DON’T BELIEVE IN MODERN LOVE: Finished Love in the Western World last night. Awesome, awesome book. Discerns the root of the Western cult of passionate love (suffering for its own sake; “in love with love”; love against marriage) in the troubadours and heretics of the 11th-12th centuries. Unpredictable; clearly inspired by personal experience; honest; sharp; attuned to the sublime; free of the special pleading that mars too many books on morals, religion, or history; anticipates and responds to objections really well (esp. if you read all the way to the end). Some of the whirlwind “tour of the entire history of Western lit” chapters are way too rushed (hence the comments about Romeo and Juliet here), but for the most part, the book is fantastic. (Also, if you want a great companion to LITWW on the subject of the dialectic of passion and marriage, the chapter “The Meaning of Marriage” in Maggie Gallagher’s Abolition of Marriage is a terrific read, deepening de Rougemont’s insights and, in my view, correcting some of his slight excesses.) I’m still chewing the book over and will be for quite some time to come.

Only real omission (and it’s a glaring one): There’s virtually no discussion of children. Seems to me that if you write a book about marriage, adultery, love, the body, and different forms of union between two people… somewhere in there you should note that making love can mean making babies.

Anyway, go read it! It rocks.