An Audacious Look at How the Love We Receive and Give Shapes Our Focus and Perceptions
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Many novelists start by imagining a character in a tricky situation and then let their sense of the character determine what happens next. That approach is exciting for readers because it draws them into the book rather quickly and compellingly. Other novelists prefer to have a structure that elicits the full development of a character or theme. The most accomplished novelists actually set out to prove a point about what it means to be human, and the plausible story is simply their way of expressing that philosophy. Those with a touch of greatness combine all of these traits, something that I think Amy Bloom has mostly accomplished with Love Invents Us.
Few readers will fail to be intrigued by the book's opening line and circumstance: "I wasn't surprised to find myself in the back of Mr. Klein's store, wearing only my underpants and panties, surrounded by sable." You want to know what that's all about, don't you? You'll have an even stronger view after you know that the narrator is Elizabeth Taube, a chubby prepubescent girl, who regularly takes rides from Mr. Klein, the local furrier, on Mondays that lead to his back room. She knows that Mr. Klein is in love with her, if that's what you want to call it.
Elizabeth will experience other forms of love as time passes: a quasi-platonic, quasi-sexual love from a teacher who is torn between the desire to be father and lover, nurturing love from an older woman who needs help, full-fledged adolescent passion with a sports hero, extending unconditional love to a former love in adulthood, seeking illicit passion by feeling head over heels in love, providing the nurturing love of a mother, and seeking the companionable love of middle age.
Ms. Bloom's point is that we are little more than self-centered creatures who seek to gratify simple needs and desires in an amoral way until we are touched by the love of someone else. It's a variation of the traditional idea that many women follow to their peril that they are nothing without love or someone to love.
To demonstrate this thesis, Ms. Bloom has to make Elizabeth someone who doesn't experience parental or familiar love . . . and who doesn't have any special features to attract other kinds of love until she becomes an object of potential sexual interest. And that's where the book develops its flaws: Ms. Bloom just doesn't bother to develop characters that aren't central to her philosophy of love creating us. Although at one level this is an understandable approach, it works as a flaw for readers until such time as the book is far enough along to see what Ms. Bloom's point is. So it comes across as bad writing, even among many fine pearls of prose.
I suspect that at some point Ms. Bloom could go back and rewrite this book to flesh it out more thoroughly . . . and create a masterpiece. I hope she does. In the meantime, Love Invents Us will charm and intrigue those who enjoy a little philosophy of life along with their peeks into the vulnerable parts of a character's psyche.
If you are offended by voyeurs who prefer children, child molestation, cruel treatment of young people, illicit sex, and amoral behavior in general, you'll be offended by this book. It's hardly going to get the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for portraying the upright life. But if you are open to seeing that we can reach mature and appropriate behavior, despite having walked on the wild side, this book will feel rewarding.
Nice literary concept, Ms. Bloom!
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