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.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
"Pascal Bruckner is one of the most original, and least academic, of the new French philosophers. He has a mordant wit, a feeling for the pregnant sentence, and his dissection of the myths of romantic love--too elegantly done to be called a 'deconstruction'--is ideal reading for lovers of paradox, and even for those still in love with love's paradox."--Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon and The Table Comes First
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
US$ 3.00
Within U.S.A.
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Brand New Copy. Seller Inventory # BBB_new0691149143
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Fast Shipping and good customer service. Seller Inventory # Holz_New_0691149143
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: New. Dust Jacket Condition: New. New. Seller Inventory # 000053
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. Buy for Great customer experience. Seller Inventory # GoldenDragon0691149143
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New. Seller Inventory # Wizard0691149143
Book Description Condition: New. Seller Inventory # 9221154-n
Book Description Hardcover. Condition: new. New Copy. Customer Service Guaranteed. Seller Inventory # think0691149143
Book Description Condition: new. Seller Inventory # FrontCover0691149143
Book Description HRD. Condition: New. New Book. Shipped from UK. Established seller since 2000. Seller Inventory # WP-9780691149141
Book Description Condition: New. Buy with confidence! Book is in new, never-used condition. Seller Inventory # bk0691149143xvz189zvxnew