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Un amore senza fine
Fra i romanzi più celebrati degli ultimi decenni, 'Un amore senza fine' è forse il libro più potente che mai sia stato scritto sull’amore giovanile. Trascinante, furioso, di forte ed esplicito erotismo, racconta la storia di due ragazzi, David Axelroad e Jade Butterfield, e della discesa agli inferi di un amore assoluto e devastante.
592 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 1979
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16340 people want to read
About the author
Scott Spencer
15 books252 followersScott Spencer (b. 1945) is the critically acclaimed, bestselling author of ten novels, including Endless Love and A Ship Made of Paper, both of which have been nominated for the National Book Award. Two of his books, Endless Love and Waking the Dead, have been adapted into films.
He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, and Williams College, and Bard College's Bard Prison Initiative. Spencer is an alumnus of Roosevelt University. In 2004, he was the recipient of a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship. For the past twenty years, he has lived in a small town in upstate New York.
Spencer has also worked as a journalist. He has published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, GQ, O, The Oprah Magazine, and he is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.
He has taught at Columbia University, the University of Iowa, and Williams College, and Bard College's Bard Prison Initiative. Spencer is an alumnus of Roosevelt University. In 2004, he was the recipient of a John S. Guggenheim Fellowship. For the past twenty years, he has lived in a small town in upstate New York.
Spencer has also worked as a journalist. He has published in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Harper's Magazine, GQ, O, The Oprah Magazine, and he is a regular contributor to Rolling Stone.
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September 24, 2022
L’AMORE È IL PONTE CHE UNISCE IL TEMPO ALL’ETERNITÀ
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “Casablanca”, 1942. Qui Ingrid Bergman/Ilse e Humphrey Bogart/Rick all’aeroporto nella scena finale.
L’amore è forse un sentimento semplice, di quelli dove sembra sempre che uno più uno faccia due: ma, certo, non è un sentimento facile da vivere.
E non è un sentimento facile da vivere perché arde agita sconvolge tempesta, carica d’impeto desiderio passione impazienza...
È un sentimento che consuma, che trascina spesso sul lato sbagliato della vita, è un incessante pericolo emotivo.
E allora come può esistere un amore senza fine come quello indicato dal titolo?
Forse esiste l’amore senza fine, ma non esiste l’amore eterno, è la prima riflessione che mi viene da fare alla fine della lettura di questo sorprendente bel libro.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “The Go-Between – Messaggero d’amore”, 1971. Qui Julie Christie e Alan Bates con il giovane Leo.
Sorprendente perché se l’amore non è sentimento facile da vivere (ma secondo me neppure semplice, è un sentimento inspiegabile), è anche soggetto di scrittura delicato, complesso, difficile: il rischio del romanzetto rosa infarcito di languidi struggimenti e chiari di luna, del bacioperugina, della banalità che sconfina nella trivialità (basta vedere il supplizio dei due adattamenti cinematografici, uno più orribile dell’altro – il più recente è spazzatura, ma mai come il primo - però, Scott, listen to me, se tu lasci i diritti a uno come Zeffirelli, che t’aspetti?), è un pericolo alto, concreto.
Serve razionalità per descrivere un sentimento che di razionale non sembra avere nulla.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “Forrest Gump”, 1994. Qui Robin Wright e Tom Hanks.
Questo libro è bello ed evita ogni tranello insito nel romanzo d’amore perché Spencer è uno scrittore che parte con un incipit come questo:
Quando avevo diciassette anni e obbedivo totalmente ai più solleciti comandi del cuore, mi allontanai dai cammini della normalità e nello spazio di un istante rovinai ogni cosa che amavo, così profondamente amavo, e quando l’incorporea sostanza dell’amore si ritrasse nella paura e il mio stesso corpo finì segregato, fu difficile per gli altri credere che un’esistenza ancora così nuova potesse soffrire così irrevocabilmente. Ma gli anni sono trascorsi e la notte del 12 agosto 1967 divide ancora la mia vita.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “I ponti di Madison County”, 1995. Qui Meryl Streep e Clint Eastwood, sullo sfondo un ponte di Madison County.
E da subito si capisce che non siamo in una classica storia d’amore, ma più dalle parti dell’ineffabile violenza insita nell’ossessione erotica.
Da subito si capisce che stiamo leggendo il diario di una passione che è anche (soprattutto?) un’ossessione, un caso clinico, una caduta nel precipizio, la cronaca di una dissoluzione.
Un romanzo sul tempo, su quello passato, più che sul presente che vuole essere futuro.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film intelligente: “Before Sunrise – Prima dell’alba”, 1995. Qui Julie Delpy e Ethan Hawke.
Una storia di dolore (<<…Non voglio che ci facciamo del male, David>>. A me importava poco il male che potevamo farci. Non esisteva dolore che poteva paragonarsi al vuoto della separazione, nessun tormento poteva somigliare all’irrealtà del non essere insieme. Ma non volevo spaventarla. Annuii.)
Dolore a go go: David possiede un’irragionevole capacità di tollerare il dolore: Il dolore di Ann era uguale a ciò ch’io sapevo dell’amore. Accresceva se stesso; tornava sinuoso alla stessa fonte).
Non è un amore in miniatura, non è un amore estivo, ma uno di quegli amori che si spinge fino al punto che ogni altra cosa scompare. È amore romantico alimentato dalla distanza (David e Jade si rincontrano dopo oltre trecento pagine), amore in fuga, amore chiuso, ovviamente osteggiato dalla società (David viene rinchiuso prima in una clinica psichiatrica e poi in un ospedale – per tutta la sua degenza ho temuto che l’avrebbero sottoposto a elettroshock).
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “Romeo + Juliet”, 1996. Qui Leonardo DiCaprio e Claire Danes.
Si capisce subito che seicento pagine non possono essere solo baci, carezze, languori e struggimenti. E se Spencer impiegò quattro anni a scriverlo, il motivo è evidente, e il risultato superiore.
Volere bene.
Scene d’amore da manuale della sessualità, insistite (pagine su pagine), senza tralasciare nulla, riuscendo a restare sempre ‘alto’ come solo chi ha talento può fare.
David e Jade sono i nostri eroi!
Altro che Sting, il suo manuale d’amore tantrico, le tre o cinque ore senza interruzione (Sting ha poi ritrattato, ha ammesso che era tutta una bufala): David e Jade vanno avanti tutta la notte, ancora e ancora, instancabili, appassionati, esploratori del corpo, delle sensazioni e delle emozioni. E se avessero la possibilità, se non ci fosse un autobus da prendere (sicuramente un Greyhound), andrebbero avanti anche per tutto il giorno seguente, cinque, sei, sette volte…
Storia d’amore senza fine e buon film: “Meet Joe Black – Vi presento Joe Black”, 1998. Qui Claire Forlani e Brad Pitt.
David è ispirazione non solo per noi lettori, ma anche per suo padre, che si rinnamora alla sua rimarchevole età proprio vedendo David innamorato.
Gran bella figura quella paterna (bellissimo momento: il padre sa che David ha trovato le lettere di Jade, accuratamente nascoste nel suo studio di avvocatucolo, non dice niente e lascia che David continui a leggerle).
Gran bello spaccato d’epoca, oltre che storia d’amore: i genitori ebrei marxisti, coppia in crisi perenne, la famiglia di Jade, bohemien, pregna della cultura libertaria anni Sessanta, la sera dell’incendio stanno sperimentando LSD tutti insieme, genitori e figli – chiaro che di fronte alle fiamme la loro capacità di reazione è ridotta, e di conseguenza i danni sono maggiori.
Spencer parte spesso per la tangente, si allontana dall’argomento, devia, si dilunga, esce dal seminato, sembra perdere il filo e saltare di palo in frasca, disserta e divaga in una maniera che a me ha ricordato il Roth (Philip) migliore.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film notevole: “Il curioso caso di Benjamin Button”, 2008. Qui Cate Blanchett e Brad Pitt.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “Casablanca”, 1942. Qui Ingrid Bergman/Ilse e Humphrey Bogart/Rick all’aeroporto nella scena finale.
L’amore è forse un sentimento semplice, di quelli dove sembra sempre che uno più uno faccia due: ma, certo, non è un sentimento facile da vivere.
E non è un sentimento facile da vivere perché arde agita sconvolge tempesta, carica d’impeto desiderio passione impazienza...
È un sentimento che consuma, che trascina spesso sul lato sbagliato della vita, è un incessante pericolo emotivo.
E allora come può esistere un amore senza fine come quello indicato dal titolo?
Forse esiste l’amore senza fine, ma non esiste l’amore eterno, è la prima riflessione che mi viene da fare alla fine della lettura di questo sorprendente bel libro.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “The Go-Between – Messaggero d’amore”, 1971. Qui Julie Christie e Alan Bates con il giovane Leo.
Sorprendente perché se l’amore non è sentimento facile da vivere (ma secondo me neppure semplice, è un sentimento inspiegabile), è anche soggetto di scrittura delicato, complesso, difficile: il rischio del romanzetto rosa infarcito di languidi struggimenti e chiari di luna, del bacioperugina, della banalità che sconfina nella trivialità (basta vedere il supplizio dei due adattamenti cinematografici, uno più orribile dell’altro – il più recente è spazzatura, ma mai come il primo - però, Scott, listen to me, se tu lasci i diritti a uno come Zeffirelli, che t’aspetti?), è un pericolo alto, concreto.
Serve razionalità per descrivere un sentimento che di razionale non sembra avere nulla.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “Forrest Gump”, 1994. Qui Robin Wright e Tom Hanks.
Questo libro è bello ed evita ogni tranello insito nel romanzo d’amore perché Spencer è uno scrittore che parte con un incipit come questo:
Quando avevo diciassette anni e obbedivo totalmente ai più solleciti comandi del cuore, mi allontanai dai cammini della normalità e nello spazio di un istante rovinai ogni cosa che amavo, così profondamente amavo, e quando l’incorporea sostanza dell’amore si ritrasse nella paura e il mio stesso corpo finì segregato, fu difficile per gli altri credere che un’esistenza ancora così nuova potesse soffrire così irrevocabilmente. Ma gli anni sono trascorsi e la notte del 12 agosto 1967 divide ancora la mia vita.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “I ponti di Madison County”, 1995. Qui Meryl Streep e Clint Eastwood, sullo sfondo un ponte di Madison County.
E da subito si capisce che non siamo in una classica storia d’amore, ma più dalle parti dell’ineffabile violenza insita nell’ossessione erotica.
Da subito si capisce che stiamo leggendo il diario di una passione che è anche (soprattutto?) un’ossessione, un caso clinico, una caduta nel precipizio, la cronaca di una dissoluzione.
Un romanzo sul tempo, su quello passato, più che sul presente che vuole essere futuro.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film intelligente: “Before Sunrise – Prima dell’alba”, 1995. Qui Julie Delpy e Ethan Hawke.
Una storia di dolore (<<…Non voglio che ci facciamo del male, David>>. A me importava poco il male che potevamo farci. Non esisteva dolore che poteva paragonarsi al vuoto della separazione, nessun tormento poteva somigliare all’irrealtà del non essere insieme. Ma non volevo spaventarla. Annuii.)
Dolore a go go: David possiede un’irragionevole capacità di tollerare il dolore: Il dolore di Ann era uguale a ciò ch’io sapevo dell’amore. Accresceva se stesso; tornava sinuoso alla stessa fonte).
Non è un amore in miniatura, non è un amore estivo, ma uno di quegli amori che si spinge fino al punto che ogni altra cosa scompare. È amore romantico alimentato dalla distanza (David e Jade si rincontrano dopo oltre trecento pagine), amore in fuga, amore chiuso, ovviamente osteggiato dalla società (David viene rinchiuso prima in una clinica psichiatrica e poi in un ospedale – per tutta la sua degenza ho temuto che l’avrebbero sottoposto a elettroshock).
Storia d’amore senza fine e film indimenticabile: “Romeo + Juliet”, 1996. Qui Leonardo DiCaprio e Claire Danes.
Si capisce subito che seicento pagine non possono essere solo baci, carezze, languori e struggimenti. E se Spencer impiegò quattro anni a scriverlo, il motivo è evidente, e il risultato superiore.
Volere bene.
Scene d’amore da manuale della sessualità, insistite (pagine su pagine), senza tralasciare nulla, riuscendo a restare sempre ‘alto’ come solo chi ha talento può fare.
David e Jade sono i nostri eroi!
Altro che Sting, il suo manuale d’amore tantrico, le tre o cinque ore senza interruzione (Sting ha poi ritrattato, ha ammesso che era tutta una bufala): David e Jade vanno avanti tutta la notte, ancora e ancora, instancabili, appassionati, esploratori del corpo, delle sensazioni e delle emozioni. E se avessero la possibilità, se non ci fosse un autobus da prendere (sicuramente un Greyhound), andrebbero avanti anche per tutto il giorno seguente, cinque, sei, sette volte…
Storia d’amore senza fine e buon film: “Meet Joe Black – Vi presento Joe Black”, 1998. Qui Claire Forlani e Brad Pitt.
David è ispirazione non solo per noi lettori, ma anche per suo padre, che si rinnamora alla sua rimarchevole età proprio vedendo David innamorato.
Gran bella figura quella paterna (bellissimo momento: il padre sa che David ha trovato le lettere di Jade, accuratamente nascoste nel suo studio di avvocatucolo, non dice niente e lascia che David continui a leggerle).
Gran bello spaccato d’epoca, oltre che storia d’amore: i genitori ebrei marxisti, coppia in crisi perenne, la famiglia di Jade, bohemien, pregna della cultura libertaria anni Sessanta, la sera dell’incendio stanno sperimentando LSD tutti insieme, genitori e figli – chiaro che di fronte alle fiamme la loro capacità di reazione è ridotta, e di conseguenza i danni sono maggiori.
Spencer parte spesso per la tangente, si allontana dall’argomento, devia, si dilunga, esce dal seminato, sembra perdere il filo e saltare di palo in frasca, disserta e divaga in una maniera che a me ha ricordato il Roth (Philip) migliore.
Storia d’amore senza fine e film notevole: “Il curioso caso di Benjamin Button”, 2008. Qui Cate Blanchett e Brad Pitt.
September 3, 2016
man, this book. this book! this is the second intense reading experience I've had in a row. do you like "intense reading experiences"... and by that I mean a narrative that unspools from one feverish narrator and that deals primarily with escalated, deeply emotional highs & lows? if you do, then this is your book. the book is all David Axelrod, all the time. that boy has the fever, for real.
it doesn't start off in an escalated state. one of the most striking things about the novel is how much time it takes to get to that place. sure, David has just been released from the cushy mental institution Rockville for burning his girlfriend Jade's house down around her and her family... but he's a thoughtful lad. Endless Love spends much of its time in moody contemplation as David makes his way back into the world. we get a lot of David coolly dissecting his parents' failing marriage; a lot about his anomie and alienation; his quiet, sneaky yearning for the vanished Jade Butterfield and his hopeless longing for her family and his equally vanished place in that family; we watch him go through the motions of his life as he hunts for the Butterfields and we see how he muses on the impact of his literally burning love. the reader eventually comes to understand David inside and out - and we don't even meet the fascinating Jade until page 265. I'm not sure if Endless Love actually switches gears into something more heightened, if there is a part that I can put a finger on where the story (and the narrator) becomes something delirious. but we get there. one moment we are reading David's nonchalant but sympathetic description of his union job and his co-workers, his meetings with his parole officer, his sadness over his mother's bitter loneliness and his deep love for his unfaithful father, and that is this book; then we get to a place where he is suddenly lashing out against an obnoxious former classmate, inserting himself into unwelcoming lives, physically attacking his mother, smashing through windows, sleeping in an abandoned doghouse... and it is still somehow, incredibly, the same book.
the prose is precise although the novel is dense with detail. it is a beautiful book with so much to say about life and how lives are lived and how deep connections are forged and broken. but I would not recommend it to lovers of romantic novels - there is very little of romance in it. there is love and eros and obsession and tragedy, but this is not really a page-turner, so to speak. my understanding is that many readers disliked the outwardly diffident but internally VERY INTENSE David. that surprised me when I read those reviews because David is completely sympathetic to me; I saw a lot of myself in him and I certainly understood the obsessive nature of his love, I've been there. he actually appeared fairly reasonable to me for much of the book - well, until he suddenly wasn't. but I always understood him. I also noticed that some reviewers hated how David's love for Jade was never really explained. why exactly was he in love with her? to me that is an unanswerable question and I'm surprised that some readers search for it. I can't explain why I love someone. I can explain the things I like and love about them, the details... but explain the love itself? who can do that? I think love is one of the unexplainable things in life. it can't be quantified. so... all of that, and the starkness of David's perspective, the overall contemplative melancholy of this thick book... I think Endless Love would be a real turn-off for readers looking for exciting descriptions of passion.
but we do get that exciting description of passion. and how! it starts so softly. then over 20 pages of extended love scene. the most gruesomely erotic love scene I've ever read. blood everywhere, it's like a crime scene. sweat and semen and saliva and orifices dilating and bodies stuck together and menstrual blood all over the place. I have never read anything like this scene in my life. it is amazing and horrible. but mainly amazing.
that love scene, singular as it may be, is not really what I take away from the book. for me, the beauty of Endless Love is how it so carefully and clearly and even delicately explores the difference between our private selves and our public selves, our internal and our external. you move too much in one direction and that becomes eccentricity or strangeness or even madness. you move too much in the other direction and, well, I suppose you become the consummate empty professional. I guess. I wouldn't know. the external is just a prop for me; I use it and look forward to discarding it whenever I can. I feel you, David Axelrod, I really do.
____________
YE OLDE PLACEHOLDER REVIEW
it doesn't start off in an escalated state. one of the most striking things about the novel is how much time it takes to get to that place. sure, David has just been released from the cushy mental institution Rockville for burning his girlfriend Jade's house down around her and her family... but he's a thoughtful lad. Endless Love spends much of its time in moody contemplation as David makes his way back into the world. we get a lot of David coolly dissecting his parents' failing marriage; a lot about his anomie and alienation; his quiet, sneaky yearning for the vanished Jade Butterfield and his hopeless longing for her family and his equally vanished place in that family; we watch him go through the motions of his life as he hunts for the Butterfields and we see how he muses on the impact of his literally burning love. the reader eventually comes to understand David inside and out - and we don't even meet the fascinating Jade until page 265. I'm not sure if Endless Love actually switches gears into something more heightened, if there is a part that I can put a finger on where the story (and the narrator) becomes something delirious. but we get there. one moment we are reading David's nonchalant but sympathetic description of his union job and his co-workers, his meetings with his parole officer, his sadness over his mother's bitter loneliness and his deep love for his unfaithful father, and that is this book; then we get to a place where he is suddenly lashing out against an obnoxious former classmate, inserting himself into unwelcoming lives, physically attacking his mother, smashing through windows, sleeping in an abandoned doghouse... and it is still somehow, incredibly, the same book.
the prose is precise although the novel is dense with detail. it is a beautiful book with so much to say about life and how lives are lived and how deep connections are forged and broken. but I would not recommend it to lovers of romantic novels - there is very little of romance in it. there is love and eros and obsession and tragedy, but this is not really a page-turner, so to speak. my understanding is that many readers disliked the outwardly diffident but internally VERY INTENSE David. that surprised me when I read those reviews because David is completely sympathetic to me; I saw a lot of myself in him and I certainly understood the obsessive nature of his love, I've been there. he actually appeared fairly reasonable to me for much of the book - well, until he suddenly wasn't. but I always understood him. I also noticed that some reviewers hated how David's love for Jade was never really explained. why exactly was he in love with her? to me that is an unanswerable question and I'm surprised that some readers search for it. I can't explain why I love someone. I can explain the things I like and love about them, the details... but explain the love itself? who can do that? I think love is one of the unexplainable things in life. it can't be quantified. so... all of that, and the starkness of David's perspective, the overall contemplative melancholy of this thick book... I think Endless Love would be a real turn-off for readers looking for exciting descriptions of passion.
but we do get that exciting description of passion. and how! it starts so softly. then over 20 pages of extended love scene. the most gruesomely erotic love scene I've ever read. blood everywhere, it's like a crime scene. sweat and semen and saliva and orifices dilating and bodies stuck together and menstrual blood all over the place. I have never read anything like this scene in my life. it is amazing and horrible. but mainly amazing.
that love scene, singular as it may be, is not really what I take away from the book. for me, the beauty of Endless Love is how it so carefully and clearly and even delicately explores the difference between our private selves and our public selves, our internal and our external. you move too much in one direction and that becomes eccentricity or strangeness or even madness. you move too much in the other direction and, well, I suppose you become the consummate empty professional. I guess. I wouldn't know. the external is just a prop for me; I use it and look forward to discarding it whenever I can. I feel you, David Axelrod, I really do.
“I don’t know why I call the people there crazy,” I said. “It’s not what they are. It’s a habit, a way of thinking about Rockville and keeping myself separate. You know what it is? All of us have two minds, a private one, which is usually strange, I guess, and symbolic, and a public one, a social one. Most of us stream back and forth between those two minds, drifting around in our private self and then coming forward into the public self whenever we need to. But sometimes you get a little slow making the transition, you drag out the private part of your life and people know you’re doing it. They almost always catch on, knowing that someone is standing before them thinking about things that can’t be shared, like the one monkey that knows where a fresh-water pond is. And sometimes the public mind is such a total bummer and the private self is alive with beauty and danger and secrets and things that don’t make any sense but that repeat and repeat and demand to be listened to, and you find it hard and harder to come forward. The pathway between those two states of mind suddenly seems very steep, a hell of a lot of work and not really worth it. Then I think it becomes a matter of what side of the great divide you get caught on.
____________
YE OLDE PLACEHOLDER REVIEW
April 30, 2008
Don't knock it 'til you've read it--the movie doesn't hold a candle to the book. Scott Spencer blew me away. Depicts first love, er,.. obsession, perfectly. I want to believe this book was a catharsis for him, and only those who have experienced loss of love, or have had a misunderstanding of mature love, can really be impacted by the book. He brings to the surface the insanity we have all experienced in relation to our first (and perhaps second? Third?!) loves. After reading the very last page, I wept like a mental patient for approximately a half an hour. In my world, it deserves to be on a special bookshelf all its own, with a museum-style spotlight shining on it, feather-dusted every day. Now that's a good book.
January 16, 2021
NO SPOILERS
David Axelrod is in love. Deeply, deeply in love with Jade, a girl who lives in his neighborhood. He is 17 and she is 16. And her parents are hippies, so free and open that they welcome David into their home and into their hearts. He spends hours and hours there. Then he starts sleeping there. Then they buy him a double bed that he and Jade share. Isolated in this family environment and in their love for each other, Jade and David spend endless hours talking, making love, and staring at each other. Until one day, Jade's father makes a decision to be a little more father-like and throw David out of the house. It's not healthy for him and Jade to be spending so much time together. He forbids them from seeing each other for 30 days.
So David sets fire to their house.
Just a little fire, a 'manageable fire', a fire that can burn a bit so that David can appear at just the right time, happen to be walking along in the vicinity at just the right moment so that he can see the fire and help put it out. Save the family. See Jade again. Touch Jade again.
Only fires have a way of getting out of control. Fires have a way of catching and burning and doing more damage more quickly than David had ever imagined.
Scott Spencer puts us into the mind of a psychopath. Or...does love make psychopaths of us all?
This review was spoiler-free - everything said in this review is explained in Chapter One.
This is not a romance novel. This book is in turns gross, disturbing, frightening, touching, sad, and scary. It's an intense examination of love and madness and whether those two things are really the same thing.
It reminded me a lot of Catcher in the Rye.
The writing is beautiful. Here are some samples:
SAMPLE ONE:
"I know you," I said, and the statement took on a weight far greater than I expected, as if the simple claim had within it an emotional magnetism that attracted everything that was unknown, unspoken, everything that was vague and hoped for and dreaded as well. I told her that I knew her and the atmosphere between us became as charged as if I'd finally gotten the courage to lean over and kiss her. Yet I had no choice but to become more and more forward, like someone pursuing a ghost: either the vision would recede into light and dust or it would take on weight and substance.
SAMPLE TWO:
I was walking up Fifth Avenue to pass an hour or two before it was time to call Ann. Hugh was with his new lover remembering the things he'd been taught to want when he was young. Who knows how many people were out there with us? A million seems a fair guess. New York is the place in America where you're most likely to meet someone you know; it's our capital of surprise encounters. If you stay there long enough you might see everyone you ever knew.
I'm thinking of a skeleton bent expectantly over a radar screen and Hugh and I are blips of light heading into each other's path with the blind imperiousness of comets.
We are blind to the future. We can barely hold on to our strange versions of the past. We see only a little of what is directly before us. We know almost nothing. They only way we can stand it is not to care. I care and I can't stand it.
I should just breathe in and out and be brave. But not knowing what is going to happen next and living with the hope that whatever it is it won't be too difficult to understand is like driving at top speed with the windshield completely painted over with a picture of where you used to live.
P.S. I would never shelf this under a 'YA' heading.
David Axelrod is in love. Deeply, deeply in love with Jade, a girl who lives in his neighborhood. He is 17 and she is 16. And her parents are hippies, so free and open that they welcome David into their home and into their hearts. He spends hours and hours there. Then he starts sleeping there. Then they buy him a double bed that he and Jade share. Isolated in this family environment and in their love for each other, Jade and David spend endless hours talking, making love, and staring at each other. Until one day, Jade's father makes a decision to be a little more father-like and throw David out of the house. It's not healthy for him and Jade to be spending so much time together. He forbids them from seeing each other for 30 days.
So David sets fire to their house.
Just a little fire, a 'manageable fire', a fire that can burn a bit so that David can appear at just the right time, happen to be walking along in the vicinity at just the right moment so that he can see the fire and help put it out. Save the family. See Jade again. Touch Jade again.
Only fires have a way of getting out of control. Fires have a way of catching and burning and doing more damage more quickly than David had ever imagined.
Scott Spencer puts us into the mind of a psychopath. Or...does love make psychopaths of us all?
This review was spoiler-free - everything said in this review is explained in Chapter One.
This is not a romance novel. This book is in turns gross, disturbing, frightening, touching, sad, and scary. It's an intense examination of love and madness and whether those two things are really the same thing.
It reminded me a lot of Catcher in the Rye.
The writing is beautiful. Here are some samples:
SAMPLE ONE:
"I know you," I said, and the statement took on a weight far greater than I expected, as if the simple claim had within it an emotional magnetism that attracted everything that was unknown, unspoken, everything that was vague and hoped for and dreaded as well. I told her that I knew her and the atmosphere between us became as charged as if I'd finally gotten the courage to lean over and kiss her. Yet I had no choice but to become more and more forward, like someone pursuing a ghost: either the vision would recede into light and dust or it would take on weight and substance.
SAMPLE TWO:
I was walking up Fifth Avenue to pass an hour or two before it was time to call Ann. Hugh was with his new lover remembering the things he'd been taught to want when he was young. Who knows how many people were out there with us? A million seems a fair guess. New York is the place in America where you're most likely to meet someone you know; it's our capital of surprise encounters. If you stay there long enough you might see everyone you ever knew.
I'm thinking of a skeleton bent expectantly over a radar screen and Hugh and I are blips of light heading into each other's path with the blind imperiousness of comets.
We are blind to the future. We can barely hold on to our strange versions of the past. We see only a little of what is directly before us. We know almost nothing. They only way we can stand it is not to care. I care and I can't stand it.
I should just breathe in and out and be brave. But not knowing what is going to happen next and living with the hope that whatever it is it won't be too difficult to understand is like driving at top speed with the windshield completely painted over with a picture of where you used to live.
P.S. I would never shelf this under a 'YA' heading.
Read
November 19, 2021Signori della corte sono pronta alla fucilazione: io l'ho mollato poco dopo la metà, perché mi sono fatta due palle senza fine, si può dire? Sono un po' delusa da me stessa, penso di invecchiare male nella mia insensibilità, ma se mi sono fatta abbindolare dalle lacrime di Una vita come tanti, qui, mi sono irritata fin da subito. Amore adolescenziale? Boh a me è sembrata tutta una follia, una cosa che non stava in piedi fin dall'inizio, ogni reazione fuori luogo, eccessiva e i personaggi, tutti, tutti, indistintamente, mi sono stati sulle palle fin da subito. E la scrittura, signori della giuria, questa scrittura osannata come canone, fulgido esempio per le generazioni future di scritture, beh ecco, io l'ho trovata piattina, ben lontana dall'essere folgorante. E così, perdonatemi, ma notte dopo notte, mi facevo avvolgere dagli sbadigli, ogni volta riaprire il testo mi causava uno sbuffo e allora tanta letteratura da leggere e così poco tempo a disposizione che, Vostro onore, potevo forse fare altro? Potevo forse non dare spazio alla pila che spingeva implorante sul comodino? Leggi me, leggi me, molla sto amore senza fine che si sta trasformando in un tedio senza fine.
Sì, ho ceduto, ho dato spazio a una storiella, a un romanzo snello, a delle parole che mi fanno venir voglia di continuare, devo forse essere condannata per questo ? Devo essere additata, irrisa, contestata?
Mi gusto il primo bicchiere di Sauvignon dopo una lunga pausa forzata a causa dei miei reni capricciosi, regalo dell'età, e passo senza troppi patemi alla lettura successiva. C'è troppo poco tempo per farsi annientare dai giudizi.
Sì, ho ceduto, ho dato spazio a una storiella, a un romanzo snello, a delle parole che mi fanno venir voglia di continuare, devo forse essere condannata per questo ? Devo essere additata, irrisa, contestata?
Mi gusto il primo bicchiere di Sauvignon dopo una lunga pausa forzata a causa dei miei reni capricciosi, regalo dell'età, e passo senza troppi patemi alla lettura successiva. C'è troppo poco tempo per farsi annientare dai giudizi.
March 6, 2012
I used to believe that there is no such thing as an endless love. After reading this book, however, I certainly know better. I can no longer be cynical about it: endless love is, indeed, possible.
If two blind men play tennis, there'll be an endless love. Create an insane character like David Axelrod here, and you'll also have someone who endlessly loves.
No wonder a woman's heart is broken every second. All women like endless loves with endless lovers not realizing that they can only have one with the insane. It'll be a thrill at the beginning, but when she begins to detect the deranged quality of this seemingly unending ardor of her lover, the excitement wanes and is later replaced by horror. On the other hand, if a girl picks a sane partner, he may be the best guy on the planet but he'll be incapable of a love that does not end. For as I have said, only those who are mad are capable of that. At least that is what this novel seems to say.
David Axelrod, the endless lover in this story (which he himself narrates), tells us of his love for Jade Butterfield. He starts with, perhaps, an attempt at a symbolism: fire. His warm and burning love for her. For unclear reasons he is banned from the Butterfield household. This, after being a boyfriend to the uninhibited, though flat-chested Jade, and after having sex with her several times inside her own room, with Jade once enticing him to enter her through her other orifice for variety, and where once her mother, Ann, secretly watched them having sex which made her (Ann) horny. One evening, the Butterfields (spoiler alert here, stop reading!)--Jade, her parents and her two brothers--were having LSD together, believing perhaps in the adage that a family that gets high together stays together. David passes by outside, hoping to see Jade, and a brilliantly insane idea comes to him. He starts a little fire on a part of the house, planning to make it appear that he fortunately was passing by when he sees the fire, prevents a catastrophe, and be welcomed again in the house as a hero. What he didn't anticipate, however, is that the little fire would grow big fast and quickly gut the whole house. He himself almost dies a fake hero, as well as one of Jade's brothers. In the hospital, perhaps still woozy for so much smoke he had inhaled, he confesses to the criminal prank.
A minor at 17, David isn't put to jail but in a mental institution. He doesn't say something is wrong with his head, after all he's the one telling the story, he just says his parents found it better to put him there than in prison. He stays there for several years pining for Jade everyday. He who could have sex 5 times straight in a single night (with Jade only, of course) wouldn't even masturbate. He is a faithful lover, the ideal for women, especially that he is a veritable sex machine.
Eventually he gets out of the mental institution and is placed on parole. By this time, Mr. and Mrs. Butterfield have separated, the latter having found a younger Mrs. Butterfield-to-be. Their children have left already, including Jade, and are living their own lives elsewhere. Looking for Jade, David goes to Ann who promptly tries to seduce him. She fails. David loves Jade only.
On a street, Jade's father spots David walking. He leaves his current flame and runs after the latter. David tries to escape. His pursuer becomes reckless and is ran over by a speeding taxicab. Dies instantly. David keeps this a secret. He attends the wake, sees Jade. On or about this time, he learns that even as he had been practicing celibacy like a Taoist monk for years after the fire, Jade had been promiscuous, sleeping with her professor, a fellow boarder, a lesbo, and others. Yet it all doesn't matter to this endless loverboy. David loves her still, and only her.
They hook up again. On their first night after the long separation Jade is having her period. She bleeds mightily whenever she's menstruating. But small things like this do not matter to the endless lover. David licks her with gusto, like it's strawberry syrup running between her legs, takes her every which way with his pecker that goes harder after each ejaculation. He bursts into tears while making love, the salty droplets of his tears mixing with the blood smeared on his face. Oh what a fella! Handsome, young, doesn't get soft where it counts, gets harder where other men would fall asleep, loves only one, faithful even in his thoughts, faithful even if his lover plays around, sensitive (cries while having sex marathons; cries while looking at his lover's pictures), will burn houses, violate parole regulations, do crime just to be with his love.
"From the time I learned to love Jade...there was nothing in my life that wasn't alive with meaning, that wasn't capable of suggesting weird and hidden significances, that didn't carry with it the undertaste of what for lack of anything better to call it I'll call The Infinite."--David Axelrod.
If two blind men play tennis, there'll be an endless love. Create an insane character like David Axelrod here, and you'll also have someone who endlessly loves.
No wonder a woman's heart is broken every second. All women like endless loves with endless lovers not realizing that they can only have one with the insane. It'll be a thrill at the beginning, but when she begins to detect the deranged quality of this seemingly unending ardor of her lover, the excitement wanes and is later replaced by horror. On the other hand, if a girl picks a sane partner, he may be the best guy on the planet but he'll be incapable of a love that does not end. For as I have said, only those who are mad are capable of that. At least that is what this novel seems to say.
David Axelrod, the endless lover in this story (which he himself narrates), tells us of his love for Jade Butterfield. He starts with, perhaps, an attempt at a symbolism: fire. His warm and burning love for her. For unclear reasons he is banned from the Butterfield household. This, after being a boyfriend to the uninhibited, though flat-chested Jade, and after having sex with her several times inside her own room, with Jade once enticing him to enter her through her other orifice for variety, and where once her mother, Ann, secretly watched them having sex which made her (Ann) horny. One evening, the Butterfields (spoiler alert here, stop reading!)--Jade, her parents and her two brothers--were having LSD together, believing perhaps in the adage that a family that gets high together stays together. David passes by outside, hoping to see Jade, and a brilliantly insane idea comes to him. He starts a little fire on a part of the house, planning to make it appear that he fortunately was passing by when he sees the fire, prevents a catastrophe, and be welcomed again in the house as a hero. What he didn't anticipate, however, is that the little fire would grow big fast and quickly gut the whole house. He himself almost dies a fake hero, as well as one of Jade's brothers. In the hospital, perhaps still woozy for so much smoke he had inhaled, he confesses to the criminal prank.
A minor at 17, David isn't put to jail but in a mental institution. He doesn't say something is wrong with his head, after all he's the one telling the story, he just says his parents found it better to put him there than in prison. He stays there for several years pining for Jade everyday. He who could have sex 5 times straight in a single night (with Jade only, of course) wouldn't even masturbate. He is a faithful lover, the ideal for women, especially that he is a veritable sex machine.
Eventually he gets out of the mental institution and is placed on parole. By this time, Mr. and Mrs. Butterfield have separated, the latter having found a younger Mrs. Butterfield-to-be. Their children have left already, including Jade, and are living their own lives elsewhere. Looking for Jade, David goes to Ann who promptly tries to seduce him. She fails. David loves Jade only.
On a street, Jade's father spots David walking. He leaves his current flame and runs after the latter. David tries to escape. His pursuer becomes reckless and is ran over by a speeding taxicab. Dies instantly. David keeps this a secret. He attends the wake, sees Jade. On or about this time, he learns that even as he had been practicing celibacy like a Taoist monk for years after the fire, Jade had been promiscuous, sleeping with her professor, a fellow boarder, a lesbo, and others. Yet it all doesn't matter to this endless loverboy. David loves her still, and only her.
They hook up again. On their first night after the long separation Jade is having her period. She bleeds mightily whenever she's menstruating. But small things like this do not matter to the endless lover. David licks her with gusto, like it's strawberry syrup running between her legs, takes her every which way with his pecker that goes harder after each ejaculation. He bursts into tears while making love, the salty droplets of his tears mixing with the blood smeared on his face. Oh what a fella! Handsome, young, doesn't get soft where it counts, gets harder where other men would fall asleep, loves only one, faithful even in his thoughts, faithful even if his lover plays around, sensitive (cries while having sex marathons; cries while looking at his lover's pictures), will burn houses, violate parole regulations, do crime just to be with his love.
"From the time I learned to love Jade...there was nothing in my life that wasn't alive with meaning, that wasn't capable of suggesting weird and hidden significances, that didn't carry with it the undertaste of what for lack of anything better to call it I'll call The Infinite."--David Axelrod.
November 4, 2010
This is either a 1, 2, 3, 4, or 5 star book. Seriously, I would understand any one of these ratings. It is about one young man's obsessive (to say the least) relationship with his high school girlfriend. I'd give a "1" for character likeability. Every character is seriously screwed up/deranged/sick in the head, with the possible exception of David's mother. I wish we saw a little more of his parents' relationship because, as Jewish Communists in the late 60s, they are pretty damn interesting. I'd give a "2" for sexual content. There are some gnarly scenes. Gnar-ly. And unless you like references to people getting so hot they are "dilated enough for a premature birth" (that's not even the worst of it - not by a long shot, not even the worst on that page) you might feel a little squeamish at times. I'm still reeling from one particular sex scene. I can't even type some of the stuff that was in there. But points for originality here. Lord knows I kept reading (jaw. on. floor.)
I'd give a "3" to general plot. It held my attention but the angst got a little old after awhile (WHY did he love her so much??? WHY??) A "4" goes to the way the author showed how one person's obsessiveness can spiral out of control and affect multiple people. I also liked that it wasn't *just* Jade he pined over, but her whole jacked up family. I did wonder if the things that happened would've without David's involvement. The Butterfields were painted as uber-WASPy but they were sampling LSD as a family event so they weren't completely normal. Was he just a catalyst? Would there have been some other catalyst if not for him? And a "5" goes to the writing itself. Intense, unique descriptions. Sometimes a little too intense or unique (see above: sex scenes) but better than most anything I've read.
I'm a little emotionally exhausted by this book. I find it easy to specify what makes a 1, 2, or 5 star book and often struggle when it's between a 3 and a 4. Ultimately I ask myself whether the work is easily replicated or somewhat simple. The answer here is a resounding no. So it's a four.
I'd give a "3" to general plot. It held my attention but the angst got a little old after awhile (WHY did he love her so much??? WHY??) A "4" goes to the way the author showed how one person's obsessiveness can spiral out of control and affect multiple people. I also liked that it wasn't *just* Jade he pined over, but her whole jacked up family. I did wonder if the things that happened would've without David's involvement. The Butterfields were painted as uber-WASPy but they were sampling LSD as a family event so they weren't completely normal. Was he just a catalyst? Would there have been some other catalyst if not for him? And a "5" goes to the writing itself. Intense, unique descriptions. Sometimes a little too intense or unique (see above: sex scenes) but better than most anything I've read.
I'm a little emotionally exhausted by this book. I find it easy to specify what makes a 1, 2, or 5 star book and often struggle when it's between a 3 and a 4. Ultimately I ask myself whether the work is easily replicated or somewhat simple. The answer here is a resounding no. So it's a four.
March 9, 2018
Non quei bei stampati di tipo antico che di solito usa la gente
Che una casa editrice importante possa permettere che un libro sia pubblicato con errori di grammatica come “bei stampati” mi mette già di cattivo umore. Questo gioiellino si trova a fine libro, ma l’insofferenza personale nei confronti del romanzo di Spencer (o Scott?) e insorta fin dall’inizio. Quello che mi ha disturbato per tutte le interminabili 500 pagine è la sensazione di leggere l’ennesimo libro scritto a cottimo, un tanto al chilo.
Una fastidiosissima scrittura aulica, zeppa di metafore, pesante e noiosissima e personaggi talmente costruiti e caricati di tutti i luoghi comuni possibili e immaginabili di quell’america lì, di quell’ambiente lì, di quel periodo storico lì e di quella situazione lì, da farmi “venire il sistema nervoso”, come diceva la mia vecchia zia Nelda. Sicché per tutto il romanzo né per David, né per Jade, ma neppure per chicchessia ho provato un minimo moto di simpatia e non scomodo neppure la parola empatia che mi sembra persino esagerata in questo caso. Torno sulla scrittura per sottolineare che a raccontare tutta la storia è proprio il protagonista David, giovane uomo dei nostri tempi (più o meno) che però si esprime come lo stucchevole protagonista della parodia di un romanzo ottocentesco. Anche nelle fatidiche pagine del quattordicesimo capitolo, quello dove si racconta una delle scene di sesso più lunghe, e a mio parere noiose, della letteratura mondiale, il nostro caro simpaticone David non ci risparmia metafore, immagini e considerazioni, evidentemente concepite forzatamente a tavolino dall’autore e, aggiungo, con una sorta di evidente compiacimento.
Un esempio a caso di questo compiacimento? Sempre nel capitolo 14: Il suo modo d’intendere il mondo oscillava tra il grandiosamente cosmico e il frigidamente vuoto; o vivevamo nel caldo marsupio di un universo che ci amava completamente e misteriosamente o eravamo meri coaguli proteinici e acquosi, bolle che comparivano un istante nel lungo ricurvo lambicco del tempo.
Ecco, alla fine del romanzo mi son detta: i due film tratti da questa storia saranno pure brutti, ma almeno a vederli ci perdi solo un paio d’ore.
Che una casa editrice importante possa permettere che un libro sia pubblicato con errori di grammatica come “bei stampati” mi mette già di cattivo umore. Questo gioiellino si trova a fine libro, ma l’insofferenza personale nei confronti del romanzo di Spencer (o Scott?) e insorta fin dall’inizio. Quello che mi ha disturbato per tutte le interminabili 500 pagine è la sensazione di leggere l’ennesimo libro scritto a cottimo, un tanto al chilo.
Una fastidiosissima scrittura aulica, zeppa di metafore, pesante e noiosissima e personaggi talmente costruiti e caricati di tutti i luoghi comuni possibili e immaginabili di quell’america lì, di quell’ambiente lì, di quel periodo storico lì e di quella situazione lì, da farmi “venire il sistema nervoso”, come diceva la mia vecchia zia Nelda. Sicché per tutto il romanzo né per David, né per Jade, ma neppure per chicchessia ho provato un minimo moto di simpatia e non scomodo neppure la parola empatia che mi sembra persino esagerata in questo caso. Torno sulla scrittura per sottolineare che a raccontare tutta la storia è proprio il protagonista David, giovane uomo dei nostri tempi (più o meno) che però si esprime come lo stucchevole protagonista della parodia di un romanzo ottocentesco. Anche nelle fatidiche pagine del quattordicesimo capitolo, quello dove si racconta una delle scene di sesso più lunghe, e a mio parere noiose, della letteratura mondiale, il nostro caro simpaticone David non ci risparmia metafore, immagini e considerazioni, evidentemente concepite forzatamente a tavolino dall’autore e, aggiungo, con una sorta di evidente compiacimento.
Un esempio a caso di questo compiacimento? Sempre nel capitolo 14: Il suo modo d’intendere il mondo oscillava tra il grandiosamente cosmico e il frigidamente vuoto; o vivevamo nel caldo marsupio di un universo che ci amava completamente e misteriosamente o eravamo meri coaguli proteinici e acquosi, bolle che comparivano un istante nel lungo ricurvo lambicco del tempo.
Ecco, alla fine del romanzo mi son detta: i due film tratti da questa storia saranno pure brutti, ma almeno a vederli ci perdi solo un paio d’ore.
March 12, 2018
Non è niente, se non due eguali
“Non l'ho scritto e ancor meno letto/Il libro dell'essere mio, semicelato sempre/A chi in un bacio scorge/L'informe oscurità vorace di un abisso/ Come potei pensare che i brevi anni bastassero/ad affermare la realtà d'un amore senza fine?” Delmore Schwartz
Amore e follia; amarsi alla follia. Quale amore giovane non è segnato dalla pazzia? Appena esplode, è un'ossessione oscura e incontrollabile, appena nasce, è un inabissarsi di corpi e sensazioni e energie. Intensamente indescrivibile, visceralmente intimo. David e Jade si esauriscono l'un altro, si alterano nell'attrazione e nella promiscuità. Vivono in una realtà che assume la forma di una malattia, una fame violenta, una inevitabile assolutezza che non si piega davanti ad alcuna costrizione. Unica dimensione possibile e concreta, il sé nell'altro, erotismo e desiderio. Candidato al National Book Award nel 1979, un libro scritto con maestria profonda che risplende in un primo capitolo sorprendente e furioso. Non temete sia inconcluso, l'infelicità dell'amore reciproco nulla toglie alla singolare e dissennata esperienza così verticalmente consumata.
“Non l'ho scritto e ancor meno letto/Il libro dell'essere mio, semicelato sempre/A chi in un bacio scorge/L'informe oscurità vorace di un abisso/ Come potei pensare che i brevi anni bastassero/ad affermare la realtà d'un amore senza fine?” Delmore Schwartz
Amore e follia; amarsi alla follia. Quale amore giovane non è segnato dalla pazzia? Appena esplode, è un'ossessione oscura e incontrollabile, appena nasce, è un inabissarsi di corpi e sensazioni e energie. Intensamente indescrivibile, visceralmente intimo. David e Jade si esauriscono l'un altro, si alterano nell'attrazione e nella promiscuità. Vivono in una realtà che assume la forma di una malattia, una fame violenta, una inevitabile assolutezza che non si piega davanti ad alcuna costrizione. Unica dimensione possibile e concreta, il sé nell'altro, erotismo e desiderio. Candidato al National Book Award nel 1979, un libro scritto con maestria profonda che risplende in un primo capitolo sorprendente e furioso. Non temete sia inconcluso, l'infelicità dell'amore reciproco nulla toglie alla singolare e dissennata esperienza così verticalmente consumata.
July 29, 2017
l'unico film veramente bello di jim carrey venne tradotto in italia con un cacchio di titolo che non si può sentire e non starò qui a citare. quello originale, eternal sunshine of the spotless mind, lo splendore eterno della mente senza macchia - un verso di eloisa to abelard di alexander pope, per richiamare già due che conobbero la passione più sfrenata - era effettivamente poco portabile da noi come argomento di conversazione: metti anche solo pronunciare quel groviglio di dentali, liquide e spirali durante una cena.
ma era nondimeno perfetto, e mi è ronzato continuamente in testa leggendo questo libro che racconta dell'ossessione che non si vuole in alcun modo spegnere in una mente ingenua e psicotica insieme. [ho dormito lì. fra i capelli suoi. io insieme a lei ero un uomo]. è un amore fuori asse per svariati motivi quello di david e jade, e il principale non è anagrafico anche se siamo nei disinibiti anni '60. a differenza del film, però, qui non si cerca di cancellare nulla. o meglio: intorno cercano di farlo in molti, ma dal nostro punto di vista sono solo comparse e noi stiamo impunemente dalla parte dei primi attori, che alimentano un legame fuori controllo vivendone la follia ben oltre il consentito. così quella febbre a cui non si sa e non si vuole resistere occupa la scena con veemenza fin dall'inizio, e non la lascia più. [quanti e quanti sì. ha gridato lei. quanti non lo sai. ero un uomo]. in un certo senso il libro parla solo di questo. ma nello stesso tempo c'è moltissimo altro.
c'è un clima, quello dell'america tra la fine dei '60 e la metà dei '70, tra spinte centrifughe e compromessi sociali e politici. ci sono personaggi che non sono affatto quello che sembrano. né i genitori freak di jade, né quelli comunisti osservanti di david (che per tutto il tempo, si sappia, nella mia testa hanno avuto le facce di julius ed ethel rosenberg). e poi c'è l'abisso della storia dei due ragazzi, raccontata dal punto di vista di david axelroad, che nel cognome sembra portare già scritto il destino di una strada che si fa da sola salto acrobatico. e insomma l'insieme è tale che ne viene fuori un romanzo di rara potenza, che spacca forse comprensibilmente il fronte dei giudizi, ma che può farsi bere per 500 e passa pagine avviluppandoci in un continuo crescendo. e questo certamente non soltanto in virtù di una scrittura perfetta - un racconto quasi sempre al passato remoto, gestito comunque benissimo dal punto di vista della tensione narrativa e lucidissimo nonostante sfiori continuamente la follia - ma perché in un modo tutto suo e per quanto i protagonisti siano appena più che adolescenti, riesce a rendere complice il lettore e a metterlo di fronte a un'evidenza [apri bene gli occhi sai. perché tu ora lo vedrai]. e cioè che 17 anni (e poi 20, e 25) possono essere molti più della somma algebrica che li produce. e che la voracità del desiderio può bruciare, nel romanzo anche proprio alla lettera, fino alla volontaria perdita di senno.
sconsigliatissimo alle vittime di stalking. pubblico facilmente impressionabile solo se accompagnato.
ma era nondimeno perfetto, e mi è ronzato continuamente in testa leggendo questo libro che racconta dell'ossessione che non si vuole in alcun modo spegnere in una mente ingenua e psicotica insieme. [ho dormito lì. fra i capelli suoi. io insieme a lei ero un uomo]. è un amore fuori asse per svariati motivi quello di david e jade, e il principale non è anagrafico anche se siamo nei disinibiti anni '60. a differenza del film, però, qui non si cerca di cancellare nulla. o meglio: intorno cercano di farlo in molti, ma dal nostro punto di vista sono solo comparse e noi stiamo impunemente dalla parte dei primi attori, che alimentano un legame fuori controllo vivendone la follia ben oltre il consentito. così quella febbre a cui non si sa e non si vuole resistere occupa la scena con veemenza fin dall'inizio, e non la lascia più. [quanti e quanti sì. ha gridato lei. quanti non lo sai. ero un uomo]. in un certo senso il libro parla solo di questo. ma nello stesso tempo c'è moltissimo altro.
c'è un clima, quello dell'america tra la fine dei '60 e la metà dei '70, tra spinte centrifughe e compromessi sociali e politici. ci sono personaggi che non sono affatto quello che sembrano. né i genitori freak di jade, né quelli comunisti osservanti di david (che per tutto il tempo, si sappia, nella mia testa hanno avuto le facce di julius ed ethel rosenberg). e poi c'è l'abisso della storia dei due ragazzi, raccontata dal punto di vista di david axelroad, che nel cognome sembra portare già scritto il destino di una strada che si fa da sola salto acrobatico. e insomma l'insieme è tale che ne viene fuori un romanzo di rara potenza, che spacca forse comprensibilmente il fronte dei giudizi, ma che può farsi bere per 500 e passa pagine avviluppandoci in un continuo crescendo. e questo certamente non soltanto in virtù di una scrittura perfetta - un racconto quasi sempre al passato remoto, gestito comunque benissimo dal punto di vista della tensione narrativa e lucidissimo nonostante sfiori continuamente la follia - ma perché in un modo tutto suo e per quanto i protagonisti siano appena più che adolescenti, riesce a rendere complice il lettore e a metterlo di fronte a un'evidenza [apri bene gli occhi sai. perché tu ora lo vedrai]. e cioè che 17 anni (e poi 20, e 25) possono essere molti più della somma algebrica che li produce. e che la voracità del desiderio può bruciare, nel romanzo anche proprio alla lettera, fino alla volontaria perdita di senno.
sconsigliatissimo alle vittime di stalking. pubblico facilmente impressionabile solo se accompagnato.
August 2, 2017
Vedo il tuo volto, ti vedo, ti vedo, in ogni posto ti vedo
Pensavo che "Un amore senza fine" fosse un Harmony, storia d'amore tormentata con lieto fine d'obbligo, ed ero già pronto a scappare a gambe levate.
Invece l'ho iniziato, scettico, dando fiducia a recensioni particolarmente interessanti. E... beh, mi sono proprio dovuto ricredere.
Il sentimento che viene descritto nel romanzo è assoluto, trascinante, ossessivo, unico. I due ragazzi, David e Jade, si amano di un amore troppo forte, troppo esclusivo, troppo intenso, ostinato, quasi tossico. Specialmente David, dimentico del mondo che lo circonda e di ogni sua prospettiva di futuro, insegue con ogni mezzo la sua amata Jade perdendosi definitivamente.
Qual è la peculiarità di "questo" romanzo d'amore?
La storia è narrata da David. Ma noi non leggiamo di David. Noi "siamo" David. Il livello di coinvolgimento che trasmette il libro è impressionante.
Percepiamo le emozioni, soffriamo e gioiamo con lui, tremiamo con lui, ci disperiamo insieme a lui.
"Nell'amore mi sentivo in comunione con tutto il tempo dell'umanità, con gli schiavi in lacrime durante l'asta, coi menestrelli sotto i balconi accesi di luna; e con Jade."
Tutto il romanzo sembra una lunga e interminabile serie di preliminari amorosi, un crescendo imponente e incessante per arrivare al climax, il momento in cui i due sfogano finalmente i loro ardori (mega-super-eufemismo!).
Premetto che il sesso nei libri mi lascia totalmente indifferente; non riesce a coinvolgermi, mi sembra sempre tutto o troppo esagerato, o troppo volgare o troppo impossibile o semplicemente troppo ridicolo.
La scena del sesso tra David e Jade è invece la dimostrazione che, sapendolo fare, scrivere di sesso in modo efficace è possibile.
Siamo lì. Partecipiamo. Tremiamo. Soffriamo. Godiamo.
Ci sono dettagli precisi, ci sono le attenzioni, le carezze, ci sono odori, gli umori, c'è tutto. Non c'è mai volgarità perché quando c'è l'amore non c'è nulla di volgare. I due si amano e nulla di ciò che fanno (e ne fanno, uh se ne fanno...) è esagerato o di troppo. Non è banale, è amore torrido, una congiunzione di corpi che si vorrebbero fondere, è senza compromessi.
E' un romanzo d'amore, certo, ma qui è lo stile a fare la differenza. E' lo scrittore.
Profondo, toccante, coinvolgente, stimolante, disperato, emozionante. E la fine ci lascia attoniti, stanchi, affranti.
"Perdere la testa" è comunemente sinonimo di innamoramento. C'è un limite? Cosa trasforma una storia d'amore in una ossessione distruttiva?
Che dire di più? Quattro stelle e mezzo, quasi cinque. Qualche pecca c'è, ma la capacità di coinvolgere supera tutto il resto.
February 13, 2014
I've never felt so strongly about a book that I felt the need to write a review. I don't understand how this book has such great ratings. It is so slow and so boring. 70% of it is just David's inner ramblings that are irrelevant and horribly uninteresting. There are no actual plot points in the beginning that even remotely grabbed my attention. When I saw the great reviews and was reading the book, I really thought I had downloaded the wrong book. This book was just boring from start to finish. Plus, the ending was just blah. Both characters are basically where they started which makes the entire book pointless.
August 2, 2017
"In certe storie d’amore c’è chi distrugge l’altro"
David e Jade sedicenni si innamorano.
E detto così... nulla di più naturale.
Si amano, son giovani e spensierati... vien da dire: "Beati loro!"
E invece... questo amore non ha quasi nessuna caratteristica dell'amore giovanile.
È un amore esente da leggerezza e spensieratezza, si compone piuttosto di ossessione e dipendenza.
Un amore tossico, che come un incendio brucia, divora e risucchia tutti coloro che ne entrano in contatto.
È un amore che lascia in apnea. In carenza di ossigeno, tanta è la sua potenza, tanto è profondo, viscerale ...malato.
"Non saprò mai capire esattamente cosa mi provocava la vista del suo corpo, voglio dire che ancor oggi mi chiedo perché avesse l’effetto che aveva; e d’altra parte era così immancabilmente potente che pensavo (e lo penserò sempre) d’essere nato proprio per poterlo guardare, per guardarle il viso, la gola, il seno, i genitali e sentire un calore e un sollievo che nessun termine del mio vocabolario potrebbe anche solo tentare di descrivere"
Un racconto che raggiunge il suo acme nel capitolo 14. Magistrale la preparazione che ti traghetta lì. Difficile non cadere nel volgare o nel ridicolo quando si parla di sesso. Ecco, Spencer riesce molto bene: non solo è credibile ma riesce proprio ad emozionare.
Leggiamo... ed alternativamente siamo David, siamo Jade e siamo anche Ann, madre di Jade.
E come Ann annichiliti e impotenti testimoni di questo amore immenso che divora e non lascia pace, non possiamo che osservare:
"La verità è che nessuno aveva l’ardire di impedirvi d’essere tutto l’uno per l’altra, e l’energia del vostro rapporto era curiosamente schiacciante. Siccome non credevamo che fare l’amore fosse un peccato o un delitto, avremmo solo potuto obiettare che tu e Jade non eravate del tutto pronti per i piaceri della carne – ma come dirlo, data la folle invidia che provavamo per il vostro amore? Voi eravate l’incarnazione improvvisa di ogni nostra quasi dimenticata fantasticheria romantica; negare voi sarebbe stato come negare noi stessi."
Toccante e molto commovente.
Una lettura forte, dolorosa ed estremamente coinvolgente e che ti conduce in un luogo remoto e non sempre esplorato che delimita i confini di Amore e Follia.
David e Jade sedicenni si innamorano.
E detto così... nulla di più naturale.
Si amano, son giovani e spensierati... vien da dire: "Beati loro!"
E invece... questo amore non ha quasi nessuna caratteristica dell'amore giovanile.
È un amore esente da leggerezza e spensieratezza, si compone piuttosto di ossessione e dipendenza.
Un amore tossico, che come un incendio brucia, divora e risucchia tutti coloro che ne entrano in contatto.
È un amore che lascia in apnea. In carenza di ossigeno, tanta è la sua potenza, tanto è profondo, viscerale ...malato.
"Non saprò mai capire esattamente cosa mi provocava la vista del suo corpo, voglio dire che ancor oggi mi chiedo perché avesse l’effetto che aveva; e d’altra parte era così immancabilmente potente che pensavo (e lo penserò sempre) d’essere nato proprio per poterlo guardare, per guardarle il viso, la gola, il seno, i genitali e sentire un calore e un sollievo che nessun termine del mio vocabolario potrebbe anche solo tentare di descrivere"
Un racconto che raggiunge il suo acme nel capitolo 14. Magistrale la preparazione che ti traghetta lì. Difficile non cadere nel volgare o nel ridicolo quando si parla di sesso. Ecco, Spencer riesce molto bene: non solo è credibile ma riesce proprio ad emozionare.
Leggiamo... ed alternativamente siamo David, siamo Jade e siamo anche Ann, madre di Jade.
E come Ann annichiliti e impotenti testimoni di questo amore immenso che divora e non lascia pace, non possiamo che osservare:
"La verità è che nessuno aveva l’ardire di impedirvi d’essere tutto l’uno per l’altra, e l’energia del vostro rapporto era curiosamente schiacciante. Siccome non credevamo che fare l’amore fosse un peccato o un delitto, avremmo solo potuto obiettare che tu e Jade non eravate del tutto pronti per i piaceri della carne – ma come dirlo, data la folle invidia che provavamo per il vostro amore? Voi eravate l’incarnazione improvvisa di ogni nostra quasi dimenticata fantasticheria romantica; negare voi sarebbe stato come negare noi stessi."
Toccante e molto commovente.
Una lettura forte, dolorosa ed estremamente coinvolgente e che ti conduce in un luogo remoto e non sempre esplorato che delimita i confini di Amore e Follia.
May 23, 2023
Nell’agosto del 2015 scrivevo: Dopo aver letto Stoner di John Williams non speravo di imbattermi in un altro romanzo così intenso.
Sono stata smentita leggendolo.
Un amore senza fine, sospeso nel tempo, congelato nel profondo del cuore, perché la vita deve andare avanti, nonostante tutto; perché ci sono eventi che separano ineluttabilmente il destino di due persone che si amano e non si può più tornare indietro e non c'è più unione, resta solo un vortice di follia che potrebbe completamente risucchiare uno dei due amanti, a meno che non si decida di chiudere quella porta aperta su un passato che non può più tornare.
Il 9 maggio 2023, Sellerio riporta in libreria questo romanzo, nella nuova traduzione di Tommaso Pincio che lo rende ancora più bello! (Sapete quanto accolga con entusiasmo le nuove traduzioni!!!)
Un libro imprescindibile!
Sono stata smentita leggendolo.
Un amore senza fine, sospeso nel tempo, congelato nel profondo del cuore, perché la vita deve andare avanti, nonostante tutto; perché ci sono eventi che separano ineluttabilmente il destino di due persone che si amano e non si può più tornare indietro e non c'è più unione, resta solo un vortice di follia che potrebbe completamente risucchiare uno dei due amanti, a meno che non si decida di chiudere quella porta aperta su un passato che non può più tornare.
Il 9 maggio 2023, Sellerio riporta in libreria questo romanzo, nella nuova traduzione di Tommaso Pincio che lo rende ancora più bello! (Sapete quanto accolga con entusiasmo le nuove traduzioni!!!)
Un libro imprescindibile!
Read
July 27, 2020David and Jade, a young love, who has to overcome some hurdles and yet there is no happy ending. David commits a crime for Jade, which in turn puts him in a psychiatric hospital. When he is released, he tries everything to find Jade and her family again, only to end up in this hospital and in prison again. But the more Jade moves away from David, the greater his kind of love becomes. I expected more from this book as I read many reviews and was only raved about. It's interesting to read how this love develops and how far David goes, but it doesn't get more than interesting for me.
April 20, 2015
If endless love was a dream, then it was a dream we all shared - the dream of never dying or of travelling through time, and if anything set me apart it was not my impulses but my stubbornness, my willingness to take the dream past what had been agreed upon as the reasonable limits, to declare that this dream was not a feverish trick of the mind but was an actuality at least as real as that other, thinner, more unhappy illusion we call normal life.
David Axelrod's account of his passion for Jade Butterfield takes the form of a criminal confession, with the accused pleading his case before the jury formed by the reader. The analogy is reinforced by the opening scene of the novel, in which David describes how he set fire to the Butterfield mansion, in anger over being temporarily cast out from what he considered his Garden of Eden. The place is Chicago and the year 1967. The attenuating circumstances, in the accused opinion, are the refusal of the adults to accept the reality and the depth of his feelings, his upbringing in a Communist family and the lure of the liberal and anarchic Butterfields. I would add 'temporary insanity' to the plea, only the rest of the novel made me realize that David's condition is neither temporary, nor out of his control. His actions are deliberate, calculated to prove the whole world wrong in regards to his love. A reader more familiar with pathological conditions of the mind, might describe David as a psychopat or a schizophrenic, a case of multiple personality disorder. He refuses to accept reality and keeps tilting at windmills in order to change the facts to conform to his views. If people are hurt as a result of his actions, he considers it an accident or a conspiracy of Fate to keep him away from Jade.
All of us have two minds, a private one, which is usually strange, I guess, and symbolic, and a public one, a social one. Most of us stream back and forth between those two minds, drifting around in our private self and then coming forward into the public self whenever we need to. But sometimes you get a little slow making the transition, you drag out the private part of your life and people know you're doing it. They almost always catch on, knowing that someone is standing before them thinking about things that can't be shared, like the one monkey that knows where a freshwater pond is. And sometimes the public mind is such a total bummer and the private self is alive with beauty and danger and secrets and things that don't make any sense but that repeat and repeat and demand to be listened to, and you find it harder and harder to come forward. The pathway between those two states of mind suddenly seems very steep, a hell of a lot of work and not really worth it.
So, why should the reader feel sympathy for David Axelrod? Why is this story one of the best descriptions of love instead of a crime thriller? I think it boils down to either personal experience of personal yearning for a feeling as strong and true, as deep as David's love for Jade. We are either nostalgic for our first time experiencing the feeling of caring more about our partner than about ourselves, or are envious that it never got that strong in our lives. David's father confesses to this emotion in a dialogue with his son:
And you reminded me that I once had it and that I never felt so large and important as I did when being in love was everything. I saw you walking a foot above the earth and I remembered that was where I used to walk, for a few months.
Did I do crazy things myself when I was young and my head was filled with romantic poetry and movies like Love Story or Splendor in the Grass or Sweet Bird of Youth ? I didn't burn any house down, but yeah, I was acting impulsively and irrationally, and all I have left is the memory of flight, and a stack of letters:
Those letters were all that I had that wasn't invisible. They were the only tangible proof that once my heart had wings.
My mentioning of the movie titles is not accidental. I believe Scott Spencer has written as powerful an account of the power of love and of its destructive potential as Elia Kazan or Tennessee Williams. I still remember Chance Wayne and Heavenly up in the lighthouse room, discussing how there are only two types of people in the world: those who have fallen in love and those who nver experienced the feeling. Same with David and Jade, it is easy to judge him as a stalker and an egotist and her as weak and impressionable, but does that really make their passion untrue?
It's a once in a lifetime thing. I hate to think it but I bet it's true. It's too bad for us that our once in a lifetime happened when we were too young to handle it.
Speaking of passion, the novel steers closer to the pornographic than to the erotic in the detailed descriptions of the bedroom activities of the two lovers, so it might be a turn-off for some readers. It's again a matter of taste and personal experience and should not be a criteria of dismissing the story because some parts of it are too explicit.
Beside the romance between David and Jade, the novel does a decent job at analyzing love at a more mature age, both in the Axelrod and Butterfield families. Long repressed feelings and failures in communication lead to divorces. Neither the leftist insistence on traditional values, nor the permissive atitude and the drug experiments of the 'modern' family are sure recipes for success. Both sets of parents and siblings have to re-evaluate their relationship in the light of David's persistence.
The final rating is irrelevant for me - the point of the story being neither escapism nor tittilation of the senses, but a provocation to consider how far you are ready to go for an intangible concept that may be only in your imagination. It asks us to choose between a cynical or delusional vision of love. I didn't 'like' David or many of his choices, I thought he was too selfish and interested in self-gratification and too little concerned about other people's opinion or feelings. I didn't get the impression that David cared to listen much to Jade or cared about her misgivings. I also thought that David was too volatile, one moment cool and calculating, the other bursting into tears, but I believe this was a deliberate choice of the author.
What I did like is how the author has chosen to end the novel. What about the 'endless' in the title then? The only form of permanence, of fidelity, is to the memories of those times when you had wings:
I am standing on a long black stage, with a circle of light on me, which is my love for you, enduring.
May 28, 2007
I have always loved this book. A nice primer on love and sex. It's a great portrait of obsession. Mesmerizing prose.
I remember getting a scornful look from Mrs. Bendick for passing it around freshman English when we were supposed to be discussing the similarities/differences of "Romeo vs. Juliet" and "West Side Story." How could I not share that crazed, blood-soaked lovemaking scene with everyone? So much more interesting than Rita Moreno dancing on rooftops!
I try to read it every couple of years. I also try to avoid the movie (and that horrible song) every day of my life.
I remember getting a scornful look from Mrs. Bendick for passing it around freshman English when we were supposed to be discussing the similarities/differences of "Romeo vs. Juliet" and "West Side Story." How could I not share that crazed, blood-soaked lovemaking scene with everyone? So much more interesting than Rita Moreno dancing on rooftops!
I try to read it every couple of years. I also try to avoid the movie (and that horrible song) every day of my life.
September 12, 2011
As a constant reader, it’s always a magical moment when one particular book stands out from the rest. It happens every so often and it was certainly the case with Endless Love. It saddens me whenever I discover a book too many years too late. This book was published in 1979 and I probably would have been more shocked reading it during my younger years. I feel maybe I read it at the right time in my life. I'm still young enough to identify with this story, but old enough to be wise in seeing how young love can be misinterpreted and more than likely just lust mixed with infatuation. Although I can’t exactly relate to the thoughts of a desperately love sick 17 year old boy, this story was able to captivate me from start to finish. This goes beyond your average teenage love story. As the reader, I was able to delve into the mind of young David who is slowly going mad with his highly passionate love for Jade. What I found most endearing was he never made excuses for his feelings. He was obsessed, he knew it, and he just didn’t care how “wrong” society or outsiders viewed him. He seemed to be almost revel in his obsession. He believed he had found something special. Jade was his life. Her family was all he cared about. More than his own family. Anything else was an obstacle in his way of returning to them. What amazes me is how even though his actions were at times questionable and borderline stalker, I was able to walk away feeling sympathetic for David. He never had any ill intentions. He was not crazy to the point of harming anyone maliciously. He simply made mistakes without thinking clearly. He let his own emotions do the thinking for him and take over his logic. He’s made to deal with one miserable situation after another. Yet he moves forward with his one mind track of eventually getting back together with Jade. It was a times unrealistic and overly sentimental and dated, but it works. I was able to see every nook and cranny of David’s mind and come away rooting for him. Scott Spencer is able to write some very meaningful lines and thought provoking dialogue about people and their true hidden meanings and interactions. Yes the sex is over the top, but I think it had to be in order to show just how insanely wrapped up in Jade he was. There was no other way to get that point across. I often feel books like these should be read by the young crowd because it offers a disturbingly harsh look into the unhealthy mind. If parents are not watching out for their kids and they are left to completely consume their time with another this could very well happen. I think David’s mental illness stemmed from his dissatisfaction with his own family life and looking for a substitute family to adopt him and make him feel like he belonged. When that bond was rudely interrupted he simply could not bear it. Not for one day let alone thirty. Thus that one act of banishment from the household lead to a complicated mess of events and unintentional accidents which would forever change David’s life. This book made me feel, made me reflect on my own emotions, and made me really connect with the main protagonist. These are my utmost favorite types of books which are able to hit a nerve time and time again with each read. It’s a new favorite in my collection!
April 23, 2018
I finished this book only moments ago. It feels like I sustained some kind of wound. The emotional intensity, made more acute after (sometimes long) periods of lull, replicate exactly the mania of obsessiveness. I was drawn in by the prose, which was just this side of popular fiction, having heady ideas and great turns of phrase, artful syntax, but so readable with nothing to break the story's spell. I was drawn in and kept there by the emotion, emotion associated with the unbridled highs of youth, but also of the unique and peculiar powers of first love: love spurred on by discovery, by the daunting chemicals released in the brain in contact with that love. Scott Spencer gave such a variety of tone, too, that when we finally get to the ending pages--after a denouement and a steep despairing tumble down a psychic cliff--we are weakened into a state of receptivity, so that we are living the events in Rockville, in Fox Run, as David Axelrod adrift in a sea of pathos. Until we arrive at the closing paragraph, a perfect exeunt, showing not only his preoccupation with Jade Butterfield, but also with himself. I was really caught up in this one, and it is a good reminder of the power of emotional resonance in a book and its ability to shape ones waking life, and think, What would I sacrifice in pursuit of intensity?
June 7, 2025
La parte che ho preferito è quando ho chiuso il libro per non aprirlo mai più
November 23, 2014
Sometimes my desire to read trash is so strong it leads me down a path that is either good, bad or just plain awful. More often than not that path ends in bad and at times just plain awful. I have no clue as to what on earth possessed me to read Endless Love. One moment I'm reading a good book and then suddenly I think to myself "Hey, why not read Endless Love? It's been on your list of books to read since forever." I should have heeded the warning sign that this book was going to be a puddle of sticky dog doo after reading a piece on how Scott Spencer feels his novel is beyond reproach and that both film adaptations were pieces of trash that missed the point. Please, bitch, please. Mr. Spencer needs to have several seats because his novel is nothing more than a self indulgent love letter to the art of stalking and to its practitioners.
Our stalker, David, tells us his tale of woe, of how he was brought into the bosom of the Butterfield family then so coldly discarded, actually he was sent to banned camp for thirty days, but I guess thirty days in the life of a horny teenaged boy is a lifetime. David loves the Butterfields, he loves mama Butterfield, poppa Butterfield, older brother Butterfield and little brother Butterfield, but mainly he loves Jade Butterfield. He loves Jade Butterfield with a fiery passion, a passion so strong the two teens create their own little world and have marathon sex sessions, David can stay hard for hours on end as he tells it. Because of these every night all night long sex sessions, delicate snowflake Jade isn't getting enough sleep. Poppa Butterfield tells David to get lost for at least thirty days, well David thinks so much with his penis he gets the brilliant idea to start a fire so the family will have to leave the house and then be forced to talk to him. Too bad he choses the very night the Butterfield family decided to trip balls together. The Butterfield parents are very permissive open minded parents of the late sixties, they allow their daughter to have sex in the house with her nearly live in boyfriend, they smoke marijuana and drop acid together all the while taking in a collection of freaks and granola munchers to gawk at and possibly learn from, or something "progressive" and "enlightened" like that.
Like the whinging self involved moron that he is, David readily confesses to his crime in a bid for redemption. Instead of redemption, he gets institutionalized. Thus begins his incessant crying and moaning and ruminating thoughts about the Butterfields, Jade, his sex life with Jade and his need to belong to the Butterfield family. Poor David never knew that a family could be so close and loving because his parents, mainly his mother, are self possessed cold ex communists. They may have quit the party, but the party never quit them.
Upon his release from the hospital David only has one thought and that's to find his letters to and from Jade. Day and night and night day this is all he thinks about. When he finally gets a job enrolls in college and gets his own apartment he then only thinks about finding the Butterfield family. He searches in every phonebook in the country for Butterfields until he finds one then he skips parole to visit mama Butterfield. Mama Butterfield has divorced poppa Butterfield and embraced her inner cougar. She tells David that everyone in the family thinks that they were lovers so why not prove them all right? Of course he rejects her advances because he's saving himself for Jade. During his stay in mama Butterfield's city, poppa Butterfield sees David crossing the street, this makes poppa run after him causing him to be hit by a car. Somehow this is David's fault, I don't know how that is, but later in the story the blame is put squarely on his shoulders even though poppa Butterfield was crossing against traffic in order to get his hands onto David.
What follows is a reunion with the Butterfields to mourn their fallen patriarch, David finally meets up with Jade and then a long very detailed blood drenched fuck fest takes place. Reunited and it feels so good then secrets are revealed and then it all falls apart then an arrest is made and then punishment resumes. After years of sexual fidelity David decides that sexual healing is what he needs after learning that Jade has married some French guy.
This story is not romantic, it's creepy and gross. David is a creep, the Butterfield parents are just awful. What kind of parents let their children drop acid with them and let their underage daughter have sex with her underage boyfriend in their home? I don't care if this took place in the late sixties, bad parenting is bad parenting. David alludes to some kind of inappropriate incesty type relationship between Jade and her older brother Keith, their mother Anne alludes to the fact that her husband Hugh may have had some incestuous feelings for Jade and Anne admits she could only get off with her husband after watching Jade and David have sex. The characters are just flat out unlikeable. Anne is some kind of pompous cougar who harbors a desire for David and writes long winded wordy to the point that they make no sense letters, Jade is a slutty harpy faux lesbian tease and David is just all sorts of awful and creepy. And clocking in at over four hundred pages, it truly feels endless. But you don't feel endless love for this story or it's characters, you feel endless annoyance and a wish that they all died in the fire at the beginning.
Our stalker, David, tells us his tale of woe, of how he was brought into the bosom of the Butterfield family then so coldly discarded, actually he was sent to banned camp for thirty days, but I guess thirty days in the life of a horny teenaged boy is a lifetime. David loves the Butterfields, he loves mama Butterfield, poppa Butterfield, older brother Butterfield and little brother Butterfield, but mainly he loves Jade Butterfield. He loves Jade Butterfield with a fiery passion, a passion so strong the two teens create their own little world and have marathon sex sessions, David can stay hard for hours on end as he tells it. Because of these every night all night long sex sessions, delicate snowflake Jade isn't getting enough sleep. Poppa Butterfield tells David to get lost for at least thirty days, well David thinks so much with his penis he gets the brilliant idea to start a fire so the family will have to leave the house and then be forced to talk to him. Too bad he choses the very night the Butterfield family decided to trip balls together. The Butterfield parents are very permissive open minded parents of the late sixties, they allow their daughter to have sex in the house with her nearly live in boyfriend, they smoke marijuana and drop acid together all the while taking in a collection of freaks and granola munchers to gawk at and possibly learn from, or something "progressive" and "enlightened" like that.
Like the whinging self involved moron that he is, David readily confesses to his crime in a bid for redemption. Instead of redemption, he gets institutionalized. Thus begins his incessant crying and moaning and ruminating thoughts about the Butterfields, Jade, his sex life with Jade and his need to belong to the Butterfield family. Poor David never knew that a family could be so close and loving because his parents, mainly his mother, are self possessed cold ex communists. They may have quit the party, but the party never quit them.
Upon his release from the hospital David only has one thought and that's to find his letters to and from Jade. Day and night and night day this is all he thinks about. When he finally gets a job enrolls in college and gets his own apartment he then only thinks about finding the Butterfield family. He searches in every phonebook in the country for Butterfields until he finds one then he skips parole to visit mama Butterfield. Mama Butterfield has divorced poppa Butterfield and embraced her inner cougar. She tells David that everyone in the family thinks that they were lovers so why not prove them all right? Of course he rejects her advances because he's saving himself for Jade. During his stay in mama Butterfield's city, poppa Butterfield sees David crossing the street, this makes poppa run after him causing him to be hit by a car. Somehow this is David's fault, I don't know how that is, but later in the story the blame is put squarely on his shoulders even though poppa Butterfield was crossing against traffic in order to get his hands onto David.
What follows is a reunion with the Butterfields to mourn their fallen patriarch, David finally meets up with Jade and then a long very detailed blood drenched fuck fest takes place. Reunited and it feels so good then secrets are revealed and then it all falls apart then an arrest is made and then punishment resumes. After years of sexual fidelity David decides that sexual healing is what he needs after learning that Jade has married some French guy.
This story is not romantic, it's creepy and gross. David is a creep, the Butterfield parents are just awful. What kind of parents let their children drop acid with them and let their underage daughter have sex with her underage boyfriend in their home? I don't care if this took place in the late sixties, bad parenting is bad parenting. David alludes to some kind of inappropriate incesty type relationship between Jade and her older brother Keith, their mother Anne alludes to the fact that her husband Hugh may have had some incestuous feelings for Jade and Anne admits she could only get off with her husband after watching Jade and David have sex. The characters are just flat out unlikeable. Anne is some kind of pompous cougar who harbors a desire for David and writes long winded wordy to the point that they make no sense letters, Jade is a slutty harpy faux lesbian tease and David is just all sorts of awful and creepy. And clocking in at over four hundred pages, it truly feels endless. But you don't feel endless love for this story or it's characters, you feel endless annoyance and a wish that they all died in the fire at the beginning.
August 14, 2020
Absolutely a literary masterpiece, written with precision and pure talent by an author who defies description, a writer who can create character, thought, situation, depth, and who has a true sense of time and place. And above all, he can create passion. He opens the door and lets us "live" that passion, along with David. This is an unusual love story, and it will capture the reader who is tenacious enough to hold on through some very heavy (long and wordy) passages. I was engaged in the author's deep tale of obsessive love.
August 25, 2007
Heartbreaking. I expected a lightweight story of teenage love; instead, I read a dark tale of delirium and reckless obsession.
April 20, 2018
Quanto mi è piaciuto, quanto mi sono sentita risucchiata dalla storia, tirata dentro per i capelli, coinvolta dalla vicenda dell’amore adolescenziale di David per Jade, un amore che si trasforma in un folle motivo di vita che trascina David in un baratro di azioni drammatiche, distruttive ed autodistruttive, negli USA yuppie, psichedelici e alternativi a cavallo degli anni Settanta.
Più di tutto ho amato la fisicità con cui è scritto il testo: sono continui i riferimenti al corpo, a come il corpo incarni l’emozione. L’autore plasma le emozioni nei corpi dei personaggi come uno scultore, non le descrive, le scolpisce nelle loro viscere. E il lettore le sente vibrare nelle proprie. Non mi ricordo di aver mai apprezzato le scene di sesso in un romanzo: o mi hanno lasciato indifferenti o le ho trovate inopportune. L’incontro fisico di David e Jade dopo anni di separazione è bellissimo, coinvolgente, raccontato in modo superbo perché l’autore entra quasi nell’anatomia dell’amore, nel suo essere inseparabile da carne, nervi, muscoli, umori fisici, volontà totale di sconfinare nel corpo dell’amato. Il racconto non sfugge mai di mano a Spencer: l’ossessione amorosa è raccontata nelle sue dinamiche, prive di senso di realtà, ma con una loro propria coerenza; la lingua e il pensiero di David, che è la voce narrante del romanzo, sono capaci di rappresentare soggettivamente il mondo interiore di questo giovane troppo innamorato, troppo ingenuo, troppo sconvolto da una specie di follia che rimane tuttavia sempre internamente lucida; coerente l’autore nel mantenere il focus incentrato sulle emozioni piuttosto che eccedere nell’intreccio narrativo; infine credibili i suoi eccentrici personaggi, nel contesto degli anni Settanta.
Insomma mi è piaciuto tantissimo e mi è parso anche che la scrittura sia all’altezza di un romanzo che ambisce a dare corpo all’amore come illusoria aspirazione all’assoluto.
Più di tutto ho amato la fisicità con cui è scritto il testo: sono continui i riferimenti al corpo, a come il corpo incarni l’emozione. L’autore plasma le emozioni nei corpi dei personaggi come uno scultore, non le descrive, le scolpisce nelle loro viscere. E il lettore le sente vibrare nelle proprie. Non mi ricordo di aver mai apprezzato le scene di sesso in un romanzo: o mi hanno lasciato indifferenti o le ho trovate inopportune. L’incontro fisico di David e Jade dopo anni di separazione è bellissimo, coinvolgente, raccontato in modo superbo perché l’autore entra quasi nell’anatomia dell’amore, nel suo essere inseparabile da carne, nervi, muscoli, umori fisici, volontà totale di sconfinare nel corpo dell’amato. Il racconto non sfugge mai di mano a Spencer: l’ossessione amorosa è raccontata nelle sue dinamiche, prive di senso di realtà, ma con una loro propria coerenza; la lingua e il pensiero di David, che è la voce narrante del romanzo, sono capaci di rappresentare soggettivamente il mondo interiore di questo giovane troppo innamorato, troppo ingenuo, troppo sconvolto da una specie di follia che rimane tuttavia sempre internamente lucida; coerente l’autore nel mantenere il focus incentrato sulle emozioni piuttosto che eccedere nell’intreccio narrativo; infine credibili i suoi eccentrici personaggi, nel contesto degli anni Settanta.
Insomma mi è piaciuto tantissimo e mi è parso anche che la scrittura sia all’altezza di un romanzo che ambisce a dare corpo all’amore come illusoria aspirazione all’assoluto.
February 12, 2024
Now when I pick up this book, I notice an awkward sentence, an odd rhetorical decision that wasn't visible to me in 1982, but still I admire everything about this bighearted book.
Read this, and if you can, recommend other books that evoke the obsessive nature of first love so powerfully or seem to understand how dangerous it can be when you've never wanted anything in your life as much, and you feel out of control, off balance, and utterly devoted.
Read this, and if you can, recommend other books that evoke the obsessive nature of first love so powerfully or seem to understand how dangerous it can be when you've never wanted anything in your life as much, and you feel out of control, off balance, and utterly devoted.
August 19, 2017
"Allora capii che ero entrato a far parte della vasta comunità dei condannati, uomini e donne: l'amore s'era contorto in me precipitandomi in un caos".
Il lungo racconto di questo amore e delle sue infauste conseguenze viene narrato dal protagonista, David, e inizia con una distruzione, compiuta attraverso l'ineluttabile simbolo della passione: il fuoco. Fuoco che arde e si diffonde, fuoco che si autoalimenta e si dirama, incessante, fuoco che divampa e tutto brucia, tutto spazza via.
È la storia della passione di David e di Jade, passione straripante e esclusiva, passione distruttiva verso tutto ciò che le è estraneo, passione che traccia un cerchio, un cerchio di fuoco appunto, intorno a sé. Chi l'oltrepassa muore.
Scott Spencer riesce a scrivere il diario, lucido e insieme allucinato, di questa follia, passando attraverso la percezione e i sensi acutizzati di David, in modo che non possiamo evitare di esserne toccati, quasi involti, non possiamo evitare di tremare per come David segue fatalmente e va disegnando con meticoloso istinto suicida il proprio destino di falled in love.
"Ma se mi fossi distolto dall'amore, se l'avessi tenuto a bada facendo ciò che mi veniva richiesto, quali compagni di viaggio mi sarebbero rimasti?" si chiede giustamente David. Perché solo l'amore senza fine è un'esperienza universale, trasversale a ogni luogo e a ogni tempo...mentre tutto il resto cambia e trascorre, passa e se ne va.
Il lungo racconto di questo amore e delle sue infauste conseguenze viene narrato dal protagonista, David, e inizia con una distruzione, compiuta attraverso l'ineluttabile simbolo della passione: il fuoco. Fuoco che arde e si diffonde, fuoco che si autoalimenta e si dirama, incessante, fuoco che divampa e tutto brucia, tutto spazza via.
È la storia della passione di David e di Jade, passione straripante e esclusiva, passione distruttiva verso tutto ciò che le è estraneo, passione che traccia un cerchio, un cerchio di fuoco appunto, intorno a sé. Chi l'oltrepassa muore.
Scott Spencer riesce a scrivere il diario, lucido e insieme allucinato, di questa follia, passando attraverso la percezione e i sensi acutizzati di David, in modo che non possiamo evitare di esserne toccati, quasi involti, non possiamo evitare di tremare per come David segue fatalmente e va disegnando con meticoloso istinto suicida il proprio destino di falled in love.
"Ma se mi fossi distolto dall'amore, se l'avessi tenuto a bada facendo ciò che mi veniva richiesto, quali compagni di viaggio mi sarebbero rimasti?" si chiede giustamente David. Perché solo l'amore senza fine è un'esperienza universale, trasversale a ogni luogo e a ogni tempo...mentre tutto il resto cambia e trascorre, passa e se ne va.
August 5, 2023
Un amore senza fine o un’ossessione senza fine?
David Axelrod, 17 anni compiuti, decide di appiccare il fuoco sulla veranda della casa di Jade Butterfield, l’amore della sua (breve) vita, per attirare l’attenzione della famiglia, che aveva deciso di allontanarlo (momentaneamente, così sembra) dalla ragazza.
Inizia da qui la storia dell’ossessione amorosa di David, che non si fermerà davanti al divieto della libertà condizionale per ritrovare Jade, l’oggetto dei suoi desideri più reconditi.
Spencer racconta una storia pregna di determinazione, erotismo, sogni sognati e infranti, che ci trasporta direttamente nell’interminabile flusso vorticoso dei pensieri di David.
Ti divora, ti distrugge, ti lascia in mezzo alle macerie, ti risolleva dall’oblio e ti conduce alle porte del Paradiso, per poi spingerti di nuovo giù nell’Abisso: è questo il turbinio di emozioni che ho provato leggendo questo romanzo ed è esattamente quello che il sentimento dell’Amore ha fatto con me nel corso della mia esistenza.
David Axelrod, 17 anni compiuti, decide di appiccare il fuoco sulla veranda della casa di Jade Butterfield, l’amore della sua (breve) vita, per attirare l’attenzione della famiglia, che aveva deciso di allontanarlo (momentaneamente, così sembra) dalla ragazza.
Inizia da qui la storia dell’ossessione amorosa di David, che non si fermerà davanti al divieto della libertà condizionale per ritrovare Jade, l’oggetto dei suoi desideri più reconditi.
Spencer racconta una storia pregna di determinazione, erotismo, sogni sognati e infranti, che ci trasporta direttamente nell’interminabile flusso vorticoso dei pensieri di David.
Ti divora, ti distrugge, ti lascia in mezzo alle macerie, ti risolleva dall’oblio e ti conduce alle porte del Paradiso, per poi spingerti di nuovo giù nell’Abisso: è questo il turbinio di emozioni che ho provato leggendo questo romanzo ed è esattamente quello che il sentimento dell’Amore ha fatto con me nel corso della mia esistenza.
May 18, 2022
I can't help but feel I might have given this a 5 star rating had I been the same age as the smitten narrator. If only it was that easy to awaken the 17-year-old teenager I once was. Having said that, I was still impressed in the way love is depicted here; from heavely passion and desire to harrowing pain and obsession. Yes, it is so true, love can be just as much about pain as it is pleasure - more so seeing as Jade's parents forbid their daughter from seeing him, and David's love is something that devours him wholly; even cutting himself off from society and family, and pushing him into a narcissistic state. When you think there are an endless amount of romantic novels out there that are complete and utter trash, this book looks like a masterpiece compared to them. True to the title, this really does create the sense that love is believably endless for the lover towards his beloved. Despite the age difference - I could quite easily be his father - I was in his corner all the way, as one might back a hero going into battle. One thing I will say, looking back now, is that I can't think of many other novels where you aren't even pondering on its prose style and quality of writing because you are so wrapped up in someone else's love that you don't even notice. As for the sex, well, if that's what you're after, then it won't disappoint. 3.5 stars.
February 25, 2011
Favorite quotes from Endless Love:
"I was totally victimized by the irrational navigation of my unconscious."
"I was, I knew then, a member of a vast network of condemned men and women: romance had taken a wrong turn within me and led me into mayhem."
My Two Cents: This is a classic book which has been reviewed by hundreds, if not thousands of readers and admired by the most credible book reviewers and magazines. So, instead of composing a traditional review, I'm choosing to blog about the impression that Endless Love made on me. I agree with the authors of "Read This Next," and recommend that everyone add this book to their "to-be-reads before I die list." Spencer smashes recent love stories making them look like romantic light and as shallow as a puddle in Arizona. The deeply passionate journey of David Axelrod epitomizes love at its most intense and insane. The descriptions grip at your guts and tingle all the way down through your toes. It's not an easy read, but the humanity and truthfulness of intimacy is so honest that it borders on perfection. Spencer is a master at constructing a genuine love scene with a rawness and tenderness that makes the heart ache with both madness and astonishment.
"I was totally victimized by the irrational navigation of my unconscious."
"I was, I knew then, a member of a vast network of condemned men and women: romance had taken a wrong turn within me and led me into mayhem."
My Two Cents: This is a classic book which has been reviewed by hundreds, if not thousands of readers and admired by the most credible book reviewers and magazines. So, instead of composing a traditional review, I'm choosing to blog about the impression that Endless Love made on me. I agree with the authors of "Read This Next," and recommend that everyone add this book to their "to-be-reads before I die list." Spencer smashes recent love stories making them look like romantic light and as shallow as a puddle in Arizona. The deeply passionate journey of David Axelrod epitomizes love at its most intense and insane. The descriptions grip at your guts and tingle all the way down through your toes. It's not an easy read, but the humanity and truthfulness of intimacy is so honest that it borders on perfection. Spencer is a master at constructing a genuine love scene with a rawness and tenderness that makes the heart ache with both madness and astonishment.
January 4, 2009
I read this book twice and each time it has gotten better. My ex tells me it is newer version of Wuthering Heights which is a book we both admire, I strongly disagree while conceding she does have a point. Jade is the love of David's life and losing her will cause him to burn down her house, and that is just the beginning of this wonderful book. Is it love or obession, what is the difference? Why is it that everyone connected to this sees it as something that dramatically changes their lives, but for David his love for Jade sends him to an insane asylum, and not just once. She even has to have him put out so he can be locked up. The Brooke Shields movie was supposedly based on this, and I think we can safely say that they didn't read this book. Like Wuthering Heights, this is an anti love story where passion becomes a deathbringer that causes nothing but destruction in its wake. This is great book from a wonderful author.
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