Status
Checked out
Publication
Pantheon (2003), Edition: 1, Hardcover, 224 pages
Description
Who would dream of being against love? No one. Love is, as everyone knows, a mysterious and all-controlling force, with vast power over our thoughts and life decisions. But is there something a bit worrisome about all this uniformity of opinion? Is this the one subject about which no disagreement will be entertained, about which one truth alone is permissible? Consider that the most powerful organized religions produce the occasional heretic; every ideology has its apostates; even sacred cows find their butchers. Except for love. Hence the necessity for a polemic against it. A polemic is designed to be the prose equivalent of a small explosive device placed under your E-Z-Boy lounger. It won’t injure you (well not severely); it’s just supposed to shake things up and rattle a few convictions.… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member grunin
I recommend this book highty, not for its answers (it doesn't pretend to have any) but for its questions, which appraise every aspect of contemporary coupledom (which, she explains, is what she means by 'love'). In lesser hands this could be an intolerable bore, but Kipnis's intelligence and wit
The most spectacular set piece is compiled from actual answers to the question "what can't you do if you're part of a couple?" The list--made up almost entirely of phrases the reader will instantly recognize--runs to eight pages, and doesn't come close to repeating itself.
Her approach is external, like an economist or anthropologist, but informed by a little Freud and a lot of common sense. Ultimately she is asking "Why should we trust this odd set of beliefs about love when so much of the available evidence contradicts them?" I should add that the set of beliefs brought into question includes some of more than intimate interest, such as "we didn't care when JFK slept around, so why was there such a fuss about Clinton? What's changed?"
She suggests a few answers, some of which are more convincing than others, but it's the questions that matter, and she poses them brilliantly.
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keep it readable.The most spectacular set piece is compiled from actual answers to the question "what can't you do if you're part of a couple?" The list--made up almost entirely of phrases the reader will instantly recognize--runs to eight pages, and doesn't come close to repeating itself.
Her approach is external, like an economist or anthropologist, but informed by a little Freud and a lot of common sense. Ultimately she is asking "Why should we trust this odd set of beliefs about love when so much of the available evidence contradicts them?" I should add that the set of beliefs brought into question includes some of more than intimate interest, such as "we didn't care when JFK slept around, so why was there such a fuss about Clinton? What's changed?"
She suggests a few answers, some of which are more convincing than others, but it's the questions that matter, and she poses them brilliantly.
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LibraryThing member duck2ducks
I'm not sure how to sum this one up. An interesting failure? Maddening yet compelling? I think I remember hearing it angered a lot of people because it challenged their beliefs - which I'm all in favor of. Unfortunately, what aggravated me about this book is that it doesn't do it well. It's filled
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with instances of faulty logic (if A sometimes leads to B, it's a bit hinky to imply that A always leads to B), leaps of reasoning that border on the ludicrous, and arguments that start with the conclusion and then look for rationales and anecdotes to lead up to them. Surprisingly, I didn't dislike this book because of the beliefs it fervently embraced; instead, I just wished I could read the better-written version of this book. Show Less
LibraryThing member vasta
Laura Kipnis is clearly in love with her writing, so much that her polemic comes across as a self-congratulatory attempt at insight rather than a true work of against the way we perceive and interact with the concept of love in contemporary society.
LibraryThing member Dabble58
This woman is becoming my favourite writer. She just TAKES THINGS ON. Her writing style is breathless, filled with long expostulatory sentences and mad alliteration and just the most wonderful rantings. I've just started Against Love and I am already totally hooked. Can't wait to read Bad Behaviour.
LibraryThing member Steelwhisper
This is one of the books which have me wonder whether I am some alien just landed on this planet.
I had a complete and entire problem with Kipnis' arguments and deductions. Nothing was even remotely logical or even just a bit reasonable. Her list of what people can't do gave me some of the biggest
In the end I gave up, this was completely juvenile.
I had a complete and entire problem with Kipnis' arguments and deductions. Nothing was even remotely logical or even just a bit reasonable. Her list of what people can't do gave me some of the biggest
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WTF-moments of the year. I was yelling repeatedly exactly that term, out loud, while reading. In the end I gave up, this was completely juvenile.
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LibraryThing member therebelprince
Five stars is probably too much for this; in truth it's at three and a half stars. But for me, this book had an impact that can't be denied: I discovered this book whilst taking a Marxist politics course in my first year of uni. I was distinctly unimpressed by the Marxist politics, but this book
Kipnis frankly states that she is not, really, against *love* (the title is muckraking more than anything else). Really, she's against the perception that marriage should be a lifelong bond that can never be broken; that affairs or feelings of infidelity are somehow immoral, unnatural and should be grounds for dismissing someone from public office; and other such ludicrous strains of "moral fibre" which permeate our society.
A couple of the chapters, which attempt to mix in Kipnis' own Marxist beliefs, go a bit too far. Not because of the Marxism, but because they dilute her central argument and - to be honest - feel like chapters from another book altogether. However, I heartily recommend this book even if you'll end up disagreeing with a lot of it! No one says you have to change your opinion because you read "Against Love"; but who wants to go through life not even having heard the other side of the debate?
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managed to perfectly state my uneasy feelings about the complacency so many of my friends and colleagues had toward the idea of love and marriage as an unshakable moral code.Kipnis frankly states that she is not, really, against *love* (the title is muckraking more than anything else). Really, she's against the perception that marriage should be a lifelong bond that can never be broken; that affairs or feelings of infidelity are somehow immoral, unnatural and should be grounds for dismissing someone from public office; and other such ludicrous strains of "moral fibre" which permeate our society.
A couple of the chapters, which attempt to mix in Kipnis' own Marxist beliefs, go a bit too far. Not because of the Marxism, but because they dilute her central argument and - to be honest - feel like chapters from another book altogether. However, I heartily recommend this book even if you'll end up disagreeing with a lot of it! No one says you have to change your opinion because you read "Against Love"; but who wants to go through life not even having heard the other side of the debate?
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Subjects
Physical description
224 p.; 8.74 inches
ISBN
0375421890 / 9780375421891
Local notes
relationships