On Love
Ratings7
Average rating3.6
15
Ratings7
Average rating3.6
In this dazzlingly original first novel, Alain de Botton tells of a young man smitten by a woman on a Paris-London flight. On Love plots the course of their affair from the initial delirium of infatuation to the depths of suicidal despair, as the beloved, inexplicably, begins to drift away. "A tour de force pleasure of a first novel".Kirkus Reviews.
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As I approach my third decade I appear to have found less than a dozen books that have resonated, shaped my perception of, romantic love.
Love as grief in ‘The Great Fires', regret in ‘Remains of The Day', sickness in ‘Love In The Time of Cholera,' delusion in ‘From the Land of the Moon,' guilt in ‘Atonement', power in ‘The Song of Achilles', repression in ‘Twilight', destruction in ‘Wuthering Heights', meaning in ‘The Unbearable Lightness of Being'. I've only recently started making sense of my confusion, but I expect to lose track of any understanding of romantic love again soon. The rest of my sentiments regarding it are best expressed by poets like Rilke or Cummings.
Can we not be forgiven if we believe books, like romantic love, can serendipitously find us at the right moment then? Alain de Botton, with his insightful and humorous philosophising, has helped me condense my thoughts on romantic love, and I anticipate chuckling for quite some time over the line, stuck in a sticky note above my desk, ‘We are all more intelligent than we are capable, and awareness of the insanity of love has never saved anyone from the disease.'
