A Lover's Discourse: Fragments

A very heady and intense book. It overpowers you and wraps you within the needy and vicelike read of the narrator's psyche.If you have loved and lost, or are falling in love, it is bittersweet and heartrending, and at once soothes your pain and inflames it with fresh, emergent reminders of the incoherence of emotion.It is a very self-indulgent read - and not in a bad way. Something to read on your own, in private, and to take meaningful pauses at every other sentence or so to wonder about your own life and memories...

It amazing that he is able to describe Love in its differing forms and feelings, dissecting ones various positions to the other in a lovers relationship. Philosophical and psychological stances we may take unknowingly thinking we are unique! On the contrary apparently.

I don't think you should attempt to read this without being well-versed in Barthian discourse and theory, and if you don't know Goethe's SORROWS OF YOUNG WERTHER, you must also read that beforehand. In fact your cultural capital must be pretty elevated before you venture upon A LOVER'S DISCOURSE, and it should be French too - Flaubert, Diderot, Chateaubriand... Then, and only then will you find this book supremely rewarding.

The definitive deconstruction of love. Every nuance of emotion, every detail of the painful process of falling in, being in, and letting go of love is covered. Beguiling in its simplicity this is a perfect way of dissecting every bewildering moment that being human means - after all, we have all fallen in love.

University

Recommended reading for uni courses - if you are into this sort of thing

Barthes is pulling love apart in this wonderful essay. Not so easy to comprehend and a background in philosophy might come handy but all in all you can find some magical excerpt.

Bought for my Daughter for her study good quality book no problems