Vivian Gornick - The End of The Novel of Love

The End of The Novel of Love — read online for free the complete book (whole text) full work

Below is the text of the book, divided by pages. System saving the place of the last page read, allows you to conveniently read the book "The End of The Novel of Love" online for free, without having to search again every time where you left off. Put a bookmark, and you can go to the page where you finished reading at any time.

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

1234567...30

---

title	:	The End of the Novel of Love
author	:	Gornick, Vivian.
publisher	:	Beacon Press
isbn10 | asin	:	0807062235
print isbn13	:	9780807062234
ebook isbn13	:	9780807062166
language	:	English
subject	Love stories, American--History and criticism, Love stories, English--History and criticism, Women and literature--United States--History, Women and literature--Great Britain--History, Man-woman relationships in literature, Women in literature, Closure (R
publication date	:	1997
lcc	:	PS374.L6G67 1997eb
ddc	:	813/.08509352042
subject	:	Love stories, American--History and criticism, Love stories, English--History and criticism, Women and literature--United States--History, Women and literature--Great Britain--History, Man-woman relationships in literature, Women in literature, Closure (R

Page i The End of the Novel of Love

Page ii ALSO BY VIVIAN GORNICK Approaching Eye Level Fierce Attachments

Page iii The End of the Novel of Love Vivian Gornick

Page iv BEACON PRESS 25 Beacon Street Boston, Massachusetts 02108-2892 BEACON PRESS BOOKS are published under the auspices of the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. 1997 by Vivian Gornick All rights reserved Printed in the United States of America 03 02 01 00 99 98 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 Text design by Anne Chalmers Text composition by Wilsted & Taylor Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gornick, Vivian. The end of the novel of love/Vivian Gornick. p. cm. ISBN 0-8070-6222-7 (cloth) ISBN 0-8070-6223-5 (paper) 1. Love stories, AmericanHistory and criticism. 2. Love stories, EnglishHistory and criticism. 3. Women and literatureUnited StatesHistory. 4. Women and literatureGreat BritainHistory. 5. Man-woman relationships in literature. 6. Women in literature. 7. Closure (Rhetoric) I. Title. PS374.L6G67 1997 813'.08509352042dc21 97-10490

Page v Contents Diana of the Crossways 1 Clover Adams 19 Kate Chopin 43 Jean Rhys 53 Ruthless Intimacies 65 Willa Cather 83 Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger 103 Christina Stead 113 Grace Paley 123 Tenderhearted Men 131 The End of the Novel of Love 151

Page 1 Diana of the Crossways

Page 3 In a thousand novels of love-in-the-Western-world the progress of feeling between a woman of intelligence and a man of will is charted through a struggle that concludes itself when the womanat lastmelts into romantic longing and the deeper need for union. There are, however, a handful of remarkable novels written late in the last century and early in this oneamong them Daniel Deronda, The House of Mirth, Diana of the Crossways, Mrs. Dallowaywhere, at the exact moment the woman should melt, her heart unexpectedly hardens. Just at this place where give is required, some flat cold inner remove seems to overtake the female protagonist. In the eyes of the world she becomes opaque ("unnatural" she is called), but we, the privileged readers, know what is happening. The woman has taken a long look down the road of her future. What she sees repels. She cannot "imagine" herself in what lies ahead. Unable to imagine herself, she now thinks she cannot act the part. She will no longer be able to make the motions. The marriage will be a cha-

Page 4 rade. In that moment of clear sight sentimental love, for her, becomes a thing of the past. Which is not to say the marriage will not take place; half the time it will. It is only to say that in these novels this is the point at which the story begins. The response of these intelligent fictional womenGwendolen Harleth, Lily Bart, Diana Warwick, Clarissa Dallowayto the prospect of married love goes against the grain. Not only because we all know that love is the most formative experience a human being can have and marriage, any marriage, at least in its beginnings, reminds one of its promise, but also because the idea that a woman, any woman, could really want anything other than to be safely settled in the world with a husband has, until very recently, been unthinkable. So what is it with Gwendolen, Lily, Clarissa, and Diana? In Daniel Deronda George Eliot pits the beautiful Gwendolen Harleth (shrewd, vain, ambitious, hungry for a place in the world) against Henleigh Grandcourt, the aristocrat who wishes to marry her, apparently setting in motion the classic struggle between a woman and a man who are evenly matched: in this case both cold, smart, and determined. In the bargain, Gwendolen seems malicious: she taunts and manipulates the arrogant lord as if the exercise of sexual power in and of itself is a necessary plesure. But slowly, steadilyit takes Eliot 200 pages to get them marriedwe are moved deeper inside Gwendolen and we see that her behavior is meant to be off-putting. She is desperate to keep the action going, delay the moment of decision. We see

Next page

1234567...30

Light

Font size:

↓

↑

Georgia Tahoma Arial Verdana

Reset

Interval:

↓

↑

Bookmark:

Make

Similar books «The End of The Novel of Love»

Look at similar books to The End of The Novel of Love. We have selected literature similar in name and meaning in the hope of providing readers with more options to find new, interesting, not yet read works.

Willa Cather

Willa Cather On Writing

Vivian Gornick

Taking a Long Look

Gornick

Unfinished business: notes of a chronic re-reader

Gornick

Fierce attachments: a memoir

Gornick

The Men in My Life

Vivian Gornick

The Romance of American Communism

Vivian Gornick

Unfinished Business: Notes of a Chronic Re-reader

Vivian Gornick

Fierce attachments : a memoir

Gornick

Approaching eye level

Vivian Gornick

The Odd Woman and the City: A Memoir

Andre Dubus

Selected Stories

Vivian Gornick

Approaching Eye Level

Discussion, reviews of the book The End of The Novel of Love and just readers' own opinions. Leave your comments, write what you think about the work, its meaning or the main characters. Specify what exactly you liked and what you didn't like, and why you think so.