The End of the Novel of Love
ISBN10: 0374538263
ISBN13: 9780374538262
Trade Paperback
176 Pages
$16.00
CA$22.00
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism
In The End of the Novel of Love, an acclaimed and provocative collection of criticism, Gornick applies the same intelligence, honesty, and insight that define her memoirs to an analysis of love and marriage as literary themes in the twentieth century. She examines the work and lives of several authors she admires—including Grace Paley, Willa Cather, Jean Rhys, George Meredith, Jane Smiley, Richard Ford, and Andre Dubus—to ultimately posit that love, sexual fulfillment, and marriage are now exhausted as the metaphorical expressions of success and happiness.
Spanning the depths of common experience and the expanse of twentieth century literature, Gornick crafts an argument that is as defined by discourse as it is by the power of her language, which is gracefully poised between objective knowledge and subjective experience. In these eleven essays, she comes to see that, for most writers, like most readers, it is the drama of our angry and frightened selves in the presence of love that is our modern preoccupation. The End of the Novel of Love is a strikingly original and thought-provoking collection from a canonical critic.
Reviews
Praise for The End of the Novel of Love
"[Gornick] is fearless . . . Reading her essays, one is reassured that the conversation between life and literature is mutually sustaining as well as mutually corrective, and that it is likely to continue both in spite of and because of our changes of heart—in love or out of it."—Elizabeth Frank, The New York Times Book Review
"The End of the Novel of Love is small in bulk but large in implication. The book is a pleasure and a stimulus: persuasive, finely wrought, quivering with intelligence."—George Scialabba, Boston Review
"Gornick writes in a pithy, intensely concentrated literary style that is individual, uncannily precise, and a pleasure to read . . . She has the extraordinary ability to cut to the bone of our common experience with just a few, well-chosen words . . . An exceptionally well-written, original, and thought-provoking set of essays."—Kirkus Reviews