If, as things stand, you are one of those who have already begun to rethink the foundations of romantic love sold by Hollywood (among others) and you are looking for and capturing values and relational models that you like more and, above all, that work better for you, here is a little help in the form of books that have delved into the subject. Whether from the novel, the essay or even the comic.
the end of loveTamara Tenenbaum
Times change and marriage, or the monogamous couple, is no longer a vital goal as it was for our parents and grandparents. But don’t panic after reading the title of the book and the first sentence of this paragraph. With Tenenbaum it could be said that love is like energy, that it is neither created nor destroyed, it only transforms. Thus, although the Argentine philosopher celebrates in the pages of this captivating essay the end of romantic love as we have known it until now, she also proposes that, from its ashes, come out another better one. One that makes men and women freer and that allows us to enjoy it more and suffer less.
The End of Love: Loving and Fucking in the 21st Century (The Three Worlds)
I do not feel anythingLiv Stromquist
What is happening to love? Can we still truly fall in love? Why do stories almost always end fatally? With the help of Leonardo DiCaprio, Beyoncé, Kierkegaard, Hilda Doolittle, the Smurfs, sociological theory, reality TV contestants, Plato and many more, Liv Strömquist analyzes how the heart is doing in these times of late capitalism. With her caustic tone and her usual documentary rigor, the cartoonist seeks answers to big questions by combining well-known references with less expected anecdotes with the aim of probing the nooks and crannies of passion.
I feel nothing (Graphic Reservoir)
HotMoon Michael
Hot It begins with a broken heart, that hackneyed and somewhat cheesy cultural image that seems inescapable when heartbreak breaks out. But nevertheless, Luna Miguel did not seem willing to let pain and tears roam freely. when, the one who had been his partner for more than a decade, told him that he had fallen in love with someone else. In that moment she decided that if she was going to cry, at least there would be pleasure too. Thus, after almost half her life as a couple, she tried polyamory, reconnected with old friends and reconsidered everything she had believed in and what she had bet on for years. The poet and journalist talks about all this in an essay that constantly goes from the visceral to the rational to take the reader from tears to anger and, finally, to a timid hope.
To be lovedJavier Lozano
It could be said that To be loved It is a comic with the spirit of an apocryphal gospel in which full-color scenes follow one another with backgrounds such as stained glass windows, tapestries or prints that frame multiple plot lines to draw a journey around the concept of romantic love and its consequences. Between breakups; verses of Keats and fragments of San Agustín; obsessive thoughts; hours looking at the mobile in search of messages that never arrive; the misunderstanding of the other; the heart emojis; possession and ties, the search for good love (reciprocated, generous, liberating, honest and lasting) runs through the bookalthough sometimes it seems as impossible as a winged horse.
RemainsRachel Cusk
In 2009, Rachel Cusk’s marriage came to an end and her world fractured “like a puzzle turned into a bunch of pieces with jagged edges.” Remains is the story of that rupture, in which a writer and mother of two girls he observes his own reactions to the destruction of life as he had understood it until then. A woman who, while creating a new individuality for herself and a new family model for her daughters (in a society that places conjugal love as the sacred and unbreakable center of a family), discovers an unexpected vulnerability, but also unknown freedoms and strengths. .
Spoils (3rd ED): On Marriage and Separation: 238 (ASTEROID BOOKS)
Pure passionAnnie Annie Ernaux
This is a story about the passion of an educated, intelligent, financially independent woman, divorced and with grown children, who loses her mind over a diplomat from an Eastern country who looks like Alain Delon. Very few times before this little novel had she spoken to herself with such stark impudence about sex and desire that she idiotizes, that she disrupts. The aseptic and naked writing of Annie Ernaux manages to introduce the reader into the feverish, ecstatic and devastating delirium that anyone, anywhere in the world, has undoubtedly experienced at least once in their life.
Unrequited loveBarbara Pym
Dulcie Mainwaring, the heroine of this book, is one of those “excellent women”, seemingly selfless, always helping others but unable to take care of herself, especially in what concerns the field of love. In Unrequited lovea novel at the height of the best English comedies, Pym, with his characteristic sarcasm and sense of humor, presents us with a delicate love affair, full of unfulfilled dreams and hidden secrets.
Unrequited love (GATOPARDO)
The algorithm of loveJudith Duportail
After a breakup, the French journalist Judith Duportail opens an account on Tinder, and discovers something unexpected that shocks her and fuels her curiosity in equal parts: the app keeps a “desirability note” for each user hidden on its server. This will make her embark on an investigation to find out how the app that has radically changed the way people meet and get to know each other really works. An unflattering portrait of its operation and its revolutionary algorithm, far removed from the company’s allegedly progressive policy, in a context of emotional commodification and ephemeral relationships that will trigger a personal crisis in the author.
The algorithm of love: A trip to the entrails of Tinder
Monogamous thinking, polyamorous terrorBrigitte Vassal
Monogamous thought, a structuring part of our social relationships, is analyzed in this essay that crosses both the academic and the embodied narrative. A historical investigation on the centrality of monogamy in our love constructions and its imposition mechanisms. In addition, it is a narration of their own love failures, as well as a sharp questioning of a polyamory that puts the accent only on accumulation. The book dismantles our forms of relationship from the bases in an attempt that there is no not one more emotional corpse in our lives.
Monogamous thinking polyamorous terror (ESSAY)
Amorous uses of eighteen in SpainCarmen Martin Gaite
At the same time, an original essay and delicious historical-literary research, this work, now a classic, studies from the examination of that kind of gallant adultery that courtship was, other outstanding customs that regulated relations between the sexes in Spain. from the second half of the 18th century. In addition, it analyzes with a stimulating and entertaining rhythm some of the main transformations experienced in the private and domestic environment with the advent of the Bourbons, such as the first feminist claims, the loss of the traditional feeling of honor or the dawn of romantic love.
Amorous uses of eighteen in Spain: 352 (Books of Time)
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Cover photo | HBO