Muscle in Literature

[tarmangani]

Interesting that this thread has gone on for two pages without mentioning any of the works by Edgar Rice Burroughs. I seem to remember there always being a detailed description of Tarzan at the beginning of those novels. If I remember correctly, ERB's Martian stories were the same. I don't know whether you consider these works "literature", but most of the books are nearly 100 years old and still in print.
In the strictly sci-fi pulp fiction vein, does anyone remember a series of books about a character named, Blade, by Jeffrey Lord? A sort of dimension hopping James Bond, Blade always awoke in new surroundings completely naked. A description of his physique usually followed. Most of the dimensions visited were primitive cultures and a lot of loincloth muscle against muscle plots made up most of the books. As I remember there were about twenty books in the series and all were peppered throughout with descriptions of Blade's physique or those of his antagonists.

[Ogrebear]

Originally Posted by tarmangani

In the strictly sci-fi pulp fiction vein, does anyone remember a series of books about a character named, Blade, by Jeffrey Lord? A sort of dimension hopping James Bond, Blade always awoke in new surroundings completely naked. A description of his physique usually followed. Most of the dimensions visited were primitive cultures and a lot of loincloth muscle against muscle plots made up most of the books. As I remember there were about twenty books in the series and all were peppered throughout with descriptions of Blade's physique or those of his antagonists.

I found a few on Amazon and here some cover links:

Kingdom of Royth

Wizard of Rentoro

Empire of Blood

Liberator of Jedd

Got these from EBay:

Dragons of Englor

The Bronze Axe

Champion of the Gods

[Ogrebear]

D'oh!

Should have Googled first! Just found this page with all the Blade books on!

Blade Series

[BBMikeNJ]

Jack London wrote a novel called "The Sea-Wolf", which is the name of the whaling ship that most of the action takes place on. The captain, Wolf Larsen, is a powerfully built and very dangerous man. There are many scenes that describe his tremendous physical power and domination over others. The narrator of the story is an author from San Francisco, whose descriptions of the captain are very homoerotic. Wolf Larsen is an extreme example of the alpha male.

[luvyalots]

I don't know if anyone has mention this one:

PINS by Jim Provenzano is about a gay high school wrestler, so you can imagine there being quite a few muscle descriptions in there...including everything in the locker room, if you know what I mean.

It's a very good book if a little hard to follow at times since it really gets into the main character's head. However, it hit very close to home for me since I was a closeted gay athlete in high school. In fact, I'm still looking for my Dink (read the book and you'll understand what I'm saying).

[BBMikeNJ]

I was racking my brain, trying to remember this one..."Creature" by John Saul....here's how amazon describes it.....

The latest horror novel from consistently bestselling Saul ( Suffer the Children ; Hellfire ) is set in Silverdale, Colo., a company-town variation on Spielberg surburbia. There, conglomerate TarrenTech provides the high school teams with every advantage, including a high-tech sports clinic. Dr. Martin Ames beefs up the brawny, aggressive teenagers, and it's to him that newcomer Sharon Tanner goes for answers when her gentle son Mark turns into a belligerent jock overnight. This slick, high-concept thriller, which might have been titled Stepford High , won't surprise anyone, but it should please the author's fans as it continues Saul's focus on children as the vehicles and victims of unnatural forces.

[tarmangani]

Good work Ogrebear! I must have stopped reading the series about 2/3 of the way through because there are some later titles I don't even remember seeing. I do remember Blade being characterized as totally heterosexual, but a lot of the describtive passages and plot lines being on the homoerotic side. For instance, a plot point in "Jade Warrior" had Blade facing a ceremonial castration. I think it was even refered to as a "peniscipatation". Anyway, the was a lot of talk from his captors about wanting to curtail Blade's sexual abilities because of his ample endowment; thus bringing him totally under their control. The story continued to descibe how Blade was prepared and held in restraint at a special altar(i.e. chopping block) by two big guards. The pouch containing his genitals was ripped away and his cock and balls were spread across a special section of the altar while a muscle stud with an ax stood ready. I remember thinking at the time, "...exactly what audience is the author targeting with this story?". Anybody have any opinions?

[CelticMuscle]

Originally Posted by BBMikeNJ

Jack London wrote a novel called "The Sea-Wolf", which is the name of the whaling ship that most of the action takes place on. The captain, Wolf Larsen, is a powerfully built and very dangerous man. There are many scenes that describe his tremendous physical power and domination over others. The narrator of the story is an author from San Francisco, whose descriptions of the captain are very homoerotic. Wolf Larsen is an extreme example of the alpha male.

I knew the run of the simple medicine-chest the Ghost carried, and while I was heating water on the cabin stove and getting the things ready for dressing his wounds, he moved about, laughing and chatting, and examining his hurts with a calculating eye. I had never before seen him stripped, and the sight of his body quite took my breath away. It has never been my weakness to exalt the flesh - far from it; but there is enough of the artist in me to appreciate its wonder.

I must say that I was fascinated by the perfect lines of Wolf Larsen's figure, and by what I may term the terrible beauty of it. I had noted the men in the forecastle. Powerfully muscled though some of them were, there had been something wrong with all of them, an insufficient development here, an undue development there, a twist or a crook that destroyed symmetry, legs too short or too long, or too much sinew or bone exposed, or too little. Oofty- Oofty had been the only one whose lines were at all pleasing, while, in so far as they pleased, that far had they been what I should call feminine.

But Wolf Larsen was the man-type, the masculine, and almost a god in his perfectness. As he moved about or raised his arms the great muscles leapt and moved under the satiny skin. I have forgotten to say that the bronze ended with his face. His body, thanks to his Scandinavian stock, was fair as the fairest woman's. I remember his putting his hand up to feel of the wound on his head, and my watching the biceps move like a living thing under its white sheath. It was the biceps that had nearly crushed out my life once, that I had seen strike so many killing blows. I could not take my eyes from him. I stood motionless, a roll of antiseptic cotton in my hand unwinding and spilling itself down to the floor.

and a bit later on

He braced his legs and feet, pressing the cabin floor with his toes in a clutching sort of way. Knots and ridges and mounds of muscles writhed and bunched under the skin.

"Feel them," he commanded.

They were hard as iron. And I observed, also, that his whole body had unconsciously drawn itself together, tense and alert; that muscles were softly crawling and shaping about the hips, along the back, and across the shoulders; that the arms were slightly lifted, their muscles contracting, the fingers crooking till the hands were like talons; and that even the eyes had changed expression and into them were coming watchfulness and measurement and a light none other than of battle.

"Stability, equilibrium," he said, relaxing on the instant and sinking his body back into repose. "Feet with which to clutch the ground, legs to stand on and to help withstand, while with arms and hands, teeth and nails, I struggle to kill and to be not killed. Purpose? Utility is the better word."

I did not argue. I had seen the mechanism of the primitive fighting beast, and I was as strongly impressed as if I had seen the engines of a great battleship or Atlantic liner.

[TheMM]

...interesting one is from somewhere you might not expect. Prince Xizor. A few times throughout the novel "Shadows of the Empire" Steve Perry mentions Xizor's fitness level (which is pretty damn good). Whats interesting is that Xizor doesn't exercise, he uses "myostims" or something like that to work out his body automatically. The reason?:

He considers exercising to be boring.

[Yachirobi]

Thank you, Celtic and BBMike! I will be putting that book on my request list. I'm going to have to look into whether or not Jack London was gay.

[BBMikeNJ]

Celtic, thanks for those excerpts. They really show my point about that story.

Yachi, I don't know if London was gay or not, and I sure thought the same thing when I read that book, but somewhere along the line he had to have felt up a very muscular guy to have written such descriptive passages.

[Beasts!]

Especially the World of Tiers series contains many incidents of men and women being transformed, regaining their youth and virility and growing muscular. Usually through biological control by the god-like Thoans. Check it out.

[Ogrebear]

Anyone read Thunderball by Ian Fleming?

The main bad guy in that one - if my memory serves- was a huge, muscular brute of a man, though as usual the movie changed it.....

[Phlex]

I just read Mark Ferrari's recent first novel, "The Book of Joby" - Joby's childhood best friend Ben grows into an impressively hunky adult during the course of the book. The descriptions of his friend are pretty general, though (surprising, considering that Ferrari previously was known for fantasy artwork, though I can only think of one of his paintings that had a beefcakey character in it).

[BergMuscle]

One book that comes to mind for me is John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire. (He's better known for The Cider House Rules and The World According to Garp.)

The narrator of this book, who ages from around 7 to about 40 over the course of the story, starts lifting pretty heavily with his ex-jock grandfather when he's a teen and grows into quite a muscleman. Irving doesn't have his narrator describe his muscles in enough detail for me, but based on a few feats of strength he accomplishes and some other characters reactions, I imagine him very big and buff with shirt stretching muscle.

There is one scene when he's in his twenties and he runs into a guy who was the big, arrogant high school jock who made school life tough for him and his siblings. Judging from the other man's dumb-struck reaction and intimidation looking at the narrator's muscles, Irving must have imagined his character to be pretty massive. Especially since this meeting occurs outdoors on a New York City street, so the muscle guy must be wearing clothes, and still has the size to impress this former athlete.

Oh, this is a great thread, by the way. I've got to check out that Jack London book.

[Jethro]

Some of these have already been mentioned: the Tarzan series of books had the first muscles in literature I read as a young boy; then the Jack London books in junior high. The first chapter of Ian Flemming's From Russia With Love has a great description of the Russian killer being massaged poolside (played by Robert Shaw in the movie).

There's also a series of detective novels by Michael Stone with the anti-hero named Streeter, who's an ex-football player who still lifts weights and there are always descriptions of how big and muscular he is:

"Sheri studied Streeter. He was wearing an expensive-looking white Oxford shirt, the kind with those band collars that she liked. Even in the long sleeves she could see his arms were thick and his chest strained slightly against the fabric as well. Her father was right. A guy with shoulders like this would give Freddy Disanto something to thing about."