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Rinstinkt's Reviews > Love: A History

Love by Simon May
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Learned very few new things. Lots of sophistry in his writing, and lots of repetition. The book would have been more honest if it was shorter, and if he had grouped the different authors/frameworks in 3 major groups.
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Reading Progress

February 15, 2023 – Started Reading
February 15, 2023 – Shelved
February 15, 2023 – Shelved as: after-2022
February 15, 2023 – Shelved as: lang-read-eng
February 15, 2023 – Shelved as: history
February 15, 2023 – Shelved as: non-fiction
February 15, 2023 – Shelved as: book-physical
February 15, 2023 – Shelved as: philosophy
February 16, 2023 –
page 56
19.05%
February 17, 2023 –
page 69
23.47% "For Lucretius and Ovid what two people erotically besotted with each other call ‘love’ is merely the unwitting servant of the instinct for self-perpetuation. This is an instinct so fundamental that...it can be identified with life-force itself. Its modus operandi is power and manipulation, warfare and illusion. ,,, There isn't much spirituality to be found in these Roman beds."
February 17, 2023 –
page 80
27.21% "Lucretius and Ovid therefore belong to a powerful, but minority, voice in the Western tradition: they are uncompromising naturalists about love, who see it in exclusively earthly or material terms. But unlike almost all other naturalists they do not see love and its trials as figuring in a narrative of redemption: in other words as making possible a supreme good which overcomes or justifies life's suffering and evil."
February 18, 2023 – Finished Reading
May 23, 2023 – Shelved as: year-2023

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