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On Love and Death
 
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On Love and Death (Paperback)

by Patrick Suskind (Author), Anthea Bell (Translator)
2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
RRP: £5.99
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Product details

  • Paperback: 80 pages
  • Publisher: Old Street Publishing (22 Nov 2006)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 190584705X
  • ISBN-13: 978-1905847051
  • Product Dimensions: 17.2 x 11.8 x 1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 265,324 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category:

    #10 in  Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > S > Suskind, Patrick

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Product Description

Book Description
In this intriguing blend of provocative images and reflective prose, Patrick Süskind reveals the hidden source of his mesmerizing fiction: an obsession with the darkly erotic link between love and death. A witty and thought-provoking meditation on the two elemental forces of human existence, drawing on scenes as contemporary as a young couple having oral sex in a traffic jam, as literary as Thomas Mann’s discovery of forbidden love at an advanced age, and as mythical as the stories of death conquered through love in the narratives of Orpheus and Jesus.

About the Author
Already a literary star in his native Germany, Patrick Süskind was catapulted to international fame in 1985 with the publication of Perfume, which went on to top best-seller lists around the globe. He has received great acclaim for all his subsequent writing and remains a notoriously private person, living close to Munich in the town where he was born.

Anthea Bell is the acclaimed translator of, among many other works, Austerlitz by W G Sebald, for which she won the Helen and Kurt Wolff Translators’ prize from the Goethe Institute, Chess by Stefan Zweig, The Pianist by Wladyslaw Szpilman and the Asterix stories by Goscinny and Uderzo.

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Customer Reviews

3 Reviews
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1 star:
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Average Customer Review
2.3 out of 5 stars (3 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This little book has changed my life, 11 Dec 2006
By Ruth Cambell (Oxford, England) - See all my reviews
I had always thought that it couldn't possibly make sense to link the happiness of love with feelings of melancholy and sadness. I couldn't understand why even the most upbeat love songs could make me feel like crying, sometimes. It took the genius of the author of PERFUME , Patrick Suskind, to explain in this little masterpiece what true love really means: knowing that we are always only a tiny and very precious step away from its sister - death. We can't cherish one without the other. Thank you, Patrick Suskind, for explaining one of life's confusing mysteries, in such a beautiful and simple way. I bought five as Christmas presents, and will buy just as many for Valentine's - for my lover and a few exes, too....
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2 of 10 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Anyone in love will never need this book, 17 Nov 2006
By Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
This review is from: On Love and Death (Paperback)
Love is the union of two solitudes, a natural event for any species that is not parthenogenic; sadly, Suskind seems to think love is an expression of selfishness that mimics the nihilism of death.

In his view, there is an erotic link between love and death. True, for a sorry few. For others who are fortunate, love is an awakening, a rebirth, a surging of shared confidence that makes anything and everything in the world not only possible but worth trying. Love makes people happy to go singing in the rain; too bad Tristan and Isolde didn't share this optimism. Nothing is impossible for anyone in love, as most who have been in love already know.

Suskind thinks of love in terms of death. To counter this, look at a little kitten who rolls onto its back to have its tummy tickled. Kitten, cat, lion or human, all have a similar need for gentle touch and complete trust based on a shared love between tickler and ticklee. It's what love is all about; trust without having to verify. As I recall, "trust but verify" is common sense in loveless business dealings and European cynicism in human relations.

He equates love with death. Perhaps it is to shock a trusting reader into considering the impossible, the better to understand reality. Perhaps he believes death is the ultimate form of love. This is a real view. The Rev. Jim Jones convinced almost a thousand people a quarter century ago that the ultimate love was to drink the Kool-Ade he prepared. Other cult leaders have had a similar impact on lonely, depressed, forlorn and lost souls.

It makes this a very sad book. Perhaps this is European sophistication, always able to see the negative in any situation, always able to cry on sunny days because later it will rain. Europeans have a lot of experience of looking at the dark side of life, a fact well known among the Germans; they can't understand the perennial American spirit of optimism and hope.

Looking for love? The answer isn't in dying; death isn't the ultimate expression of love. Looking for death? Fall in love, and you'll want to live forever; fall in love, and you'll forever be 12, or 20, or 40, or 80, whatever age it happens. Fall in love, and you never age.

Anyone in love will never need this book. Anyone looking for love will find it depressing, sad and pointless. Both will find it a curious exercise in irrelevance. Perhaps that is why it fascinates. How can so little be written about so much with such insouciance?
Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
3 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars Anyone in love will never need this book, 16 Nov 2006
By Theodore A. Rushton (PHOENIX, Arizona United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   
Love is the union of two solitudes, a natural event for any species that is not parthenogenic; sadly, Suskind seems to think love is an expression of selfishness that mimics the nihilism of death.

In his view, there is an erotic link between love and death. True, for a sorry few. For others who are fortunate, love is an awakening, a rebirth, a surging of shared confidence that makes anything and everything in the world not only possible but worth trying. Love makes people happy to go singing in the rain; too bad Tristan and Isolde didn't share this optimism. Nothing is impossible for anyone in love, as most who have been in love already know.

Suskind thinks of love in terms of death. To counter this, look at a little kitten who rolls onto its back to have its tummy tickled. Kitten, cat, lion or human, all have a similar need for gentle touch and complete trust based on a shared love between tickler and ticklee. It's what love is all about; trust without having to verify. As I recall, "trust but verify" is common sense in loveless business dealings and European cynicism in human relations.

He equates love with death. Perhaps it is to shock a trusting reader into considering the impossible, the better to understand reality. Perhaps he believes death is the ultimate form of love. This is a real view. The Rev. Jim Jones convinced almost a thousand people a quarter century ago that the ultimate love was to drink the Kool-Ade he prepared. Other cult leaders have had a similar impact on lonely, depressed, forlorn and lost souls.

It makes this a very sad book. Perhaps this is European sophistication, always able to see the negative in any situation, always able to cry on sunny days because later it will rain. Europeans have a lot of experience of looking at the dark side of life, a fact well known among the Germans; they can't understand the perennial American spirit of optimism and hope.

Looking for love? The answer isn't in dying; death isn't the ultimate expression of love. Looking for death? Fall in love, and you'll want to live forever; fall in love, and you'll forever be 12, or 20, or 40, or 80, whatever age it happens. Fall in love, and you never age.

Anyone in love will never need this book. Anyone looking for love will find it depressing, sad and pointless. Both will find it a curious exercise in irrelevance. Perhaps that is why it fascinates. How can so little be written about so much with such insouciance?
Comment Comments (2) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


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