A Very Short Reading Group discussion

Due to the "Beast from the East" sweeping in and covering half of Stockton in snow we're unfortunately having to cancel this evening's meeting. You can still post any thoughts about the book here and hopefully we'll have better weather for March!

Hi,

Shame the latest meeting was cancelled because of snow. How many people do you usually get coming to the real world meeting? On the plus side, my being snowed in away from work today means that I have time to write some comments.

I feel that the book treated love as an asymmetric relationship. subject/object. Lover/loved.
Indeed, the rather strange comment is made that unrequited love may be the purest form of love because it is unselfish!

Less is made of love being a mutual relationship between two people, as a means of fulfilling the needs of both. Brief mention is made of Aristophanes creation myth for the sexes, showing that a person is always seeking their missing part, but I don't feel that was sufficiently explored.

Perhaps if we take love away, and consider an unloved person, we will see what is missing and needed. Loneliness, the need to share lived experience with another person, to see recognition in another persons eyes, to be able to communicate with few or no words, to be known, to provide meaning to an existence. It may not be high-culture, (and a bit cheesy!) but the lack of meaning felt in a single life is quite well captured in “The day before you came” by Abba!

I don't have a problem with the scientific reduction of the phenomena of love. Everything exists at different levels of abstraction and understanding, particularly where humans are concerned. I know I'll die if I don't eat, but it doesn't stop me enjoying the taste of a steak.

I found the section on chemically-induced or modified love amusing. What does the author think people have been doing with bottles of wine for millennia?

So to finish (and trying to regain some street cred) I turn to Joni Mitchell.

“I've looked at love from both sides now
From give and take and still somehow
It's love's illusions I recall
I really don't know love at all”

Abba and Joni Mitchell – a fine combination. If the classics can’t tell us about love, what can?

I agree there was a tendency in the book to see love in terms of these binary oppositions. While there was discussion of the different types of love, I felt more about the cultural history of love and its shifting definition could have provided better clarity. The philosophical approach, while interesting, left things a little vague and waffly. Different traditions across locations and times could also have proved more enlightening.

Overall I felt it was still a worthwhile read, but listening to a few decent songs might have proved equally informative!