If one of your new year's resolutions is improving your romantic life, and you're hoping to find some inspiration at your local bookshop, might I recommend skipping the self-help shelves and heading straight to fiction and literature?
Titles like It's Not You, It's Him and Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough might make for great segments on morning talk shows but I've personally never pored over books like those in the hope of gaining insight into the vagaries of the heart. Whereas I have gone to classic novels for that purpose. Why? The insights of the literary greats ring true, generation after generation. Look closely at just about any work of fiction that has proven itself over time, and you'll find plenty of insight into the problems that have plagued daters throughout history, and still bedevil them today.
Let's take, for instance, Light in August by William Faulkner — a book that could've been subtitled He's Just Not That Into You, though it was written about 75 years earlier. The darkly comic quest that helps shape the novel starts when young Lena Grove tells the scallywag she's been sleeping with, Lucas Burch, that she's pregnant. He responds by suggesting he leave town immediately — to look for work, you understand, so he can support her and the baby — and doesn't Lena agree? He's so smooth, and Lena's so trusting, that she gives him her blessing to run off — then waits patiently for months, expecting he really will send for her. She convinces herself that he's just lost track of time. Whenever anybody hints that maybe, just maybe, this Lucas person is not exactly the salt of the earth, Lena defends him with "calm unreason," saying, "Going away among strangers like that, a young fellow needs time to get settled down. He never knowed [sic] that . . . he would need more time . . . than he figured on."
Though nobody in the book comes out and says, "Lena, can't you see he's just not that into you?", just about everyone's thinking it — especially when, as she's about ready to pop, she heads off on a long search, by foot, to find him. The poor girl serves as a reminder that none of us should bend over backwards, making excuses for people who aren't treating us right. Particularly not if our water is about to break.
Similarly, Occam's Razor (that the simplest explanation is generally the most plausible) often applies whenever we find ourselves wondering obsessively when we'll hear back from someone after a date. Such anxiety may seem particular to our email era, but it was alive and well in Jane Austen's time, too. When Marianne Dashwood, of Sense and Sensibility, arrives in London, where the guy she's carried on an extended flirtation with has taken up residence, she eagerly sends him a letter. Marianne doesn't have a Gmail account, of course, but she does have a fast-moving footman — and the servant has barely left with the missive before she begins "anxiously listening to the sound of every carriage," eagerly awaiting his return with a response from her crush, Mr Willoughby.
Days pass, however, without any word. The very same kinds of questions that anyone of us would have, bedevil Marianne: Did he get the note? Is he ill? Was it something she said? Her feeling of dread only intensifies after Willoughby turns down an invite to a ball that he knows Marianne will be at and gives her the cold shoulder at another party. Eventually, she discovers he's engaged to another woman.
Poor Marianne's experience confirms that then, as now, if a romantic interest has you guessing too much of the time, or you're always agonizing over when you'll hear from him next, it's best to save your energies, and move on. If you're already dating other people, you'll feel that much better when you hear about his secret fiancée.
But the book that may have been most elucidating for me lately is Howards End, a gorgeous meditation about what can happen when you cross the political aisle for love, the way protagonist Margaret Schlegel does. You see, I'm now dating a man whose political views I often find distasteful (when I don't find them downright insane). And Margaret, a liberal suffragette, seems destined for spinsterdom when the bourgeois capitalist Henry Wilcox, a conservative, proposes marriage to her. Though Henry thinks giving women the vote is silly, he admires Margaret's strength — and vice versa. What's more, she's charmed by his interest in her. She doesn't need marriage, or feel desperate for it, but she deeply enjoys being loved by a man — a man who is a good man (and not just Mr. Good Enough), even if she doesn't always love his opinions. She understands intuitively that she'll be in a better position to mitigate the less agreeable aspects of Henry's character once their relationship is strong so she goes about making sure it is, by giving him respect and understanding while holding on to her own beliefs. In doing so, she creates a bond so strong that it benefits everyone who is close to the couple.
Thanks to E.M. Forster's small masterpiece, we get one of the most simple but enduring recommendations about how we might improve our love lives: "Only connect!" Which is to say: If you want to make a relationship work, look for similarities, not differences, and take it from there. That's never as easy as it sounds, of course. But reading can help you better understand who you are, who you want to be with, and how to bridge the gap between the two.
"Only connect the prose and the passion," as Forster goes on to say, "and both will be exalted, and human love will be seen at its height." Great advice, isn't it?
• Much Ado About Loving: What Our Favorite Novels Can Teach You About Date Expectations, Not-So-Great Gatsbys and Love in the Time of Internet Personals by Maura Kelly and Jack Murnighan is out tomorrow
Did a literary work help you through heartbreak? Has a book banished your dating misery? Post your thoughts here.
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9 January 2012 9:21AM
Dorothy Parker - especially 'The Telephone Call' (I think that's the title anyway). Nancy Mitford who is an expert on sexual attraction distorting judgement and leading to misalliances. Look on the bright side - at least in our less morally punitive times one can indulge the passion without the matrimonial requirement - hopefully this might have prevented some heartbreak.
9 January 2012 9:37AM
Jane Austen has plenty of good advice, but this bit in particular has stayed with me -
"It is well to have as many holds upon happiness as possible.”
9 January 2012 9:50AM
Or you could chuck yourself under a train like Anna Karenina.
9 January 2012 9:52AM
I am not sure that the example of Willoughby and Marianne is very apt, as he genuinely loved her, and on the very day he was intending to ask her to marry him, his past misdeeds caught up with him, and being threatened with disinheritance, was forced to secure his position by marrying a rich girl instead.
It is certainly a good example of the way even true love can be thwarted by unforeseen external influences.
I tend to go along with Clegg, from" Last of the Summer Wine", who stated that "women have always been a closed book to me, in fact, I cant even read the spine".
By good fortune I do have a lovely partner at the moment, but women are so fickle - she could go off me any moment, and then romantic books would be all I could look to for solace, though not for much helpful guidance I think.
9 January 2012 9:53AM
Might I suggest "The End of the Affair" by Graham Greene. The mistress makes a pact with god never to see or contact her lover again, if God allows him to survive an air-raid....
9 January 2012 10:17AM
I only clicked on the link because of the Penguin Deckchairs. Where can I buy one?
9 January 2012 11:06AM
most of these books will be read too late., or after the catastrophic love affair.. recognition comes after an event we have experienced, which is why we relate to them.
Oh, and Middlemarch should be read before marrying.
And what is the moral of The End of the Affair" actually? You shouldn't make pacts with God? Not have an affair in the first place? Ignore your pact? Perhaps to think twice before making the pact? Or is it just a Catholic story and a good novel?
9 January 2012 11:17AM
These are NOT the classics. The classics are those works written in the golden years of Athens and Rome. In golden Greek and Latin, of course. Let's keep the classics classic, shall we?
9 January 2012 11:26AM
Not to rain on your parade, but all these authors had miserable love lives.
9 January 2012 11:34AM
Unfortunately you are conveniently forgetting that Henry Wilcox turns out NOT to be a good man at all. He is a weak man, a man who seduced and abandoned a woman, a man who doesn't know himself at all, and a man driven by conventions instead of heart. What this bodes for your budding romance I know not, but please don't make Howard's End sound like some sort of crossed-by-ideology love story a la James Carville and Mary Matalin.
9 January 2012 11:50AM
Love in the TIme of Cholera by Marquez, because it shows that there is more than one kind of romantic love, that those different kinds can exist within one person at the same point in time, and for having one of the most moving last pages of any modern novel. I would also suggest Fortress Besieged by Qian Zhongshu, because it will make you laugh about the absurdity of love (and 1930s China, though that probably has less mass appeal).
9 January 2012 11:57AM
Jane Austen surely offers her greatest analysis of the complexities of love and relationships in her novel Persuasion, in which the characters Anne Elliot and Captain Wentworth are kept apart by circumstances. Austen seems to suggest that some people are fated to be together and that, even if they spend time apart or in other relationships, they will always return to each other.
9 January 2012 12:02PM
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9 January 2012 12:26PM
I'm not the biggest cheerleader for Austen's works, in the main, but Mr.Bennett is one of the greatest of all literary creations, and I love what he says to Lizzy when she tells him of Darcy's proposal at the end of "Pride & Prejudice"
“We all know him to be a proud, unpleasant sort of man; but this would be nothing if you really liked him”
Wise words, Mr. B, wise words.
9 January 2012 12:33PM
One should be able to anti-recommend mean-spirited and unnecessary comments such as these.
(SoundWay, 12:02)
9 January 2012 12:33PM
I think Dickens had it right:
"It was all Mrs. Bumble. She would do it," urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.
'That is no excuse,' replied Mr. Brownlow. 'You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.'
'If the law supposes that,' said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, 'the law is a ass—a idiot. If that's the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.'
Oliver Twist
9 January 2012 12:55PM
You can. That's what the respond button is for. So that you can respond to silly comments, as I'm doing now.
9 January 2012 12:58PM
Heller's Catch-22 taught me everything about love that I need to know. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't, and yes, there is a catch. You must be mad to fall in love, and love is a form of madness. Then you regain your sanity, and you're no longer in love. It's a no-win situation. Impossible.
9 January 2012 1:22PM
A what? Maura! Maura Kelly! Did we spend all that money on your education so that you could call an invitation an invite?
May I cordially invitation you to correct this egregious error?
9 January 2012 1:34PM
P.S.
My suggestion would be, for women, read Nick Hornby, for men, read Helen Fielding. The insight afforded into the juvenile blokeishness of contemporary men and the chillingly pragmatic gamomania of contemporary women will cause you to enrol in a nunnery or a monastery respectively and all your worries will be over.
9 January 2012 1:57PM
invite
noun
ˈɪnvaɪt ˈɪnvaɪt
(informal) an invitation
Thanks for your invite.
http://oald8.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/dictionary/invite_2
9 January 2012 2:07PM
ElQuixote,
.
More the the point, these (mostly male) writers invariably treated the women / partners in their lives like shit. The greater the (literary) man, the bigger the arsehole. Reading the biographies of these writers is little more than a litany of used and abused women / partners, discarded for much younger totty on becoming famous.
9 January 2012 2:17PM
-- More the the point, these (mostly male) writers invariably treated the women / partners in their lives like shit. The greater the (literary) man, the bigger the arsehole. Reading the biographies of these writers is little more than a litany of used and abused women / partners, discarded for much younger totty on becoming famous. --
Writers are a twisted bunch, or they wouldn't write.
9 January 2012 2:21PM
sexist
9 January 2012 2:32PM
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It teaches you to know yourself first and respect another person entirely. 'To say "I love you" one must first learn how to say the "I"'
9 January 2012 3:00PM
There is much writing about love disasters in Iris Murdoch's books. Altho' I cannot recall from which novel it came I was assisted by the advice to remove the charm from the beloved thereafter my memories became treasured.
9 January 2012 3:22PM
Quartet, by Jean Rhys is not only a bloody good book but is a wonderful example of what can happen in adulterous relationships.
Wings of a Dove, by Henry James also a great insight into how love should be nurtured and not taken for granted.
9 January 2012 3:44PM
Correct me if I'm wrong, but the links in this piece are advertisements, for which The Guardian will receive commissions on any sales that are generated.
This makes me think that the choice of 'classics' may be slightly skewed towards 'bestseller' classics.
Which would suggest that you should clearly distinguish article this from any 'objective' content that may appear elsewhere on your website. Even following the Atos debacle, you don't seem to have learned how to balance revenue generation and maintaining your integrity.
9 January 2012 3:51PM
Well at the risk of sounding like a pedant, the key word, I think, is 'informal'.
http://www.englishspark.com/en/students/453-informal-language
"English is often spoken informally especially in the States, Canada, and Australia. Informal language is all right for friends, co-workers, host family, or service staff (at a restaurant for example)."
i.e. not alright for an article in a national English newspaper, notwithstanding the fact that the newspaper has an infamous reputation for crimes against spelling and grammar. Obviously I don't care too much about these things, or else I would take the Mail, where people think grammatical errors are a sign of the impending apocalypse. But this one was a bridge too far.
Moreover I would take issue with 'invite' as a noun being 'informal'. It's not informal it's just bloody wrong. People say 'pacific' for 'specific' - by the same token that's also 'informal', because it's equally widespread. They say 'one foul swoop'. Is that also 'informal'? No. It's just the wrong word.
OK. As you whirr.
9 January 2012 4:05PM
"A national English newspaper?" For shame. And here I was, thinking that the Guardian was a British newspaper...
9 January 2012 4:18PM
No! You think wrongly. It's English. Based in London, originally from Manchester. Neither of which are in Scotland Wales or Northern Ireland.
But even if some kind soul does come on here and point out that it's where the thing is distributed rather than location that defines it's nationality as a newspaper it still doesn't really signify, your attempt to draw some kind of comparison is erroneous, since I'm only some geezer on a sofa who writes in the comments section - and not a professional paid money to write copy, with an audience of many thousands and a gang of sub editors to go through my writing and weed out the mistakes.
9 January 2012 5:31PM
Well, possible solecism aside, I think Maura Kelly is right. As a teen, I learnt about love and its pitfalls from Jane Austen, George Eliot and Tolstoy. I've been with my partner for nearly 30 years now and we've never exchanged an angry word (NB one statement in this post is a lie).
9 January 2012 5:33PM
Tut!
You mean "its" nationality, surely?
9 January 2012 5:56PM
*slowest handclap in the world* Yes you've really proved a point there. I feel totally bested. We really are all the same after all. I shouldn't get ideas above my station - criticising people for poor use of language when hey........i'm just the same. You've won. I've lost. Well done Mooneym. I shall think twice before speaking out of turn in future! : ) : ) : )
9 January 2012 6:21PM
Some "rules" on Love according to some real classics (as quoted by De Montaigne)
He who can say how he burns with love, has little fire
—Petrarca, Sonetto 137.
Love is a desire of contracting friendship arising from the beauty
of the object."—Cicero, Tusc. Quaes., vi. 34
Love in excess and too palpable turns to weariness, and, like
sweetmeats to the stomach, is injurious.—Ovid, Amoy., ii. 19, 25.
Who, amongst such delights would not remove out of his thoughts
the anxious cares of love—Horace, Epod., ii. 37
The pleasure of all things increases by the same danger that
should deter it."—Seneca, De Benef., vii. 9
Slight your mistress; she will to-day come who denied you
yesterday.—"Propertius, ii. 14, 19
She who would long retain her power must use her lover ill
—Ovid, Amor., ii. 19, 33
But let him thirstily snatch the joys of love and enclose them in
his bosom—Virg., Georg., iii. 137
A good marriage, if there be any such, rejects the company and conditions of love, and tries to represent those of friendship. 'Tis a sweet society of life, full of constancy, trust, and an infinite number of useful and
solid services and mutual obligations ( De Montaigne)
Whom the marriage torch has joined with the desired light—Catullus, lxiv. 79
Few men have made a wife of a mistress,who have not repented it
No hate is implacable except the hatred of love
—Propertius, ii. 8, 3
When our desires are once satisfied, we care little
for oaths and promises—Catullus, lxiv. 147
She has you in her arms; her thoughts are with
other absent lovers—Tibullus, i. 6, 35
Love knows no rule—St. Jerome, Letter to Chyomatius.]
9 January 2012 6:49PM
Now THOSE are the classics.
9 January 2012 6:56PM
Even though some, like St. Jerome and Petrarca, do not belong to the golden age of the classics (neither did Homer, incredibly, since, strictly speaking, for Greek, it was mostly the 5th cent. BC and, for Latin, the first.)
9 January 2012 6:58PM
And, of course, Petrarca wrote in Italian and was a much, much later arrival; very modern in comparison to Cicero or Horace.
9 January 2012 9:07PM
The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, the novel by Anne Brontë. Incredibly accurate depiction of the pain and frustration of loving an alcoholic partner. Although I only read it after my own broken heart and life was left in shambles by my partner's addiction, her escape and resilience were very inspiring.
10 January 2012 4:07AM
Great post, and I never realized the similiarities with Light into August until now. Excellent irony and superb suggestions.
10 January 2012 6:55AM
Lorna Doone by Richard Doddridge Blackmore
Over and over and over and over again....
10 January 2012 7:35AM
Ovid's Amores says everything you need to know about relationships.