By Carole Reedy
What else is love but understanding and rejoicing in the fact that
another person lives, acts, and experiences otherwise than we do … ?
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Love wears many faces. The first that comes to mind is often romantic love, but equally powerful is the affectionate love of friendship. There is also the enduring love of long-term relationships, as well as familial love and the usually damaging obsessive love.
Novelists and poets fill reams of pages attempting to make these variegated feelings tangible. Here are several novels that survey the many faces of love.
Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, by Gabrielle Zevin (2002)
Gabrielle Zevin’s novel is absolutely one of the most absorbing and emotionally dense books about friendship that I’ve read in the past few years. Happy to say that The New York Times, The Guardian, Esquire, and The Boston Globe, among other prestigious publications and many critical reader-friends, agree with me.
The nucleus of the novel is the complex friendship between Sam and Sadie. The eventual presence of their friend Marx complicates, yet paradoxically enhances, both the friendship and the story line. Skillfully presented personalities and inter-relationships underpin the simple yet creatively mastered plot.
I must admit that I was hesitant to read this book because the main characters are creators of video games, an activity that holds no interest for me. Try to overcome that prejudice. The games themselves are the impetus, the glue, and the core around which the friendships are spawned and enhanced.
Please read this book. You will not be disappointed.
The Romantic, by William Boyd (2022)
William Boyd is prolific. His repertoire consists of more than 15 novels, several short story collections, and many screenplays, plays, nonfiction works, and radio programs.
Equally impressive is his history. Boyd’s Scottish parents emigrated to Africa to run a health clinic (his father was a doctor of tropical medicine). Boyd was born in Accra, Ghana, and also lived in Nigeria. Several of his first novels take place in Africa: A Good Man in Africa (1981), An Ice-Cream War: A Novel (1982), and Brazzaville Beach: A Novel (1999).
Boyd’s latest panoramic novel, The Romantic, presents the main character, Cashel Greville Ross, from his birth in County Cork, Ireland, in 1799, through his adventures in Oxford, London, Brussels, and Zanzibar. A significant part of Ross’s saga, however, takes place in Italy, where he encounters Percy Bysshe Shelley and other Romantic poets and intellectuals in Pisa. A romantic interlude in Ravenna becomes a serious love affair. However, the love he finds there, he callously discards in a moment of rash anger. This misunderstanding haunts him for the rest of his days.
This novel is sweeping not only from a geographical and historical perspective, but also in an emotional sense. We follow Ross across a century and a grand part of the world, all the while cognizant of the significant events of the 19th century as well as one man’s emotions, perceptions, and moral values. Boyd asserts that this is a fictionalized biography of the actual Cashel Greville Ross (1799-1882) – Ross did not actually exist.
Boyd tells a wonderful tale that sparks a broad range of emotions as we journey over foreign lands and within the hearts of his characters. There is everything to love in a William Boyd novel.
Tom Lake: A Novel, by Ann Patchett (2023)
This prolific and diverse author has hit the top of the charts with her latest story of familial love, with romantic incidents to add flavor and spice to the recipe.
In this latest book, the COVID epidemic creates the backdrop for parents and adult children to reunite in northern Michigan, where they will pick cherries from the trees that support the family business. The time the family is sequestered together opens the doors to the past. The three adult daughters vigorously question their mother on her “life before dad” and her romance with an eventually famous movie star.
This novel appears to be on its way to the bestseller lists, seated among Patchett’s other gems, Bel Canto: A Novel (2001) and The Dutch House: A Novel (2019).
The President and the Frog: A Novel, by Carolina de Robertis (2021)
Ex-president of Uruguay Jose “Pepe” Mujica dedicated his life to the small country tucked between Argentina, Brazil, and the sea. As an ardent socialist, Mujica suffered years in the prisons of Uruguay for his beliefs and actions against a fascist government.
And yet years later (from 2010 to 2015), he became one of the most popular and recognized presidents of a South American country. Mujica eschewed the usual decorous lifestyle of many heads of countries. Every day he drove himself to his presidential duties in his 1987 Volkswagen and returned to his farm each evening, where he personally tended to his crops. Ninety percent of his salary was designated for the poor citizens of the country.
This charming novel demonstrates the love of one man for his people and country. It is written in the form of an interview by a journalist, his story teetering between present and past, and bringing to mind the Irish ballad:
For the love of one’s country is a terrible thing.
It banishes fear with the speed of a flame,
And makes us all part of the Patriot Game.
The Alexandria Quartet, by Lawrence Durrell (1957-60)
The twists and turns in these four time-proven fortuitous novels (Justine [1957], Balthazar [1958], Mountolive [1958], and Clea [1960]) set the stage for hours of challenging reading enjoyment.
At first it appears that everyone is in love, one way or another, with the mysterious Justine, but as the series develops our perceptions regarding the roles and feelings of the characters change.
The deep love among the characters in the quartet is more than romantic; it is also the deep-seated friendship that develops among them that keeps narrative flow suspenseful yet accessible.
I tried to read this Durrell classic as a young 30-year-old avid reader when the series was quite the rage. I struggled with the writing style and set it aside. Last year I picked it up again when a good friend and dedicated reader recommended that I “give it another try.” He was right: this time I was thoroughly entertained, not only with the story, but also with the rich mosaic style of Durrell.
Baumgartner: A Novel, by Paul Auster (2023)
Simply, this is a story of an elderly man told to us by one of the best known and most worldly novelists of our generation. The love in this recent novel addresses the enduring feelings that Baumgarten feels for his dead wife and, ultimately, his obsession with her legacy.
As always, Auster combines humor with sorrow. Those of us advanced in years will identify with the often comical descriptions of Baumgarter’s daily struggles. I kept asking myself whether this was meant to be a humorous or bittersweet novel. Of course, it is both.
Auster’s novels always scrutinize the past and present with hope for the future, and this congenial read does not veer from that path. At the somewhat surprise finish, as a critical reader I thought, “What a perfect ending!” – although this should not be at all surprising, coming from this most astute of writers.
Our thoughts go out to Auster as he struggles with his own recent health issues. We hope to see more brilliant novels from him in the future.
Day: A Novel, by Michael Cunningham (2023)
Newly published to joyfully ring in the new year is another thought-provoking novel by the author of The Hours: A Novel (2003), Cunningham’s clever look at the illustrious Virginia Woolf and her memorable creation, Mrs. Dalloway (1925).
Day takes place during the month of April in three successive years, 2019, 2020, 2021. At the core of the novel is a family, each member dealing with his or her individual struggles with daily life and routine. Although quite different in character, desires, attitudes and goals, each player in this novel is likable and sympathetic. This could be due to Cunningham’s striking ability to describe individuals in relation to the others and to communicate each one’s thought processes as they ponder their personal demons.
The New York Times sums up the frictions: “By the end, the members of the family seem to have laid their ghosts to rest. They’re reconciled to moving forward and to living in conflicts that have come to seem almost jolly.”
Wuthering Heights: A Novel, by Ellis Bell (Emily Brontë, 1847)
The preeminent of obsessive love stories, that of Cathy and Heathcliff, was created by Emily Brontë. This, her only published novel, remains to this day a staple in literary circles.
“Be with me always – take any form – drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I CANNOT live without my life! I CANNOT live without my soul!” This is Heathcliff speaking in this ambitious novel that leaves the reader in awe of the literary ability of the young 29-year-old country girl from York.
Brontë’s exploration of romantic love and obsessive passion has not been surpassed in well over 100 years. The success and endurance of the novel and the movies made from it have assured Brontë’s stature in the world of literature. In my mind, there is little doubt that none of the movies made even grazes the surface of the passion and melancholy expressed in the novel.
Emily Brontë died at age 30, one year after the publication of Wuthering Heights.