neutral8% critical
Why HN recommends it
A psychological and mythological reading of modern manhood that uses a fairy tale to explore growing up, separation from parents, and inner development; useful for men seeking self-reflection on masculinity.
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
Iron John
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Mentions per year
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…notes from (and thus enjoyed): * 7 Habits of Highly Effective People * Beyond Chocolate * Driven From Within (Michael Jordan biography) * Get Altitude * How To Make Friends and Influence People * Iron John (Robert Bly) * Meditations (Marcus Aurelius) * Never Eat Lunch Alone * Psychocybernetics * Pulling Your Own Strings * Ready For Anything (same author as GTD) * The Dip * Ten Days to Self Discipline…
on “Getting Things Done – Revised 2015” ↗…space was nothing short of life changing. In my work life, personal life, and love life. And most of all for my own quality of life. For anyone who is actually interested, I would recommend the book Iron John, by Robert Bly (https://www.amazon.com/Iron-John-Book-about-Men/dp/030682426...). The first chapter is usually assigned reading before attending the NWTA, but when read with an open mind I found the entire…
on “Men Are Waiting to Share Some Feelings (2018)” ↗…Confusion, The System of the World) by Neal Stephenson - The Invisibles by Grant Morrison - Incerto (Fooled by Randomness, The Black Swan, Antifragile, The Bed of Procrustes) by Nassim Nicholas Taleb - Iron John by Robert Bly - Catch 22 by Joseph Heller - The Character of Physical Law by Richard P. Feynman - Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges - 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Pharmakon…
on “Ask HN: What books fundamentally changed the way you think about the world?” ↗Robert Bly’s Iron John is a phenomenal book on masculinity. What a shame the Mythopoetic Men’s Movement didn’t go anywhere and we instead got the RedPillers. FWIW, also, this book along with Way of The Superior Man by David…
on “The Poet Of Minnesota, Vietnam And Mythical Men” ↗…general agency in their life. Men are complete suckers for certain ideals of manhood, certain archetypes that are well presented. If this is something that interests you, I can strongly recommend the books Iron John by Robert Bly, King Warrior Magician Lover by Robert Moore, and the excellent Way of The Superior Man by David Deida. I find this quote by Alan Watts particularly poignant, and perhaps an antidote to…
on “Dokkodo by Miyamoto Musashi ” ↗You would probably enjoy the book "Iron John", as written by Robert Bly. Your entry for today in the Improbable Ideas forum, was how things happened in the past. Children would go to work with their parents, in the pre-Industrial Revolution…
on “Maintainers make the world go round: Innovation is an overrated ideology” ↗…misunderstood. I suspect what you are calling “hallucinatory weirdness” is where the important parts are that are being misunderstood, as these are often about spiritual unconscious personal development. The book Iron John by Robert Bly is a great example of explaining the purpose and meaning of the “hallucinatory weirdness.”
on “Unique volumes of Brothers Grimm fairy tales discovered in Poland” ↗Thank you for this! I posted elsewhere that I've enjoyed the Iron John book many times over. Your post is yet more information about it. Thank you for taking the time to type it up!
on “Robert Bly has died” ↗If you a dude seeking a bit of help but are more of 'liberal' I can recommend Iron John: A Book about Men.
on “Men are lost. Here’s a map out of the wilderness” ↗There’s a pretty good observation in the book “Iron John” that’s about how you have to take your freedom from your parents (in the myth, it’s something you steal) - if it’s given, there’s always the shadow of it being taken away again. If it’s something you’ve…
on “In Praise of Difficult Children (2009)” ↗…Tony Robbins books are usually great (whatever you think of the author), even the much maligned Seven Habits is a really great book. There's even some pretty decent male-oriented stuff out there, like Iron John, Fire in the Belly, and "King, Warrior, Magician, Lover". Pyscho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz even inspired a Dali painting.
on “Talking to 35 Strangers at the Gym” ↗If the goal was making Iron John look appealing in comparison, it worked. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/122600.Iron_John
on “We Are Not Adults Just Because We Say So” ↗Back in the 80's in the U.S. there was a men's movement spearheaded by Robert Bly Bly argued in his 1990 book, Iron John: A Book About Men, that society causes men to be disconnected from their feelings, and he knew he could rub people the wrong way. "I do remember people wanting to kill me, but that's not unusual," he…
on “We're in a Crisis of Male Friendships” ↗…Rand Wild at Heart Revised and Updated by John Eldredge A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison Unfuk Yourself by Gary John Bishop The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho Iron John by Robert Bly The Call of the Wild and White Fang by Jack London Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari White Teeth by Zadie Smith Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand Men…
on “Show HN: I've compiled a list of the top books for men according to 56 blogs” ↗…variation of an SRS for storing notes about what I've read (as well as using a regular SRS for regular SRS stuff). I chunk notes I've made from books I've read (things like Psycho-Cybernetics, 7 Habits, Iron John, etc), and review 3-4 a day, and having read them I'll clip anything that's particularly salient into "daily review" and then push back the notes for however many days, weeks, months, I think. This has…
on “Spaced repetition memory system (2024)” ↗