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Labyrinth of Desire : Women, Passion, and Romantic Obsession
"A beautifully woven tapestry of insightful corollaries and personal stories, offering fresh conjectures into the psyches of women and men in love." -- Elle Think of torch songs and the tango. Think of films such as Casablanca and The English Patient , of novels such as Wuthering Heights and Rebecca . Think of romantic, obsessive love, the hot bed of passion we fall into, the emotion we call true love. This is the subject of Rosemary Sullivan's provocative and fascinating book. Beginning with her own telling of a fictional love story, she then, chapter by chapter, deconstructs it, skillfully pushing back the layers of meaning to look at what is really happening. Using literature, mythology, film, and personal anecdote; with graceful writing and an intimate knowledge of the subject, Rosemary Sullivan has written a brilliant exploration of our desire for romantic love as she attempts to answer the question, Why do women love as they do?
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First published February 1, 2002
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About the author
Rosemary Sullivan
44 books201 followersRosemary Sullivan is a Canadian poet, biographer, and anthologist. She is also a professor emerita at University of Toronto.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
June 25, 2023
I have come to believe that falling obsessively in love is one of life's necessary assignments. It cracks us open....In the process we discover the dimensions of our own appetites and desires And life, to be lived fully, demands desire....it is not a place to get stuck and is never a solution. p4
Love is dangerous for women when it must be managed as a performance. Ironically, it's the persistence of the fantasy of eternal love that undermines the improvisation needed to sustain a loving relationship. p149
Rosemary Sullivan deconstructs romantic obsession in this short, compulsively readable exploration of this persistent folly.
Perhaps all romantic love is the search for a defense against emptiness. p88
How ready our conscious minds are to deceive us, to hold on to our illusions. p100
She starts out by telling a story. It's generic, but intimate. Drawing on her extensive network of colleagues and friends and with her trademark thorough research, she does not take refuge in theory. And though her perspective is heterosexual, it can be read otherwise.
If she didn't get the man, she got to write the book. p79
July 27, 2010
What an amazing little gem. The idea behind the book is so refreshing and honest that it's hard to not like it.
The author wrote a short love story. Then, in subsequent chapters, dissected each stage of the love story, and discussed why the female subject narrating the story was feeling the way she was feeling, the loss of a short-lived but high octane love affair.
First of all, what an interesting concept: that various stages of loved affairs bordering on (or based on) obsession follow formulas based on celluloid boilerplates that NEVER end well. That the author basically psychoanalyzed each stage of the "falling in love" followed by the destructive ending of a love affair, and surmised that, hey, it's all in our heads, is such a liberating concept that I just sat up and asked myself whether being miserable after a breakup is necessary!
A favorite passage was: "Life is mysterious. And difficult. We need a clear-eyed awareness of the illusions by which we live. We need the resilience to survive the continuous shattering of our fondest ideas of ourselves. But if there is anything that makes life exciting, it's the sense of inquiry, the ongoing discovery. In exhilerating flashes, we see, if only for moments, what it is we're up to.
The author wrote a short love story. Then, in subsequent chapters, dissected each stage of the love story, and discussed why the female subject narrating the story was feeling the way she was feeling, the loss of a short-lived but high octane love affair.
First of all, what an interesting concept: that various stages of loved affairs bordering on (or based on) obsession follow formulas based on celluloid boilerplates that NEVER end well. That the author basically psychoanalyzed each stage of the "falling in love" followed by the destructive ending of a love affair, and surmised that, hey, it's all in our heads, is such a liberating concept that I just sat up and asked myself whether being miserable after a breakup is necessary!
A favorite passage was: "Life is mysterious. And difficult. We need a clear-eyed awareness of the illusions by which we live. We need the resilience to survive the continuous shattering of our fondest ideas of ourselves. But if there is anything that makes life exciting, it's the sense of inquiry, the ongoing discovery. In exhilerating flashes, we see, if only for moments, what it is we're up to.
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May 17, 2021Obsessive love. It's been an, er, obsession of mine for years. Why do we fall so hard? What does it mean to lose control so profoundly? And when it inevitably end, what have we lost? Or gained? Does it build character? Or cause irreparable damage?
I found clues to all this and so much more in Sullivan's beautifully researched and compellingly told book on Women, Passion and Romantic Obsession. I understand now, but I'm not sure I like the idea of it: the addictive quality and loss of self (respect). Mind you, I see I'm in good company: Simone de Beauvoir, Frida, Elizabeth Smart etc. etc. They made art of it, so something was gained. But lost too: promise, freedom, self-determination and even life itself.
The Quill & Quire review opines that "Sullivan suggests the crushed, empty-hearted end of obsession can bring something new: after the realization that the obsession’s object was a stranger onto whom a woman painted her own possibilities and desires, may come a determination to pursue them on her own behalf." Perhaps.
At any rate, there is much to be gleaned from this fascinating book.
A few bon mots:
"I have come to believe that falling obsessively in love is one of life's necessary assignments. It cracks us open. We put everything at risk. In the process we discover the dimensions of our own appetites and desires. And life, to be lived fully, demands desire. The experience is rally an initiation, a process of transition, it is not a place to get stuck and is never a life solution." p 4-5
"We women are love addicts." p 23 (enough said)
"And when the experience is devastating enough, it can be deeply damaging. Resolving never to be hurt like this again, a person can seal over, shut down, and some capacity for love and trust will die." p 26
Preconditions for falling love: "But the kind of obsession that rushes in like a firestorm usually occurs either when we are young and want to get our lives started or when our lives get stuck and we need to jump-start them again. We are rarely self-aware enough to realize how we participate in our own fantasies or to decipher the roles we play. And so of course we do not always recognize when we are searching for our invented lover." p 27
Trajectory: "Most of the great love stories about adulterous passion. ...there is a profound impediment that keeps the lovers apart and heightens the intensity and price of passion. Without obstacles there can be no obsession. ... Love will crack her open, will be the route to feeling those large emotions that lay as yet untouched. But it is dangerous because once those emotions are unleashed, everything changes. There is no going back." p 29
"Were it merely a romantic interlude she wanted, she could be light-hearted. there would be no obsession. But she needs to fill an emptiness, a sense of radical insufficiency within. She is desperate to get her life started. She is really searching for herself." p 30
"Love is a necessary obsession. But is it another we are searching for, or the missing half of ourselves?" p. 39.
Role of muse: "eventually, however, you discover that you have nurtured in another what you should have nurtured in yourself and you are left empty. Even damaged. Bending your will to his, you lose your own passions and dreams." p 48
"In the state of desire the mind dissolves and the body focuses. ... And from that moment we hungered for the body's electric connections. Sex fires the nerve endings. Not much in our world is as intense as this flash point of physical pleasure. But sex as a physical act is merely athletics, a momentary relief. What it needs to be powerful is desire, and the strongest element of desire is longing." p 58
"Men must not think that all they need to do is open up and vulnerable to get the woman of their dreams. Often, the intimacy women are falling for, the confessions of vulnerability they seek, are paradoxical. They must be perceived to be offered from strength -- his strong enough to be vulnerable.... A woman doesn't fall in love with a man's need. She falls in love with his need for her." p 86
"perhaps all romantic love is the search for a defense against emptiness. And perhaps the more desperate the search, the more obsessive the love." p 88
"To fear being alone is natural. We need intimates, not least to help us discover ourselves. But some of us are more needy than others. ... It's love that bring us, if only briefly, a sense of being not separate, of being matched, mirrored met. ... The mirroring effects of love allow us to see ourselves as our lovers see us. We fall in love with out lover's version of us. ... And when love dissolves, we are sent reeling. We no longer amaze and enthrall ourselves, and it breaks our hearts." p 89/90
Jealousy "...is particularly exaggerated when a relationship is imbalanced, and the assurance of love one needs and has a right to expect from the lover isn't forthcoming." p 114
"But the quality of seductress that is irresistible to men is her combination of vulnerability and willfulness. She has a passionate energy, an infectious appetite for live... but she trades on her helplessness. Probably men are flattered but not fooled." p 119
"...at some point most of us play at erotic games of seduction and many of us are even promiscuous. But the game of sexual conquest can still involve a cautionary tale. To play at sex hardens the heart. Why can't I meet anyone who feels anything? we say. Why can't I meet anyone who responds? Yet sometimes wheat we are meaning is the exact opposite: Why can't I let myself go, and love?" p 121
"One thing is certain. When overwhelmed by obsessive love, we are hooked on the drama of intensity. Later, though, as boredom and familiarity grow, the word passion too often reverts to its root meaning, suffering." p 124
"...mean get their power from possessing and women from being possessed. ... That's why when it breaks up, he says: 'How dare you leave me,' while she things, 'What did I do wrong?'" p 126
"We have handed over our entire sense of ourselves to someone else. We have let their belief in us or disapproval of us overwhelm our own feelings of worthiness. Then love is brutally ripped away. No wonder we feel lost. but there is something of great importance to be learned. We are not destroyed." p 150
"The end of a love affair is bitter. We feel as though life itself has failed us.... Such emotional pain plunges one to the bottom of one's own need, which is the first necessary step in the construction of the compassionate self." p 162
A year of loneliness: "slowly and painfully, I discovered the word tolerance. I had to tolerate the act that life had other plans for me. .... I had to give up the willful fantasy not only that I could control another person but even, that I could control my own life. Obsessive love is a training ground." 163/4
"When obsessive passion is over and projections are ripped away, the person standing there is almost always a stranger. For romantic love is projection--projection of all that is more dramatic, indeed lovely, and unclaimable in the self. ... But never say the love affair was trivial. It will always be one of the most important experiences of your life. This is how we learn the dimensions of our own desire." p 164
I found clues to all this and so much more in Sullivan's beautifully researched and compellingly told book on Women, Passion and Romantic Obsession. I understand now, but I'm not sure I like the idea of it: the addictive quality and loss of self (respect). Mind you, I see I'm in good company: Simone de Beauvoir, Frida, Elizabeth Smart etc. etc. They made art of it, so something was gained. But lost too: promise, freedom, self-determination and even life itself.
The Quill & Quire review opines that "Sullivan suggests the crushed, empty-hearted end of obsession can bring something new: after the realization that the obsession’s object was a stranger onto whom a woman painted her own possibilities and desires, may come a determination to pursue them on her own behalf." Perhaps.
At any rate, there is much to be gleaned from this fascinating book.
A few bon mots:
"I have come to believe that falling obsessively in love is one of life's necessary assignments. It cracks us open. We put everything at risk. In the process we discover the dimensions of our own appetites and desires. And life, to be lived fully, demands desire. The experience is rally an initiation, a process of transition, it is not a place to get stuck and is never a life solution." p 4-5
"We women are love addicts." p 23 (enough said)
"And when the experience is devastating enough, it can be deeply damaging. Resolving never to be hurt like this again, a person can seal over, shut down, and some capacity for love and trust will die." p 26
Preconditions for falling love: "But the kind of obsession that rushes in like a firestorm usually occurs either when we are young and want to get our lives started or when our lives get stuck and we need to jump-start them again. We are rarely self-aware enough to realize how we participate in our own fantasies or to decipher the roles we play. And so of course we do not always recognize when we are searching for our invented lover." p 27
Trajectory: "Most of the great love stories about adulterous passion. ...there is a profound impediment that keeps the lovers apart and heightens the intensity and price of passion. Without obstacles there can be no obsession. ... Love will crack her open, will be the route to feeling those large emotions that lay as yet untouched. But it is dangerous because once those emotions are unleashed, everything changes. There is no going back." p 29
"Were it merely a romantic interlude she wanted, she could be light-hearted. there would be no obsession. But she needs to fill an emptiness, a sense of radical insufficiency within. She is desperate to get her life started. She is really searching for herself." p 30
"Love is a necessary obsession. But is it another we are searching for, or the missing half of ourselves?" p. 39.
Role of muse: "eventually, however, you discover that you have nurtured in another what you should have nurtured in yourself and you are left empty. Even damaged. Bending your will to his, you lose your own passions and dreams." p 48
"In the state of desire the mind dissolves and the body focuses. ... And from that moment we hungered for the body's electric connections. Sex fires the nerve endings. Not much in our world is as intense as this flash point of physical pleasure. But sex as a physical act is merely athletics, a momentary relief. What it needs to be powerful is desire, and the strongest element of desire is longing." p 58
"Men must not think that all they need to do is open up and vulnerable to get the woman of their dreams. Often, the intimacy women are falling for, the confessions of vulnerability they seek, are paradoxical. They must be perceived to be offered from strength -- his strong enough to be vulnerable.... A woman doesn't fall in love with a man's need. She falls in love with his need for her." p 86
"perhaps all romantic love is the search for a defense against emptiness. And perhaps the more desperate the search, the more obsessive the love." p 88
"To fear being alone is natural. We need intimates, not least to help us discover ourselves. But some of us are more needy than others. ... It's love that bring us, if only briefly, a sense of being not separate, of being matched, mirrored met. ... The mirroring effects of love allow us to see ourselves as our lovers see us. We fall in love with out lover's version of us. ... And when love dissolves, we are sent reeling. We no longer amaze and enthrall ourselves, and it breaks our hearts." p 89/90
Jealousy "...is particularly exaggerated when a relationship is imbalanced, and the assurance of love one needs and has a right to expect from the lover isn't forthcoming." p 114
"But the quality of seductress that is irresistible to men is her combination of vulnerability and willfulness. She has a passionate energy, an infectious appetite for live... but she trades on her helplessness. Probably men are flattered but not fooled." p 119
"...at some point most of us play at erotic games of seduction and many of us are even promiscuous. But the game of sexual conquest can still involve a cautionary tale. To play at sex hardens the heart. Why can't I meet anyone who feels anything? we say. Why can't I meet anyone who responds? Yet sometimes wheat we are meaning is the exact opposite: Why can't I let myself go, and love?" p 121
"One thing is certain. When overwhelmed by obsessive love, we are hooked on the drama of intensity. Later, though, as boredom and familiarity grow, the word passion too often reverts to its root meaning, suffering." p 124
"...mean get their power from possessing and women from being possessed. ... That's why when it breaks up, he says: 'How dare you leave me,' while she things, 'What did I do wrong?'" p 126
"We have handed over our entire sense of ourselves to someone else. We have let their belief in us or disapproval of us overwhelm our own feelings of worthiness. Then love is brutally ripped away. No wonder we feel lost. but there is something of great importance to be learned. We are not destroyed." p 150
"The end of a love affair is bitter. We feel as though life itself has failed us.... Such emotional pain plunges one to the bottom of one's own need, which is the first necessary step in the construction of the compassionate self." p 162
A year of loneliness: "slowly and painfully, I discovered the word tolerance. I had to tolerate the act that life had other plans for me. .... I had to give up the willful fantasy not only that I could control another person but even, that I could control my own life. Obsessive love is a training ground." 163/4
"When obsessive passion is over and projections are ripped away, the person standing there is almost always a stranger. For romantic love is projection--projection of all that is more dramatic, indeed lovely, and unclaimable in the self. ... But never say the love affair was trivial. It will always be one of the most important experiences of your life. This is how we learn the dimensions of our own desire." p 164
July 3, 2018
reminiscent of anne carson's eros the bittersweet (& by the same token a cousin to a lovers discourse) in that it primarily consists in a compendium of short fragments claiming to be love's idiom (chapter titles include "tantalus love," "erotic diabolism,""self portrait with mirrors" and they rarely exceed 10 pages). sullivan opens with a short love story; each subsequent chapter bases its analysis (or meditation?) on a quote therefrom. i read the book in one sitting, i think bc a lot of it i felt like i already knew...it was kind of a mélange of i knew that about love and i didn't need you to tell me, i knew that about love but i am grateful for your giving it expression, and i don't think that's how it works, rosemary. that last one sort of gathered steam by the end of the book; i found her conclusions on the sweeping and saccharine side of things. but i did like it. it's thought-provoking and sullivan has this likeable warm confidence. it does read a bit like a lesson from the mature author to me the immature reader (or poss. sullivan to her earlier self), but i felt like she was making an earnest attempt to share with me the fruits of her experience, so i wasn't mad about it.
February 27, 2018
This is a difficult book for me to summarize or review. It is short and sucked me in to read every page. I nodded along with many of her observations of love and relationships as I recognized myself and my friends many times over.
August 4, 2018
This book makes some decent points about obsessive love and the illusions that sustain it but not in a very literary way. Proust makes the same points in a way that slays me. This book just makes me nod like a boring lecture.
January 12, 2024
Una reflexión excelente sobre la obsesión romántica y los patrones culturales cargados de la hegemonía patriarcal que dirigen hacia una concepción del amor desde la posesión, la evasión y la dependencia. En el cierre faltaron propuestas menos escuetas para la transformación.
October 23, 2020
An interesting account of the anatomy of desire and passion. Easy to read and entertaining.
October 22, 2012
I enjoyed reading this slim little book very much. Great exploration on obsessive love, something most of us have experienced. The writing was poetic and lyrical, like being wrapped in a soft blanket of words. The author described the cultural and societal influences that shape how men and women experience love differently and gave rich examples, many drawn from art and literature. My only quibble is that at times it reads a little too generalized, and the fact that it is based on heterosexual relationships. Surely same sex relationships could have been included, obsessive love certainly happens in our ranks too.
June 9, 2011
This book was not at all what I expected - which was a bunch of short stories - but it was extremely enjoyable nonetheless. The author presents us with a short story that she then proceedes to dissect and use as a starting point for a discussion of various aspects of obsessive love. In the process she touches on the biographies of several women, both well-known and otherwise, and makes use of anecdotes, which gives the book a very personal feel. It's also very well written and uses a non-academic language, which made the book a joy to read as a break in between textbooks.
July 30, 2012
A intimate short story of one woman's passionate experience, annotated by a very readable, factual history of romantic/obsessive love, skillfully worked into a study of passion's place as both catalyst and litmus in each of our lives. Worth reading a few times, best before but even better after you've had an experience or two yourself.
The first lesson of passion: It tells you more about yourself and what you wish to become than it does about its object.
The first lesson of passion: It tells you more about yourself and what you wish to become than it does about its object.
June 16, 2008
At the time I read this book, I found it totally profound. I'd just returned home from 3 months abroad in Europe though, having fallen head over heels in lust with someone I barely knew in my travels. This book has been the only of its kind to address the phenomenon so spot-on without condescending.
June 27, 2012
This is a delightful read. I kept going back to it to reread parts I couldn't shake. For instance:
"But sex as a physical act is merely athletics, a momentary relief. What it needs to be powerful is desire, and the strongest element of desire is longing. It's in the work. Desider-, sidus: from the stars. The longing that reaches beyond space and time."
Wow.
"But sex as a physical act is merely athletics, a momentary relief. What it needs to be powerful is desire, and the strongest element of desire is longing. It's in the work. Desider-, sidus: from the stars. The longing that reaches beyond space and time."
Wow.
forsaken
September 27, 2021ugh okay i’m sorry but here is my problem with women narrators. when they’re attractive to men and are pining for men and are trying to be emotional and poetic in their anguish for a man? my disbelief does not suspend. it’s land-locked, it’s almost sneering. and it feels bad that i feel this way because i want to read this book but it’s intolerable.
October 7, 2016
This book is definitely one to read and think about. I think Sullivan brings up many important situations that have never really been explained clearly and directly. You do not have to agree with everything, but go into the book with an open mind. You might learn something.
August 25, 2014
I enjoyed this book--The author affirmed some of my thoughts about the unhealthy relationships I've been in. Lots of quotes to write down as journal-starters.
August 25, 2011
Ah, the complexity of love!
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews