Liebe heute

by Maxim Biller

Following the appearance of two stories in The New Yorker, German author, playwright, and journalist Maxim Biller makes his English-language debut with a collection of remarkable and beautifully wrought short stories, Love Today.

These twenty-seven exquisite vignettes reveal the frustration, longing, and loneliness of human intimacy and love in the twenty-first century. A moment of dialogue between two people seated in an empty bar in "Baghdad at Seven-Thirty" evokes fragility, helplessness, and regret. The childhood friends who meet accidentally throughout the years in "Ziggy Stardust" are alternately drawn toward and repulsed from each other; and the fleeting text messages exchanged in "The Maserati Years" change everything between two lovers in an instant. Collectively, the result is romantic, voyeuristic, and deeply moving.

Already a force in contemporary German literature, Maxim Biller has received praise from critics and readers alike throughout Europe for his perceptive, enchanting prose and the hauntingly familiar emotions his stories can provoke. Love Today introduces a new and gifted writing talent, and an accomplished international literary voice.

Genres: Short Stories, Fiction, German Literature, Romance

First published March 31, 2007

Reviews

[Berengaria · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars
(English title: Love Today)

short review for busy readers: a collection of 29 rather short short stories about human love relationships in all their complicated (heterosexual) forms. Slice-of-life feel, modern style. Most characters are European, but not always German.

in detail:
What I found most enjoyable about this collection is that, although it's about an emotion, it gets by with no descriptions of emotions.

Biller presents the reader with scenes, dialogue and action…and then lets the reader draw their own conclusions about the emotional state of the characters and the health of their relationship.

And conclusions you can draw! Many of the couples are unhappy or going through a rough patch, either within the relationship or due to outside forces. Through the sober, unexcited prose, the reader can tell more about them than a screaming match or a description of their physical reactions would show.

This technique reminded me of Alice Munro's and Nathan Englander's wise, descriptive style.

As other reviewers have critiqued, all the stories are focused on the man in the relationship, none focus on the woman. Is this a drawback, or a natural limitation of a male author writing about feelings and not wanting to be criticised for not ‘getting the women right’?

For me the collection worked well as a bouquet of male POVs on the entanglements of love and relationships.

Critique of the German language audio book: While Christian Brückner reads the stories in a calm, slowish manner which reflects the tone of the stories well, his style becomes rather monotone and sleep-inducing after a while. I fell asleep a number of times while listening, so recommended if you suffer from insomnia.

[Allison · Rating 2 out of 5]

As with nearly every other book of short stories I've tried to read since graduating college (where this sort of reading was required), I did not get through this whole collection. Every story simply made me more and more frustrated, with its lack of coherent plot or recognizable ending. That might be my biggest issue with short stories as a genre: most writers don't know how to write with a complete story arc. The medium is so short that they never hit a proper climax or, if they do, they don't give any attention to the denouement.

Apart from these issues, my main trouble with Biller's collection of stories is the fact that they all hit the same emotional note/tone: a feeling of being slightly lost, unfinished, and unfulfilled, with a touch of melancholy. To compel a reader to move through an entire collection of short stories, the themes or topics of the stories can remain similar for cohesion, but the emotions conjured by them cannot, particularly if they are negative feelings. At least for this reader.

[Verkakte · Rating 3 out of 5]

Maxim Biller’s Love Today dissects the inner workings of romantic relationships, specifically focusing on the ending of relationships or on those that ended before they even begun. Biller deftly explores the dynamics of breaking up when you’re not sure you want to, breaking up when you’re not sure you want to but you have to, mental illness and depression, jealousy and politics, and the recreation of past experiences while rebounding. With a melancholic tone throughout, Biller negotiates compatibility with initial raw attraction, urging the reader to consider whether these aspects are mutually exclusive in relationships or if these attributes cannot successfully exist alone. While the characters in the stories of Love Today are fairly diverse, with different backgrounds and European nationalities, the pervasive brooding tone limits the messages of these tales to a singular pessimistic conclusion on the topic of love.

[Michelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

I dare say that this book isn't necessarily about how LOVE is today, but more or less how crazy relationships have become between people. Mostly due to a couple's physical relationship. Where is the love? I know there are billions of different types of love, but I could not find barely any in this book. I think it also bothered me that all of the short stories were from the male perspective. I kept wanting to hear what the intriguing female character's thoughts were, and that was about when each story would end too.

Well written though, I give Biller that.

[Kristen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really love how Biller portrayed emotions in this book without actually describing emotions. Just from the scene, the simple thoughts, the actions and interactions of the characters, I felt a connection and I could feel what they were feeling. Some stories were heart wrenching. Some disturbing. A few were confusing and at least one was just plain weird. I was looking for a book about down and dirty love, the twists and feelings and complications, not the fairytale naive romantic type. And this book delivered. It gave the perspective of "modern" love between people who are confused and lost on their own, but still craving one another. Not a happy book, not for those who want "happily ever after" love stories, but in my opinion, it's more real, the more "common" love story. For those who are eternal optimists, think of it as stories about people in relationships who obviously haven't found "the one" yet and they are still struggling on the path toward finding their soul mate. Anyway, it's a fun and a fast read.

[Ala ♡ · Rating 3 out of 5]

das erste Buch, das ich auf Deutsch gelesen habe

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

some of the short stories were very interesting but I’m not sure if it was the translation but it was hard to follow along/know who was who

[Řehoř Samsa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Obyčejné lásky: měl bych pár povídek ze svého života, které bych mohl přidat. Tragikomické partnerské situace někde na pokraji rozchodu nebo těsně po něm, nezvykle přesná míra vzájemného neporozumění a odcizení; život bez příkras. (A za zdí, tak metr od mé hlavy, právě symbolicky skončilo extatické cvičení).

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Opravdu, je to vždycky stejné. Nakonec na nich vyčerpaně ležím, bez chuti je líbám na krk a tisknu v objetí, ačkoliv to nemám rád, a pak se jdu umýt, a když se chtějí umýt ony, jsem trochu dotčený. Potom usneme s hlavami u sebe, probudíme se, je ráno, jdu zase do koupelny, a když se vrátím, je vzduch v ložnici cítit tak, že další noc musím bezpodmínečně strávit sám, je to vždycky stejné.

Ilana mu jednou řekla, že s Wladkem měla okamžitě orgasmus. Nenáviděla Wladka, každopádně ho nenáviděla na konci, protože zpočátku ho přece nemohla nenávidět. Nenáviděla toho idiota, ale jakmile do ní pronikl, tak se udělala. „Se mnou,“ řekl jí Uri, „potřebuješ mnohem dýl a někdy vůbec nevyvrcholíš. Jak to?“ „Protože tě miluju,“ řekla Ilana, a Uri dodnes nevěděl, jak to myslela.

[Michelle Smitherman · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite book, a very well written collection of short stories about dysfunctional relationships, the kind of book I will read over and over again. Biller is a genius who appears to trully understands woman, particularly nutty women who talk to themselves and are constantly struggling with some inner battle, an inner battle with no immediate resolution. I particularly enjoyed the short story, In Bed with Sheikh Yassin. The tales honest portrayal of our ability to decieve ourselves in order to avoid resolving a conflict as a means of survival really hits home for me. Just like life there are no fairytale endings here. I have an aversion to fairytale endings!(insert hand gesture for Natalie's benefit)

[Cody · Rating 2 out of 5]

maybe im just twerkin cos it's been raining in manhattan but i think this is the most accurate depiction of purgatory yet published. 5000 3-page long vignettes about malaise and boring people. 'No. No? No.' conversations everywhere. sometimes people are quiet and listless because they were gangraped by serbs; mostly they are just quiet and listless about an art or w/e.

its going to be cold, its going to be gray, and its going to last you the rest. of. your. life. - groundhog day soundclip from shai hulud song

[Kristiana Kahakauwila · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm not one for the short, punchy distant narrator. I like my characters fully fleshed, and I prefer stories that unravel slowly and in many pages. That said, Love Today delivers such a pressure-pot of excellence that it has remained memorable to me a year and a half after I first read it. Moreover, he does urban people with urban concerns so well-- and with such a sense of depth-- that I never suspect them to be shallow twits, as I suspect most characters in a New York-based New Yorker story to be. (Sorry, but it's true). Gah, thank goodness for those Germans and their vision of urbanity.

[Kevin McAllister · Rating 2 out of 5]

Reading Love Today one can't help but wonder what kind of love life the author Mazin Biller has had. The book is a collection of short stories about "love". All 27 of them are short, sad, and depressing. If this book was true indication of love today,then our species would be in serious trouble.

[M · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is like reading "Sex and the City in Germany". Twenty-seven short, depressing stories of unrequited love, unconnected love, suicide and people moving through their lives as if in a fog. Yuck. Recommended in Oprah Magazine. What were they thinking?

[Melissa Williams · Rating 3 out of 5]

Satirical and fascinating. A great set of short stories and anecdotes detailing the way love is, in various forms. Not exactly a work that will set your heart a-flutter and restore your faith in the big L-word but a great read nonetheless.

[Arpine · Rating 2 out of 5]

When I picked up this book, few pages I glanced at gave me this "I should have written this" feeling. However, the whole book was disappointing. With a couple stories very well done, the rest fell short for me, unfortunately.

[Elaine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed these stories, though some of them were a bit obscure for me.

[Trish · Rating 2 out of 5]

very short kinda weird stories about love I actually was confused alot i think maybe some meaning was lost in translation from german