Take a photo of a barcode or cover
sauris's Reviews (248)
3.5/5
a very accessible introduction! disappointed to learn it's nothing like the love witch at all :3
a very accessible introduction! disappointed to learn it's nothing like the love witch at all :3
2.5/5
lots of interesting ideas, his philosophy of love seems very radical especially against the current cultural landscape - similar to byung-chul han's agony of eros i just read. but, i would have preferred a more linear systematic approach. the interview format is not only distracting but many ideas were just not developed beyond introduction and this seems to be his only dedicated work on love (?)
lots of interesting ideas, his philosophy of love seems very radical especially against the current cultural landscape - similar to byung-chul han's agony of eros i just read. but, i would have preferred a more linear systematic approach. the interview format is not only distracting but many ideas were just not developed beyond introduction and this seems to be his only dedicated work on love (?)
oh my god this was so good i couldn't look away, not even for a second. it left me giddy. structured as parallel diary entries by a husband and wife - the husband's erotic obsession and the wife's feigned innocence - there's an implicit understanding that they're reading each other's journals. with each entry comes an added layer of manipulation and subtlety as it gets increasingly twisted, with them pushing each other further. so much of it hinges on plausible deniability. it's perverse and funny and ambiguous. my only quibble is that the ending went on to explain the entire book when the fun was in not knowing and reading between the lines. i'm definitely reading this again!
4.5/5
4.5/5
the recurring theme in everything i've been stumbling upon lately seems to be eros. carson tells a story of marriage, desire, the seductive and deceitful husband, infidelity, passion, lies, breakdown... she offers a meditation on the nature of eros and beauty - "don't call it my choice, I was ventured: by some pure gravity of existence itself, conspiracy of being!" - eros as creative and destructive, love fatalistic, infidelity a ritual, marital collapse a myth - "desire doubled is love and love doubled is madness. madness doubled is marriage" - there's never resolution or redemption or catharsis, it simply is. carson exercises such restraint that every sentence demands you linger before continuing. i'm sure most of her metaphors, allusions and references are lost on me, it's one of those books you have to keep coming back to at various points in life to appreciate it more
