- Hardcover: 144 pages
- Publisher: Pantheon Books; 1st American Ed edition (Jan 1997)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0679442642
- ISBN-13: 978-0679442646
- Product Dimensions: 18 x 11.4 x 2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 883,801 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
In his preface to this highly charged volume, psychologist Adam Phillips suggests that today's raging controversies over the nature of marriage and the soaring divorce rate are actually discussions about monogamy: What brings people together? Why should they, in fact, stay together? "What are couples for," he asks, "if they are not for pleasure? And if pleasure doesn't matter, then what does?"
Phillips gives us 120 deliberately arguable aphorisms ("Every marriage is a blind date that makes you wonder what the alternatives are to a blind date." or "As yet, the promiscuous cannot grow old gracefully. But this may say more about our ideas of dignity, than of aging.") that discuss the concept of monogamy from every angle, discovering what it is and what it isn't, uncovering in it "a kind of moral nexus, a keyhole through which we can spy on our preoccupations."
No reader will come away from this wholly unexpected book without feeling challenged to re-evaluate, and perhaps reconstruct, the time-honored (or is it time-hardened?) notions we hold about monogamy.
Phillips gives us 120 deliberately arguable aphorisms ("Every marriage is a blind date that makes you wonder what the alternatives are to a blind date." or "As yet, the promiscuous cannot grow old gracefully. But this may say more about our ideas of dignity, than of aging.") that discuss the concept of monogamy from every angle, discovering what it is and what it isn't, uncovering in it "a kind of moral nexus, a keyhole through which we can spy on our preoccupations."
No reader will come away from this wholly unexpected book without feeling challenged to re-evaluate, and perhaps reconstruct, the time-honored (or is it time-hardened?) notions we hold about monogamy.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
13 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this 5 years ago and havee only come back to this site as I lent my copty to someone who has not given it back. The essence of the book is to explore the tension that we find ourselves in between the constraints and stability of monogomy and the excitement and uncertainty of a single life. There are many accutely observed insights into this modern of dilemmas
16 of 19 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
In a series of aphorisms and vignettes, Phillips explores with panache the notion that the ideal of monogamy is separate from fidelity: 'two's company but three's a couple'. Is it cruel, he asks, to demand everything from just one person? We are all capable of loving more than one person at a time. An excellent and thought provoking read.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I bought this having recently read and enjoyed Going Sane. However, I was disappointed that there were so many pages with only one paragraph on the page. It seems like a waste that a writer who has so many interesting things to say should produce a book with so much empty space! Although I did enjoy many of the thoughts in the book, I never quite got over the disappointment of realising I had nearly finished when I felt like it was just getting started.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
This book should come with a public mental health warning
Monogamy is not, despite the premise of this book, a peculiarly modern concern.
A peculiarly post-modern phenomenon is the overly analytical confused solipsistic... Read more
A peculiarly post-modern phenomenon is the overly analytical confused solipsistic... Read more
Published 8 months ago by JLSmith
a must read
The world would be a much calmer and contented place if everyone read this book, and read it with a complete open mind. Read more
Published 21 months ago by connie22rose
Excellent!
Insightful writing that gets to the core of what it is to be in a relationship.
Published on 1 Mar 2009 by S. morris
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