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A review by untimelyethos
A Lover's Discourse: Fragments by Roland Barthes
4.0
Although at first I struggled with the writing style and the wandering quality of themes, I came to appreciate reading this in doses. I relished the pithiness, as it provided mental space to ponder.
This book is essentially about the underbelly of love: The anxiety of waiting for the lover, the annoyance and sometimes utter meaninglessness of saying "I love you," the insecurity of being ignored or not heard, the admiration and envy of your rivals (those who also love your lover), the banality of discourse or conversation, the embarrassment of dependence.
No loving relationship is without mundanity or inherent loneliness, yet society seems to exist in extremes: heralding the honeymoon, lambasting the less attractive portions of love. I found it refreshing to read something that was neither fairytale, nor trist dystopian novel.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"I can perfectly well inhabit what does not make me happy; I can simultaneously complain and endure; I can reject the meaning of the structure I submit to and traverse without displeasure..."
"...to hide a passion totally is conceivable: not because the human subject is too weak, but because passion is in essence made to be seen: the hiding must be seen...at one and the same time it must be known and unknown...(yet as much as) I want to keep my moral advantage of stoicism, of "dignity"...what I hide by my language, my body utters."
"Joy has no need of heirs or of children--Joy wants itself, wants eternity, the repetition of the same things."
"When two subjects argue...they are already married...The meaning of what is euphemistically called dialog: not to listen to each other, but to submit in common o an egalitarian principle of the distribution of language goods. The partners know that the confrontation in which they are engaged, and which will not separate them, is as inconsequential as a perverse for of pleasure (the scene is a way of taking pleasure without the risk of having children)."
This book is essentially about the underbelly of love: The anxiety of waiting for the lover, the annoyance and sometimes utter meaninglessness of saying "I love you," the insecurity of being ignored or not heard, the admiration and envy of your rivals (those who also love your lover), the banality of discourse or conversation, the embarrassment of dependence.
No loving relationship is without mundanity or inherent loneliness, yet society seems to exist in extremes: heralding the honeymoon, lambasting the less attractive portions of love. I found it refreshing to read something that was neither fairytale, nor trist dystopian novel.
Some of my favorite quotes:
"I can perfectly well inhabit what does not make me happy; I can simultaneously complain and endure; I can reject the meaning of the structure I submit to and traverse without displeasure..."
"...to hide a passion totally is conceivable: not because the human subject is too weak, but because passion is in essence made to be seen: the hiding must be seen...at one and the same time it must be known and unknown...(yet as much as) I want to keep my moral advantage of stoicism, of "dignity"...what I hide by my language, my body utters."
"Joy has no need of heirs or of children--Joy wants itself, wants eternity, the repetition of the same things."
"When two subjects argue...they are already married...The meaning of what is euphemistically called dialog: not to listen to each other, but to submit in common o an egalitarian principle of the distribution of language goods. The partners know that the confrontation in which they are engaged, and which will not separate them, is as inconsequential as a perverse for of pleasure (the scene is a way of taking pleasure without the risk of having children)."