Clean, solid hardcover copy with unmarked text; a couple of bent page corners. Jacket has mild surface and edge wear; a small stain inside jacket over upper spine end. Binding is tight and square. We are unable to ship oversize books and multi-volume sets internationally.

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Bibliographic Details

Title

The Paradox of Love

Publisher

Princeton University Press

Publication Date

2012

Language

English

ISBN 10

0691149143

ISBN 13

9780691149141

Binding

Hardcover

Condition

Very Good

Dust Jacket Condition

Very Good

Weight

16 ounces

Seller catalogs

Literature and Fiction:Literary Criticism

About this title

Synopsis

A provocative reflection on the dilemmas of modern love

The sexual revolution is justly celebrated for the freedoms it brought―birth control, the decriminalization of abortion, the liberalization of divorce, greater equality between the sexes, women's massive entry into the workforce, and more tolerance of homosexuality. But as Pascal Bruckner, one of France's leading writers, argues in this lively and provocative reflection on the contradictions of modern love, our new freedoms have also brought new burdens and rules―without, however, wiping out the old rules, emotions, desires, and arrangements: the couple, marriage, jealousy, the demand for fidelity, the war between constancy and inconstancy. It is no wonder that love, sex, and relationships today are so confusing, so difficult, and so paradoxical.

Drawing on history, politics, psychology, literature, pop culture, and current events, this book―a best seller in France―exposes and dissects these paradoxes. With his customary brilliance and wit, Bruckner traces the roots of sexual liberation back to the Enlightenment in order to explain love's supreme paradox, epitomized by the 1960s oxymoron of "free love": the tension between freedom, which separates, and love, which attaches. Ashamed that our sex lives fail to live up to such liberated ideals, we have traded neuroses of repression for neuroses of inadequacy, and we overcompensate: "Our parents lied about their morality," Bruckner writes, but "we lie about our immorality.?

Mixing irony and optimism, Bruckner argues that, when it comes to love, we should side neither with the revolutionaries nor the reactionaries. Rather, taking love and ourselves as we are, we should realize that love makes no progress and that its messiness, surprises, and paradoxes are not merely the sources of its pain―but also of its pleasure and glory.

About the Author

Pascal Bruckner is the award-winning author of many books of fiction and nonfiction, including the novel Bitter Moon, which was made into a film by Roman Polanski. Bruckner's nonfiction books include Perpetual Euphoria (Princeton) and The Tyranny of Guilt.

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