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The Love of My Youth
From the acclaimed author of Pearl and Final Payments comes a beautifully choreographed novel about first lovers meeting again after more than thirty years and reimmersing themselves in their shared past.
Miranda and Adam, high-school sweethearts now in their late fifties, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, a city where they once spent a summer deeply in love, living together blissfully. At an awkward reunion, the two—who parted in an atmosphere of passionate betrayal in the 1960s and haven’t seen each other since—are surprised to discover that they may have something to talk about. Both have their own guilt, their sense of who betrayed whom, and their long-held interpretation of the events that caused them not to marry and to split apart into the lives they’ve led since—both are married to others, with grown children. For the few weeks they are in Rome, Adam suggests that they meet for daily walks and get to know each other again. Gradually, as they take in the pleasures of the city and the drama of its streets, they discover not only what matters to them now but also more about what happened to them long ago.
Miranda and Adam are masterfully portrayed characters, intent upon understanding who they are in relation to who they were. A story about what first love means and how it is shattered, and the lessons old lovers may still have to share with each other many years later, The Love of My Youth is also a poignant look back at the hopes and dreams of a generation and what became of them.
Miranda and Adam, high-school sweethearts now in their late fifties, arrive by chance at the same time in Rome, a city where they once spent a summer deeply in love, living together blissfully. At an awkward reunion, the two—who parted in an atmosphere of passionate betrayal in the 1960s and haven’t seen each other since—are surprised to discover that they may have something to talk about. Both have their own guilt, their sense of who betrayed whom, and their long-held interpretation of the events that caused them not to marry and to split apart into the lives they’ve led since—both are married to others, with grown children. For the few weeks they are in Rome, Adam suggests that they meet for daily walks and get to know each other again. Gradually, as they take in the pleasures of the city and the drama of its streets, they discover not only what matters to them now but also more about what happened to them long ago.
Miranda and Adam are masterfully portrayed characters, intent upon understanding who they are in relation to who they were. A story about what first love means and how it is shattered, and the lessons old lovers may still have to share with each other many years later, The Love of My Youth is also a poignant look back at the hopes and dreams of a generation and what became of them.
302 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2008
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861 people want to read
About the author
Mary Gordon
101 books158 followersMary Catherine Gordon is an American writer from Queens and Valley Stream, New York. She is the McIntosh Professor of English at Barnard College. She is best known for her novels, memoirs and literary criticism. In 2008, she was named Official State Author of New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 269 reviews
December 1, 2025
A Bittersweet Story
Set largely in Rome in 2007, Mary Gordon's new novel "The Love of my Youth" tells the story of high school and college sweethearts, Miranda and Adam, who meet each other after 36 years and revisit their past. When the reader meets the characters, they are both 59 years old, married, and with grown children. Miranda is a successful epidemiologist living in Berkeley happily married for nearly 30 years to Yonatan, an Israeli physician, and with two grown sons. Adam teaches music and directs a chorus at a private school, a position he has held for more than 30 years. He has been married twice, with a grown son from the first marriage and an 18 year old daughter from his happy and continuing second marriage.
When Adam and Miranda meet by chance in Rome, introduced by an old college friend, Valerie, they had not seen each other since the unhappy end of their relationship in 1971. At that time, Adam was a serious, aspiring pianist hoping for a concert career. Miranda was a social activist, with a dream of changing the world, ending the Vietnam War, and working for an end of poverty. Both their dreams changed in different ways with life. When they meet, Adam is in Rome because has 18 year old daughter is studying the violin with an Italian master. Miranda is in Rome for a professional conference. They agree to meet each other in the mornings over a period of about three weeks, Miranda's time in Rome, to talk.
Most of the book is a daily account of their meetings set in different parts of Rome with its history and beauty. A good deal of the book focuses upon Rome and Adam's and Miranda's different reactions. (They had lived in Rome when they were young and lovers.) As their meetings go forward, the two gradually become more open with each other and with the feelings they once shared and with the passage of time. The stories of their meetings are interspersed with three extended flashbacks to their youthful relationship. Their early romance was intertwined with American times during the 1960's: its changes, idealism, opposition to Vietnam, growing feminism, and perhaps dogmas of its own.
There is a great deal that is true, poignant, beautiful and sad in this story of love and loss. The former lovers respond differently as Miranda has moved forward rather easily with her life while Adam has been plagued with feelings of guilt. But they each reach an understanding with themselves and each other.
The problem with this book lies in some of the expression. The dialogue between Adam and Miranda has much that is valuable in the content. But much of it is formal, academic and stilted. The emotions the book captures are true, but not the speecifying. In addition, the book suffers from the narrator's sense of total omniscience. As Adam and Miranda talk, the narrator's voice is sure and complete about what they are saying, what they mean, and what they leave out. In the narrative, as opposed to dialogue, scenes of the book, the narrator's voice is likewise too thorough and knowing about where Adam and Miranda have been, what they think, and how and why they respond to each other. One would have wanted more indirection and more scope for the reader. Adam's and Miranda's story needs a certain lightness (early in the story, we learn that Adam's pianism has been criticized for its over-seriousness and lack of lightness) while Gordon's treatment is heavy-handed.
I still cared about this book and its characters. I was won over more by Adam, with his difficult life and his love of the piano and of Beethoven and Schubert than by Miranda. The story of American high school and college life in the 1960s seemed to me to capture the era and to be painful. The book will resonate to those, such as myself, of a certain baby-boomer generation.
Although the execution of this book seems to me awkward, this book is a thoughtful emotional look at youthful love and loss and the process of continuing life.
Robin Friedman
Set largely in Rome in 2007, Mary Gordon's new novel "The Love of my Youth" tells the story of high school and college sweethearts, Miranda and Adam, who meet each other after 36 years and revisit their past. When the reader meets the characters, they are both 59 years old, married, and with grown children. Miranda is a successful epidemiologist living in Berkeley happily married for nearly 30 years to Yonatan, an Israeli physician, and with two grown sons. Adam teaches music and directs a chorus at a private school, a position he has held for more than 30 years. He has been married twice, with a grown son from the first marriage and an 18 year old daughter from his happy and continuing second marriage.
When Adam and Miranda meet by chance in Rome, introduced by an old college friend, Valerie, they had not seen each other since the unhappy end of their relationship in 1971. At that time, Adam was a serious, aspiring pianist hoping for a concert career. Miranda was a social activist, with a dream of changing the world, ending the Vietnam War, and working for an end of poverty. Both their dreams changed in different ways with life. When they meet, Adam is in Rome because has 18 year old daughter is studying the violin with an Italian master. Miranda is in Rome for a professional conference. They agree to meet each other in the mornings over a period of about three weeks, Miranda's time in Rome, to talk.
Most of the book is a daily account of their meetings set in different parts of Rome with its history and beauty. A good deal of the book focuses upon Rome and Adam's and Miranda's different reactions. (They had lived in Rome when they were young and lovers.) As their meetings go forward, the two gradually become more open with each other and with the feelings they once shared and with the passage of time. The stories of their meetings are interspersed with three extended flashbacks to their youthful relationship. Their early romance was intertwined with American times during the 1960's: its changes, idealism, opposition to Vietnam, growing feminism, and perhaps dogmas of its own.
There is a great deal that is true, poignant, beautiful and sad in this story of love and loss. The former lovers respond differently as Miranda has moved forward rather easily with her life while Adam has been plagued with feelings of guilt. But they each reach an understanding with themselves and each other.
The problem with this book lies in some of the expression. The dialogue between Adam and Miranda has much that is valuable in the content. But much of it is formal, academic and stilted. The emotions the book captures are true, but not the speecifying. In addition, the book suffers from the narrator's sense of total omniscience. As Adam and Miranda talk, the narrator's voice is sure and complete about what they are saying, what they mean, and what they leave out. In the narrative, as opposed to dialogue, scenes of the book, the narrator's voice is likewise too thorough and knowing about where Adam and Miranda have been, what they think, and how and why they respond to each other. One would have wanted more indirection and more scope for the reader. Adam's and Miranda's story needs a certain lightness (early in the story, we learn that Adam's pianism has been criticized for its over-seriousness and lack of lightness) while Gordon's treatment is heavy-handed.
I still cared about this book and its characters. I was won over more by Adam, with his difficult life and his love of the piano and of Beethoven and Schubert than by Miranda. The story of American high school and college life in the 1960s seemed to me to capture the era and to be painful. The book will resonate to those, such as myself, of a certain baby-boomer generation.
Although the execution of this book seems to me awkward, this book is a thoughtful emotional look at youthful love and loss and the process of continuing life.
Robin Friedman
October 10, 2020
Mary Gordon in a mellow mood . . . reminiscing in Rome . . . sighing over stately stone statues . . . languishing in nostalgic reverie. (Sounds like "In A Sentimental Mood" by Duke Ellington!)
It's so bittersweet to see how easily this angry woman's talent turns to soggy mush at the onset of old age. In her youth Mary Gordon was a heartless ball-buster, half-mad with sexual self-loathing, jeering at Vietnam veterans while denouncing sex, men, nature, democracy, country and western music, and whatever else reminded her of her vulgar upbringing in horrible dreadful working-class Queens.
But now, in a mellow mood, she's celebrating Rome. And lost love. And so two youthful seniors walk hand in hand, sighing over centuries old statues of saints, reminiscing about "The Sixties." You will never, ever buy the idea that Adam was ever an actual teenage boy. He's such a little girly-girl! I would call him a choir boy, but he's actually a piano prodigy. Same difference, nu? Oh, and his piano teacher is a Jew, and Mary Gordon whines (as only Mary Gordon can) that it's just so *unfair* when Holocaust survivors complain about how little the Catholic Church did to save them! Mel Gibson made the same point, actually. I mean, that Jews should just shut up . . . or else. But the way Mary Gordon does it, the poor old man is portrayed as a grouch who just flies off the handle for no reason during a piano lesson. So he comes across as a jerk. Which I suspect is what Mary Gordon thinks of all Jews, except the ones who convert. And become rabid anti-Semites. Like her daddy.
Suffice it to say, Adam is no Huck Finn. When Huck learns about Jim's suffering on the raft, it changes him. He becomes braver, more compassionate. One might almost say, more of a man. Don't worry, that doesn't happen to Adam. Hearing about what happened to his piano teacher's family only fills him with nausea and resentment. He compares it to eating poisoned candy. No wonder Mary Gordon hates American literature so much!
Meanwhile Miranda, the other half of our not-so-dynamic duo, is having her own problems. The moment she arrives in Rome, she's confronted with her own dark side, in the form of a gibbering old crone who jeers at American history and praises Mussolini as a champion of Catholic civilization. Or something. What's significant about this exchange is that Miranda doesn't really disagree with the old crone. She's in Rome looking for culture, damn it, culture! And we all know exquisite European culture only thrives in an atmosphere of cruelty and injustice. Don't we? Anyway, the scene ends with a bang -- the old lady starts shouting about Mary McCarthy and Miranda slashes her own fingers with a wine glass as a sign of defiance -- or is it surrender? I think the point is that Miranda hates the cruelty of Catholic Europe, but not enough to say or do anything that might expose her as an uncivilized boor from these here United States.
Oh but you best believe Miranda is a crusader for justice. She brags endlessly, interminably, about doing good and righting wrongs. ("There I was in India, fighting single-handed for smallpox immunization. Those silly little brown people with their hideously scarred faces, they owe me a debt!!") I don't want to say that Miranda is heartless. She does cry an awful lot. She cries during WEST SIDE STORY. She cries while eating yogurt. ("The people who invented Dannon yogurt . . . they're Jews!") Yet strangely, in her face to face encounters with actual human beings, Miranda never seems to, you know, respect anyone or like anyone. That can be a problem when you're dealing with people you don't know. They can become hostile. They might even laugh at you!
So to Mary Gordon, the Sixties means . . . not a whole lot actually. LA DOLCE VITA may be a good movie, but Mary Gordon approaches it like a drooling sixth grader. ("They're wearing SUNGLASSES! And they look so COOL!") Why does a woman pushing seventy try so hard to sound like a twelve year old? Because she's terribly ashamed of all the dirty stuff she did in her twenties! It's not a Sixties thing. It's a Catholic thing.
Of course the social-climbing and the shabby hunger for gentility hasn't changed. Just for fun, I'd love to strap Mary Gordon down some day, a la Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and force her to watch an obscure war movie (from 1966!) called THE BLUE MAX. It's about a coarse, grasping, unscrupulous soldier from the lower classes who becomes obsessed with winning Germany's highest military decoration, Pour Le Merite, aka The Blue Max. Mary Gordon is so much like Bruno Stachel it's not even funny. Driven by resentment, brutally contemptuous of aristocrats (but desperate to be one of them) incapable of humility or self knowledge. But then again, Bruno Stachel isn't from Queens.
As far as music goes, Janis Joplin gets a shout out, which is nice. But where are the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show? For that matter, where are The Temptations, The Miracles, The Supremes?
It's so bittersweet to see how easily this angry woman's talent turns to soggy mush at the onset of old age. In her youth Mary Gordon was a heartless ball-buster, half-mad with sexual self-loathing, jeering at Vietnam veterans while denouncing sex, men, nature, democracy, country and western music, and whatever else reminded her of her vulgar upbringing in horrible dreadful working-class Queens.
But now, in a mellow mood, she's celebrating Rome. And lost love. And so two youthful seniors walk hand in hand, sighing over centuries old statues of saints, reminiscing about "The Sixties." You will never, ever buy the idea that Adam was ever an actual teenage boy. He's such a little girly-girl! I would call him a choir boy, but he's actually a piano prodigy. Same difference, nu? Oh, and his piano teacher is a Jew, and Mary Gordon whines (as only Mary Gordon can) that it's just so *unfair* when Holocaust survivors complain about how little the Catholic Church did to save them! Mel Gibson made the same point, actually. I mean, that Jews should just shut up . . . or else. But the way Mary Gordon does it, the poor old man is portrayed as a grouch who just flies off the handle for no reason during a piano lesson. So he comes across as a jerk. Which I suspect is what Mary Gordon thinks of all Jews, except the ones who convert. And become rabid anti-Semites. Like her daddy.
Suffice it to say, Adam is no Huck Finn. When Huck learns about Jim's suffering on the raft, it changes him. He becomes braver, more compassionate. One might almost say, more of a man. Don't worry, that doesn't happen to Adam. Hearing about what happened to his piano teacher's family only fills him with nausea and resentment. He compares it to eating poisoned candy. No wonder Mary Gordon hates American literature so much!
Meanwhile Miranda, the other half of our not-so-dynamic duo, is having her own problems. The moment she arrives in Rome, she's confronted with her own dark side, in the form of a gibbering old crone who jeers at American history and praises Mussolini as a champion of Catholic civilization. Or something. What's significant about this exchange is that Miranda doesn't really disagree with the old crone. She's in Rome looking for culture, damn it, culture! And we all know exquisite European culture only thrives in an atmosphere of cruelty and injustice. Don't we? Anyway, the scene ends with a bang -- the old lady starts shouting about Mary McCarthy and Miranda slashes her own fingers with a wine glass as a sign of defiance -- or is it surrender? I think the point is that Miranda hates the cruelty of Catholic Europe, but not enough to say or do anything that might expose her as an uncivilized boor from these here United States.
Oh but you best believe Miranda is a crusader for justice. She brags endlessly, interminably, about doing good and righting wrongs. ("There I was in India, fighting single-handed for smallpox immunization. Those silly little brown people with their hideously scarred faces, they owe me a debt!!") I don't want to say that Miranda is heartless. She does cry an awful lot. She cries during WEST SIDE STORY. She cries while eating yogurt. ("The people who invented Dannon yogurt . . . they're Jews!") Yet strangely, in her face to face encounters with actual human beings, Miranda never seems to, you know, respect anyone or like anyone. That can be a problem when you're dealing with people you don't know. They can become hostile. They might even laugh at you!
So to Mary Gordon, the Sixties means . . . not a whole lot actually. LA DOLCE VITA may be a good movie, but Mary Gordon approaches it like a drooling sixth grader. ("They're wearing SUNGLASSES! And they look so COOL!") Why does a woman pushing seventy try so hard to sound like a twelve year old? Because she's terribly ashamed of all the dirty stuff she did in her twenties! It's not a Sixties thing. It's a Catholic thing.
Of course the social-climbing and the shabby hunger for gentility hasn't changed. Just for fun, I'd love to strap Mary Gordon down some day, a la Alex in A CLOCKWORK ORANGE, and force her to watch an obscure war movie (from 1966!) called THE BLUE MAX. It's about a coarse, grasping, unscrupulous soldier from the lower classes who becomes obsessed with winning Germany's highest military decoration, Pour Le Merite, aka The Blue Max. Mary Gordon is so much like Bruno Stachel it's not even funny. Driven by resentment, brutally contemptuous of aristocrats (but desperate to be one of them) incapable of humility or self knowledge. But then again, Bruno Stachel isn't from Queens.
As far as music goes, Janis Joplin gets a shout out, which is nice. But where are the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show? For that matter, where are The Temptations, The Miracles, The Supremes?
May 6, 2011
The writing and the dialog in this novel were dreadful. The conceit (two young lovers go their own way and then re-connect by happenstance 40 years later in Rome) only mediocre. I suffered through it because for some reason I really wanted to learn why the lovers' relationship originally dissolved (turns out, not that interesting). I don't remember how this novel came to be on my list to-read (a misguided recommendation). Rarely do I say this about reading, but what a waste of time!
January 21, 2020
Discovering that you've made a commitment of time and money to a book you ultimately don't like provokes a particular brand of consumer outrage. It makes you want to vent, even rant a little bit. But this is literary fiction, so you have to be nice to it because literary fiction needs our support. Still, there are problems. Adam and Miranda fell deeply in love when both were still in high school, and they had sex. (Shocker.) Actually, the shocker is they fell deeply in love while still in high school. But this was in the 60s, a naive time before there was digital photography. Years later, now two complacent, reasonably attractive middle-aged parents, Miranda with a successful career, Adam a music teacher, they are reunited in Rome by a hapless friend from their youth. We don't know why they split up years before, and most of the plot hinges on somewhat coy authorial maneuvering to withhold this information. In the meantime, they wander through all of Rome's major tourist attractions making paragraph-long comments on the aesthetics of the lovely vegetables and cool, dim churches. Adam is pedantic, Miranda emotional and slightly bitter. Little by little, Gordon feeds us tidbits about the relationship, the passionate adolescent sex and smooth young bodies. Eventually, as we find out what happened and why, they are momentarily reconciled and are briefly tempted to destroy everything they've built and run off together. And then -- feeling a little bit better about themselves and their choices -- they decide to stick with the lives they already have. Woah. Never saw that one coming.
April 21, 2011
Really not interesting at ALL and the possibilities were GREAT; they are in Rome, for goodness sake, with a format that takes them any and everywhere - physically and metaphically!! So disappointed. And.. Miranda is just a selfish, self-centered phony. Whew. I had a visceral dislike for her and that DID come from a personal 'opinion' about these people during the 60's - as I lived and shared their world. At some level, one could argue that a book that elicits a strong response is 'good' but given the hype - from those who buy books, NOT reviewers who would seem to agree w/ me - I hoped for more.
I'm going back to reread 'Bel Canto' for some much needed immersion in excellent writing, wonderful characters and a good good story.
I'm going back to reread 'Bel Canto' for some much needed immersion in excellent writing, wonderful characters and a good good story.
May 6, 2011
Actually I did not read this book. I maybe read 50 pages and found that the conversations between the two main characters to be totally unrealistic. I do not know anyone who speaks like this and I don't believe that two people to haven't seen each other in 40 years would actually talk to each other like this.
July 31, 2012
Do people talk like this? Are these kind of conversations going on out of my earshot, or while I am drinking too much? Good heavens. I feel stuck in some kind of intellectual & conversational trailer park.
So you know the story already, two people meet some forty years after breaking up. We get the early story through flashbacks, and the current story is mostly incredibly cerebral and humorless talk talk talk talk talk, about their life choices, the role of art and work in their lives, etc, etc. After the first meeting they had together (in the latter part of their relationship), I wanted to smack somebody upside the head. I love Rome, and it made me want to not go back.
I wonder sometimes what would have happened had I made other choices in my life, but never ever will I wander a gorgeous city with somebody from my youth, love or otherwise, and spout such nonsense.
I'd say, skip it. What kept me going was curiosity about what had driven the young lovers apart, and when I finally found out, it was dismal.
This book IS incredibly well-written, though. So, you know, snaps for that.
July 7, 2011
Two people in their late fifties meet at a friend's house in Rome. As young people, in the 1960's, they were lovers, not just casual lovers, but a committed, idealistic, passionate couple. They shared and enjoyed each others families, spending from high school, college, and young adulthood assuming that they would eventually marry. The woman, terribly judgmental and impulsive, is a young political activist with a fascination for medicine and science. The young man, slower to react, more introverted, is a classical pianist, deeply immersed in the subtleties of music and technique. A terrible mistake and bad luck feels like a betrayal, breaking their bond and their lives separate. Now they are both married to others, good others, and have greatly loved children. They agree to a series of walks in Rome and as they do, they sort through the wreckage of their early love, the vicissitudes of aging and the concerns of their generation.
A talky book, full of ideas and glimpses of Rome and art. Neither of the characters are fully likeable yet the reader can't help caring about both of them. They are good people who've blundered along the way, making their lives up as they go along, like all of us. A quiet read that felt way too slow in the beginning, way too packed with talk and ideas – until I slowed down and meandered along with these two. And then I befriended them and discovered that I liked their company.
A talky book, full of ideas and glimpses of Rome and art. Neither of the characters are fully likeable yet the reader can't help caring about both of them. They are good people who've blundered along the way, making their lives up as they go along, like all of us. A quiet read that felt way too slow in the beginning, way too packed with talk and ideas – until I slowed down and meandered along with these two. And then I befriended them and discovered that I liked their company.
never-finished-books-fault
May 22, 2011**UPDATE**
Oh, this is going very badly. All the characters talk exactly like one another; as a result the dialogue is maddeningly flat. And I don't like any of them. I don't mind unlikeable characters, as a rule, except when I have the impression that the author intends them to be likeable. I think I'm supposed to like these people, and to admire their frankness about their own petty vendettas and pretensions. Oh, gosh, but I just don't.
I'd feel traitorous going into more detail than that, since I have loved other works by this author. I think I'll maybe put this one down and then revisit Men and Angels this summer instead.
After all: maybe it's me. Maybe if I were sixty, I would get it. Okay, yes. I will read this when I'm sixty.
**ORIGINAL POST BELOW**
Mary Gordon gave a reading the other night at a local indie bookstore, so I ended up breaking my "hardcover fast" and buying this so she could sign it (along with my old copies of Men and Angels and Spending). After reading a few selections, she ended up having a discussion with us about the state of literary fiction -- she fears it's as endangered as, say, opera -- and addressing the disturbing trend toward "nonfiction" as being considered somehow "more true" than fiction ("As if 'The Housewives of New Jersey' is true ...").
Haven't read the book, yet, but I've always enjoyed Mary Gordon, and she was an interesting and stimulating person to meet.
Oh, this is going very badly. All the characters talk exactly like one another; as a result the dialogue is maddeningly flat. And I don't like any of them. I don't mind unlikeable characters, as a rule, except when I have the impression that the author intends them to be likeable. I think I'm supposed to like these people, and to admire their frankness about their own petty vendettas and pretensions. Oh, gosh, but I just don't.
I'd feel traitorous going into more detail than that, since I have loved other works by this author. I think I'll maybe put this one down and then revisit Men and Angels this summer instead.
After all: maybe it's me. Maybe if I were sixty, I would get it. Okay, yes. I will read this when I'm sixty.
**ORIGINAL POST BELOW**
Mary Gordon gave a reading the other night at a local indie bookstore, so I ended up breaking my "hardcover fast" and buying this so she could sign it (along with my old copies of Men and Angels and Spending). After reading a few selections, she ended up having a discussion with us about the state of literary fiction -- she fears it's as endangered as, say, opera -- and addressing the disturbing trend toward "nonfiction" as being considered somehow "more true" than fiction ("As if 'The Housewives of New Jersey' is true ...").
Haven't read the book, yet, but I've always enjoyed Mary Gordon, and she was an interesting and stimulating person to meet.
April 28, 2011
The title intrigued me and the review in the NY Times was good, so I choose this as the first book to read on my iPad 2. I kept reading this plodding novel because I thought it might be that I didn't have a physical book in my hand. The plot idea and setting were solid--Rome 40 years later, when two HS-college sweethearts meet up again. And that is all that interested me as the beginning for the book because the characters seemed bored with each other, then and now.
The dialogue was stiff and stilted. How could they have been that interested in each other when they were teenagers? They seemed tired and pendantic even then. And all that did was pull forward to the current setting of the novel.
I kept reading because I like the back story of one of the set the parents Rose and Sav, and found the piano teacher interesting but other than that. from start to finish this was not the book for me to spend my time reading.
The dialogue was stiff and stilted. How could they have been that interested in each other when they were teenagers? They seemed tired and pendantic even then. And all that did was pull forward to the current setting of the novel.
I kept reading because I like the back story of one of the set the parents Rose and Sav, and found the piano teacher interesting but other than that. from start to finish this was not the book for me to spend my time reading.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 7, 2011
I read this novel slowly, savoring each chapter as Miranda and Adam
walk through the squares and gardens of Rome, talking about life, marriage,
art, women and men. It is a wonderful discourse. Gradually, the reader
learns why they never married although they were first loves. Things happen,
and they are sundered. The real delight of the book is their conversation
and the visits they make. One chapter is in the Villa Borghese where they
view three Bernini sculptures. Gordon understands art as well as life, and
she is one of my favorite authors.
May 11, 2024
Ik vond dit een mooi boek. Dromerig, meanderend ... twee geliefden die elkaar na een jaar of 40 weerzien in Rome, en al wandelend herinneringen ophalen, een antwoord proberen te vinden op de vraag: ben ik nog wie ik was, toen?
January 26, 2013
This work is a novel about first lovers meeting again after more than thirty years, walking the streets of Rome and reimmersing themselves in their lost past.
Oh, where to begin? My first observation upon finishing this book was to note that it was definitely NOT an audiobook-type novel (although I found Alice Rosengard's delivery extremely easy to listen to). The bulk of Gordon's work is devoted to philosophical conversations reminiscent of My Dinner With Andre and moves at a snail's pace; my mind wandered frequently. And then I wondered if I had missed something crucial within the pages of this story. On the one hand, Gordon draws one of the deepest romantic relationships I've read in years. She takes her time with Miranda's and Adam's thoughts, personal histories and reactions to one another. When the story goes back to their high school romance, the storytelling is brisk and interesting. But so much of the novel is devoted to melodramatic conversations between the two of them that simply did not work for me, even as I understood what the author was trying to do. You can only take so many rambling musings before you tune out and, unfortunately for me, that was early on. I can't say she ever won me back and my ultimate feeling about the book is luke-warm.
Oh, where to begin? My first observation upon finishing this book was to note that it was definitely NOT an audiobook-type novel (although I found Alice Rosengard's delivery extremely easy to listen to). The bulk of Gordon's work is devoted to philosophical conversations reminiscent of My Dinner With Andre and moves at a snail's pace; my mind wandered frequently. And then I wondered if I had missed something crucial within the pages of this story. On the one hand, Gordon draws one of the deepest romantic relationships I've read in years. She takes her time with Miranda's and Adam's thoughts, personal histories and reactions to one another. When the story goes back to their high school romance, the storytelling is brisk and interesting. But so much of the novel is devoted to melodramatic conversations between the two of them that simply did not work for me, even as I understood what the author was trying to do. You can only take so many rambling musings before you tune out and, unfortunately for me, that was early on. I can't say she ever won me back and my ultimate feeling about the book is luke-warm.
May 9, 2011
I thought the idea behind this novel was intriguing, but I really didn't like how it played out. I felt like the author spent the majority of the novel focusing on the akward and weird interactions between the current characters with strange little vignettes and useless, irrelevant conversation. I get that this was meant to contrast with the much more interesting and better developed chapters about the development and ending of their lengthy relationship. It seemed really false and several times I almost put it down, but then saw that a historical chapter was coming up, so hung in there. I was also annoyed by the significant overuse of colons and semi-colons, sometimes two or three of each in one sentence. Overkill. I gave it two stars for the great backstory. Maybe she just should have written that novel.
May 11, 2011
Mary Gordon is an uncommonly fine writer so far as putting words together well. However, smooth, even vivid phrasing do not a satisfying novel make. For that, a plot and character development are required.
This novel is about a 60-ish pair who were lovers when they were 16. He berayed her. She betrayed him. First love fried. By happenstance they meet in Rome and decide to spend a few weeks together exploring the city. Why? Damned if I know. Each is happily married and has grown children. Neither wants to rekindle their old love. We are not privy to any of the feelings about eachother that they experience on this meaningless jaunt.
The descriptions of Rome are worthy of Baedeker. Their utterances are long-winded and prosy. Besides, who wants to spend weeks with the person they last knew 40 years ago? Not only is the premise silly, it's pointless and silly
This novel is about a 60-ish pair who were lovers when they were 16. He berayed her. She betrayed him. First love fried. By happenstance they meet in Rome and decide to spend a few weeks together exploring the city. Why? Damned if I know. Each is happily married and has grown children. Neither wants to rekindle their old love. We are not privy to any of the feelings about eachother that they experience on this meaningless jaunt.
The descriptions of Rome are worthy of Baedeker. Their utterances are long-winded and prosy. Besides, who wants to spend weeks with the person they last knew 40 years ago? Not only is the premise silly, it's pointless and silly
July 3, 2011
To me the story represented two past lovers that made it half way back before discovering that all the way back wouldn't be prudent. It took some reflection after reading this book for me to appreciate the nuanced thought process of both characters. How, at a certain age, things change even as you don't want them to. Wanting the blush of new love to reappear, yet fearful of all that could imply. The pace is ever so slow...like a rambling walk through a forest. The ending, though not entirely predictable, falls flat. After winding through pages of self reflection from both Adam and Miranda, the ultmate mutual decison seemed to require less consideration than all that came before.
While I didn't love this book, I did derive great pleasure from the author's spot on feminine musings on aging, love, and the journey to self awareness.
While I didn't love this book, I did derive great pleasure from the author's spot on feminine musings on aging, love, and the journey to self awareness.
April 22, 2011
Although I have marked this as "read", I did not actually finish. As one reviewer noted, "I did not like the first two/thirds". Well, I am not willing to devote the time to an unlikable first two/thirds. I also agree with her assessment that it is full of artifice and manipulation. The characters are just not likable and the writing seems amateurish. Sorry.
March 22, 2011
Have you ever wondered about that old flame you had in high school or college? The person, who at least at that time, you imagined you'd build a life with. We all know that sometimes, even the best plans don't turn out the way we hoped. Such was the case for Miranda and Adam, first loves from high school.
In The Love of My Youth, Miranda and Adam experienced the highs of first love which continued throughout college. Adam was a gifted musician (pianist) and Miranda committed to political activism and social awareness. After college, their passion and optimism took the couple to Rome where they set up housekeeping briefly, but soon after, their relationship ended on a bad note, on June 23, 1971. Each of them eventually moved on, and they married other people, raised families, and had careers.
Now, some (36) years later, October 7, 2007, Miranda and Adam, have the opportunity to meet once again in Rome. Both are there for different reasons, and they are invited by an old college friend to dinner. Uncomfortable about the situation, yet curious as well, they accept the dinner invitation, and for the next (24) days the Miranda and Adam spend time together each day. They meet for daily walks, talks, lunches, visit gardens, museums and other sites where the couple had been decades before. Each day more a bit more is revealed about their lives, and each of them reflects privately on their past relationship, and about each other. On day number (3) of their time together, Miranda and Adam reflect about the time spent together,
"The day before had been a disappointment to the both of them; each had found the other wanting; both telephoned their spouses, flush with the pleasure of being able to speak critically, yet truthfully: to make the point that really, there was no danger. 'I'd forgotten what a pedant he could be,' she told her husband. 'What did we do in the days before we could invoke the term 'politically correct'? he asked his wife."
Throughout the next (21) days, each time they meet the explore their past together, their past apart, and they examine what it all means. It is through this examination of their past, their dreams and disappointments, where they've been and who they've become, that each is able to find peace.
Although the majority of this novel is about Miranda and Adam in October of 2007, there are a few flashbacks to their time together in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that enable the reader to see the differences in background and ideologies, that young lovers might well gloss over.
I really enjoyed this novel, and thought the author did an amazing job developing the characters, and of creating a memorable story. This is one novel that should especially appeal to the baby boomer generation. (4.5/5 stars)
In The Love of My Youth, Miranda and Adam experienced the highs of first love which continued throughout college. Adam was a gifted musician (pianist) and Miranda committed to political activism and social awareness. After college, their passion and optimism took the couple to Rome where they set up housekeeping briefly, but soon after, their relationship ended on a bad note, on June 23, 1971. Each of them eventually moved on, and they married other people, raised families, and had careers.
Now, some (36) years later, October 7, 2007, Miranda and Adam, have the opportunity to meet once again in Rome. Both are there for different reasons, and they are invited by an old college friend to dinner. Uncomfortable about the situation, yet curious as well, they accept the dinner invitation, and for the next (24) days the Miranda and Adam spend time together each day. They meet for daily walks, talks, lunches, visit gardens, museums and other sites where the couple had been decades before. Each day more a bit more is revealed about their lives, and each of them reflects privately on their past relationship, and about each other. On day number (3) of their time together, Miranda and Adam reflect about the time spent together,
"The day before had been a disappointment to the both of them; each had found the other wanting; both telephoned their spouses, flush with the pleasure of being able to speak critically, yet truthfully: to make the point that really, there was no danger. 'I'd forgotten what a pedant he could be,' she told her husband. 'What did we do in the days before we could invoke the term 'politically correct'? he asked his wife."
Throughout the next (21) days, each time they meet the explore their past together, their past apart, and they examine what it all means. It is through this examination of their past, their dreams and disappointments, where they've been and who they've become, that each is able to find peace.
Although the majority of this novel is about Miranda and Adam in October of 2007, there are a few flashbacks to their time together in the late 1960s and early 1970s, that enable the reader to see the differences in background and ideologies, that young lovers might well gloss over.
I really enjoyed this novel, and thought the author did an amazing job developing the characters, and of creating a memorable story. This is one novel that should especially appeal to the baby boomer generation. (4.5/5 stars)
April 28, 2015
I've been reading Mary Gordon's novels since she published her first in 1978, Final Payments. Her husband, Arthur Cash, was my college advisor, at SUNY at New Paltz. He was a good advisor and I have always enjoyed her writing both memoir and fiction. This novel is about Adam and Miranda, who had been first lovers through high school and college. They meet in Rome on the verge of old age or more kindly, at the end of their middle age years. A few longer chapters visit the 1960s and 1970s were their young love plays out against his study of music and her dedication to saving the world as a scientist of sorts. He betrays her and I won't go in to the details because that's Gordon's story to tell. I enjoyed this novel and its descriptions of Rome. Gordon has one problem,sometimes she gets in the way of her own writing. But that doesn't spoil the enjoyment of reading her excellent words.
May 6, 2011
Ever wonder what happened to your first love? Miranda and Adam have a chance to rediscover themselves over the course of a few weeks when they find themselves in Rome together. Although passionately in love thirty years ago, each betrayed the other. Married to different people, each with children, Adam suggests that they meet to walk and talk every morning to try to understand what went wrong and how their past has influenced who they are now. I found Adam a very selfish person and Miranda a bit overbearing.
May 11, 2012
Mary Gordon has always seemed somewhat - and unjustly - overlooked to me. In "The Love of My Youth" her prose is as subtle and elegant as ever. Two protagonists, each the other's first love, meet again after nearly 40 years (the narrative unfolds both in the past and the present). Much of the novel concerns identity and sense of self - what is the essence of a person unchanged by time?
Gordon also examines the relevance/necessity of music and art (and, by implication, literature); that which outlives the quick passage of our lives.
Gordon also examines the relevance/necessity of music and art (and, by implication, literature); that which outlives the quick passage of our lives.
April 23, 2011
The story of the reunion of childhood sweethearts, Miranda and Adam, after 30 some years in Italy fell flat. It plodded and plodded along going back and forth from present to yesterday with the characters lifeless.
April 29, 2011
Got about half way thru this one and decided to give it up. I was really bored reading it. Maybe I need to try again in 20 years when I'm in my 50s. A lot of dialog between the two characters and I felt really annoyed by it.
May 23, 2018
Two long-separated teenage lovers meet again in late middle age, in a mutual friend's apartment in Rome, and feel a sense of instant connection. They are now both more or less happily married, but they spend much of their free time walking together through the city. He now has a talented daughter; she has two robust sons. They learn much about each other, and about themselves. They achieve some reconciliation with the past.
October 24, 2024
We have come this far
This is given to us, to touch
each other in this way.
Ranier Mari Rilke
I loved certain parts of this books, but I agree completely with whoever said that they couldn't tell who was speaking during the long conversation between the two main characters. The scenes from their youth were more compelling. It resonated for me because I was in highscool and college in the late sixties, early seventies. Those scenes really did evoke the feelings and experiences of my own young self. Someone who reviewed the book on Goodreads commented that maybe she needed to wait until she was sixty to read the book. Maybe she'd appreciate it then. I assured her that I was sixty and it didn't work for me. I don't think I know anyone who speaks the way these characters did. Long speeches, little personality, really annoying and confusing. The setting is Rome and I wanted to love the place, to feel as though I were there, but too often I felt I could have been in a park or restaurant anywhere.
I'm stunned now by my review. I actually loved many of the settings in Rome. I've been in San Gimignano, which I loved. I stayed with my best friend in the rectory, which welcomed visitors in their living quarters. We paid a small fee and also helped serve meals. The padre in charge of the church was a long time family friend, and we went for a week for a writing retreat after spending a few days in Florence, listening to music in the square by the museum every night, walking through the town, meeting people...and then took a train to San Gimignano, where my friend, Padre Brian, met us and took us to the church, and our rooms. It was the trip of a life time.
I couldn't wait to read Mary Gordon's book. It satisfied in many ways. The disappointed love relationship...the reunion, the believable rifts...and all of the art, the music, the subtle attempts to reconnect. The strangeness of their lack of connection with the friend who invited them to Rome so they could reconnect as actually beyond strange. I didn't get why the author never addressed that. I do love stories of young love. Who doesn't have their own. And I love Europe. Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland. I traveled to so many of these places with a high-school friend when we were very young...and recently with my husband and my son and his family. Some of my favorite travels.
I also loved the passages that described Miranda, the main character's understanding and forgiveness of her younger self. I have to re-experience and forgive my naive self every time I remember being 13 or 18 or 22. "Adam had hurt her badly. Was it wron to say he betrayed her? She is suspicious of words like that now, overlarge words she once lived by, words by which her years with Adam had been marked. She feels tender, merciful toward her younger self, for decisions made in good faith that turned out badly. When you are young, she thinks, you never believe that courage isn't enough. That the imaginative, original decisions isn't the right one.
41 M, 58 t 59, t60 you can rest now, 61, middlr but I do and it is humbling... i have, as I said, comr to love him now. 62 B No Adam, I wont leave it at thst.
64 "I dont understand this page at all"
This is given to us, to touch
each other in this way.
Ranier Mari Rilke
I loved certain parts of this books, but I agree completely with whoever said that they couldn't tell who was speaking during the long conversation between the two main characters. The scenes from their youth were more compelling. It resonated for me because I was in highscool and college in the late sixties, early seventies. Those scenes really did evoke the feelings and experiences of my own young self. Someone who reviewed the book on Goodreads commented that maybe she needed to wait until she was sixty to read the book. Maybe she'd appreciate it then. I assured her that I was sixty and it didn't work for me. I don't think I know anyone who speaks the way these characters did. Long speeches, little personality, really annoying and confusing. The setting is Rome and I wanted to love the place, to feel as though I were there, but too often I felt I could have been in a park or restaurant anywhere.
I'm stunned now by my review. I actually loved many of the settings in Rome. I've been in San Gimignano, which I loved. I stayed with my best friend in the rectory, which welcomed visitors in their living quarters. We paid a small fee and also helped serve meals. The padre in charge of the church was a long time family friend, and we went for a week for a writing retreat after spending a few days in Florence, listening to music in the square by the museum every night, walking through the town, meeting people...and then took a train to San Gimignano, where my friend, Padre Brian, met us and took us to the church, and our rooms. It was the trip of a life time.
I couldn't wait to read Mary Gordon's book. It satisfied in many ways. The disappointed love relationship...the reunion, the believable rifts...and all of the art, the music, the subtle attempts to reconnect. The strangeness of their lack of connection with the friend who invited them to Rome so they could reconnect as actually beyond strange. I didn't get why the author never addressed that. I do love stories of young love. Who doesn't have their own. And I love Europe. Ireland, Italy, Scotland, Spain, Belgium, Switzerland. I traveled to so many of these places with a high-school friend when we were very young...and recently with my husband and my son and his family. Some of my favorite travels.
I also loved the passages that described Miranda, the main character's understanding and forgiveness of her younger self. I have to re-experience and forgive my naive self every time I remember being 13 or 18 or 22. "Adam had hurt her badly. Was it wron to say he betrayed her? She is suspicious of words like that now, overlarge words she once lived by, words by which her years with Adam had been marked. She feels tender, merciful toward her younger self, for decisions made in good faith that turned out badly. When you are young, she thinks, you never believe that courage isn't enough. That the imaginative, original decisions isn't the right one.
41 M, 58 t 59, t60 you can rest now, 61, middlr but I do and it is humbling... i have, as I said, comr to love him now. 62 B No Adam, I wont leave it at thst.
64 "I dont understand this page at all"
December 16, 2013
This book was one of the lowest rated on my entire list, and unfortunately, that matches how I felt about it. I added it to my reading list because it was a story of older folks looking back on their time together as each other's "first loves." And I thought that sounding interesting since I'm reaching an age in my own life where I have stuff to look back on! So I was curious to see how it read.
Two quotes:
--"It was another thing he didn't like... everyone knew everyone, he said. So you had to be whoever everybody thought you were." (p 43)
--"An older woman has either lived with not having been chosen or learned that having been chosen doesn't shape a life as much as she'd once thought." (p 144)
But my complaint would be that it was too much ado about nothing. I probably would have preferred if their story was told first, and then things unfolded from there to see how they looked back on things. But here, 100 pages of dialogue passed before it got into the story of the young them, how they met, etc. So I had no reason to care about or connect with the characters until I started learning more about them. Not that great of a read.
Two quotes:
--"It was another thing he didn't like... everyone knew everyone, he said. So you had to be whoever everybody thought you were." (p 43)
--"An older woman has either lived with not having been chosen or learned that having been chosen doesn't shape a life as much as she'd once thought." (p 144)
But my complaint would be that it was too much ado about nothing. I probably would have preferred if their story was told first, and then things unfolded from there to see how they looked back on things. But here, 100 pages of dialogue passed before it got into the story of the young them, how they met, etc. So I had no reason to care about or connect with the characters until I started learning more about them. Not that great of a read.
December 13, 2011
I really liked "Spending" by Mary Gordon. Her prose was impressive and her ideas were big and interesting. Unfortunately this book did not at all live up to the standard set by the other that I read.
I almost wish she had written a memoir or a straight-up philosophical theory/musing. Because some of the conversation between these the two main characters was really interesting. They managed to cover a lot of ideas and feelings that I could identify with and enjoyed exploring.
But the plot, which was created I suppose to hold these various rambling conversations together, was just way too thin and stupid. It took up too much space and wasn't really all that interesting. And the characters ended up very two-dimensional.
I almost wish she had written a memoir or a straight-up philosophical theory/musing. Because some of the conversation between these the two main characters was really interesting. They managed to cover a lot of ideas and feelings that I could identify with and enjoyed exploring.
But the plot, which was created I suppose to hold these various rambling conversations together, was just way too thin and stupid. It took up too much space and wasn't really all that interesting. And the characters ended up very two-dimensional.
February 26, 2011
A thoughtful beautifully written book on aging, love, and life choices. Two people in their late 50s meet in Rome, brought there by family and business. The two were high school sweethearts and had a painful post-college break-up. They decide to take a walk together each day, as a way to slowly get to know one another again.
This is a novel that asks 'who am I? Am I the same person that I once was?'
Profoundingly affecting.
This is a novel that asks 'who am I? Am I the same person that I once was?'
Profoundingly affecting.
April 2, 2013
I tried, I really tried......just couldn`t do it. Hung in there until just past the halfway mark and then gave up; the idea of the story intrigued me.....the over-thinking characters; the layered dialogue (am I in her head at the moment, or is she thinking out loud); just could not find a rhythm to the story or the diaglogue....is this is philosophy treastise or a story about long lost love.....so sad, it had such promise.
February 21, 2012
Quite slow paced at first but I became more involved in the story as the author began describing the events of their relationship in the 60s and early 70s. Would have loved it if the book had been illustrated with a photo of the Roman landmarks they visited at the beginning of each chapter. As it was, I looked each one up as I read and found it enhanced the story quite a bit.
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