Rate this book

Clear rating

1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars

Against Love: A Polemic

3.56 of 5 stars 3.56 · rating details · 664 ratings · 138 reviews

Who would dream of being against love? No one.

Love is, as everyone knows, a mysterious and all-controlling force, with vast power over our thoughts and life decisions.

But is there something a bit worrisome about all this uniformity of opinion? Is this the one subject about which no disagreement will be entertained, about which one truth alone is permissible? Consider that...more

Paperback, 224 pages

Published September 14th 2004 by Vintage (first published 2003)

more details... edit details

Get a copy:

More…

Friend Reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

Lists with This Book

Best Feminist Books

270th out of 575 books — 742 voters

Anthropology of an American Girl by Hilary Thayer Hamann

Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann

Books you want to read in 2011

83rd out of 104 books — 56 voters

More lists with this book...

Community Reviews

(showing 1-30 of 1,310)

filter | sort: default (?) | rating details

May 10, 2007 Meredith rated it 5 of 5 stars

My favorite part of this book is a 9-page laundry list of all one can't do while in a relationship. To give you a sense of it:

"You can't leave the house without saying where you're going. You can't not say what time you'll return. You can't stay out past midnight, or eleven, or ten, or dinnertime, or not come right home after work. You can't go out when the other person feels like staying home. You can't go to parties alone. You can't go out just to go out, because you can't not be considerate...more

14 likes · like · see review

Oct 21, 2007 sara rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone wishing to challenge their perceptions of normativity

I recently read a few excerpts from this book for one of my graduate courses: it was definitely comforting to encounter a different slant on the marriage industrial complex. Ironically, a few days before reading Kipnis I found myself sandwiched in between three women (who were my peers in age) while they were avidly discussing marriage and all its supposed joys. Two of them were married and one was about to be in a few months. Anyway, I often find myself at odds with most people because I am not...more

8 likes · like · see review

Sep 08, 2007 Don rated it 2 of 5 stars

I'm not sure how to sum this one up. An interesting failure? Maddening yet compelling? I think I remember hearing it angered a lot of people because it challenged their beliefs - which I'm all in favor of. Unfortunately, what aggravated me about this book is that it doesn't do it well. It's filled with instances of faulty logic (if A sometimes leads to B, it's a bit hinky to imply that A always leads to B), leaps of reasoning that border on the ludicrous, and arguments that start with the conclu...more

9 likes · like · see review

Mar 19, 2011 Kelly rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: dramatic, narcissistic, set-the-feminist-movement-back, tries-too-hard, want-those-hours-back

It would be so easy to simply disregard this book and the author. Clearly identifying with adulterers (only using "we" when discussing the cheaters POV) and therefore, in my opinion, personalizing the topic, Ms. Kipnis spends the entire book validating her claim that monogamy/love is simply unnatural. Now, don't get me wrong, while her book (and by "book" I mean "dissertation") does have a lot of valid points regarding monogamy and the rules and stipulations that come with it, she continuously b...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 14, 2009 G (galen) rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, social-political-environmental

Basic premise: Monogamy is incompatible with passionate love and historically passionate love rarely had anything to do with matrimony. Our culture's current rhetoric surrounding wedded bliss is unnatural and we see the results of the contradiction in the rate of divorces and infidelities in our marriages.

laura is writing a rant not a research paper but she's pulling her inspiration from philosopher/theorists, politics, religion, pop culture, the industrial revolution, current news headlines, su...more

4 likes · like · see review

Oct 16, 2007 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

While I was reading this book on the N train, a man sat down next to me and said "I noticed the title of your book. It looks very interesting, but how can anyone be against love?"

Barf.

He then wrote me a note with his name and workplace, and told me to stop by sometime to swap books with him, because he, uh, likes to read too.

I'm so amused that this book, of all books, inspired that particular interaction. Kipnis is quite a provocateur, and she's also very, very funny. I related strongly to many...more

5 likes · like · see review

Nov 10, 2009 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2003

Against Marriage ould be a much more accurate title for Laura Kipnis's book-length essay, Against Love: A Polemic. Kipnis says in a preface that her arguments are meant to be taken in a contrarian spirit, but I think that arguments made as the devil's advocate must still be coherent arguments--a criterion that not everything here seems to meet. Kipnis is quite willing to admit how fun love is, even if it makes you a little crazy. She's just not willing to buy into cultural pressure to commit to...more Against Marriage ould be a much more accurate title for Laura Kipnis's book-length essay, Against Love: A Polemic. Kipnis says in a preface that her arguments are meant to be taken in a contrarian spirit, but I think that arguments made as the devil's advocate must still be coherent arguments--a criterion that not everything here seems to meet. Kipnis is quite willing to admit how fun love is, even if it makes you a little crazy. She's just not willing to buy into cultural pressure to commit to one person forever when she doesn't feel like it.

The primary points that Kipnis highlights are: coupled relationships (specifically official ones: marriage) are closely related to other structures of our social contract; that love has somehow come to serve a societal purpose beyond personal desire. Further, adulterers can be seen as not just betraying their spouses, but actually questioning and rebelling against a whole variety of society's demands.

Maybe. There remain holes in the writing, however. A chapter is devoted to comparing those renegade adulterers with the labor protesters of the past, the rationale being that we now often talk about "working at our relationships." Kipnis makes no attempt, though, to compare the work of going to office or factory with the work of a relationship. It strikes me as more likely that we simply describe anything that we don't feel like doing as work (e.g. doing what your partner feels like instead of gratifying your own impulses), and that work therefore replaced a previous set of metaphors for the self-renunciations of love, which were religious. No attempt is made in the book to make the reader buy into the premise of the discussion.

Strong points are made with only oblique evidence. The following is interesting, but not convincing.

No doubt a citizenry schooled in renouncing desires--and whatever quantities of imagination and independence they come partnered with--would be, in many respects, advantageous: note that the conditions of lovability are remarkably convergent with those of a cowed workforce and a docile electorate. [...:] Perhaps a secular society needed another metaphysical entity to subjugate itself to after the death of God, and love was available for the job. (94)

Despite the spottiness of the arguments, the book is intermittently fun to read because of the unsettling perspicacity of Kipnis's writing. Addressing the question of gay marriage, she writes, "If heterosexuals were bailing out of matrimony in droves, at least there was another group standing by to repopulate the ranks, like a new wave of civic-minded immigrants eager to move in and spruce up abandoned neighborhoods with fresh coats of paint and small business loans: soon it becomes the hip place to be and the middle classes all want to move back in." (149) To me this perfectly sums up the patronizing attitude of those who believe that gay marriage would be not just good for gays, but good for marriage qua institution.

There is an explosion in an answer to the hypothetical question about compromises, "What can't you do because you're in a couple?"

You can't leave the house without saying where you're going. You can't do less then 50 percent around the house, even if the other person wants to do 100 to 200 percent more housecleaning than you find necessary or even reasonable. You can't leave your (pick one) books, tissues, shoes, makeup, mail, underwear, work, sewing stuff, or pornography lying around the house. You can't amass more knickknacks than the other person finds tolerable. You can't turn the airconditioner up as high as you want. You can't watch soap operas without getting made fun of. You can't drink during the day, even on weekends. You can't just walk out of your job or quit in a huff. You can't bring Ding Dongs into the house. You can't call a handy man to repair something if they consider themselves to be "handy." You can't wear plaid... (84 ff.)

By including eight pages of this, a momentarily comic effect is created, but there is a similar undercurrent of deep bitterness through the whole book, which possibly explains the jumps from premise to conclusion with so little discussion in between--perhaps all Kipnis is really trying to do here is show what modern coupledom feels like to her.

Her intent is to provoke, and she succeeds in a surprisingly entertaining way.(less)

3 likes · like · see review

Sep 23, 2009 Carmen Micsa rated it 5 of 5 stars

My creative writing teacher at Sac State knows the author personally. He raves about her, and he's right! This is a must read book for all married and unmarried people, as we'll all become part of Kipnis's polemic of love. The author's philosophical, psychological and sociological insights into love and passion are absolutely astonishing, witty and funny. At one point she uses a funny joke to get her message across while denouncing love as too regulated and structured: "I'm not trying to change...more

like · see review

Jul 11, 2009 N. rated it 2 of 5 stars

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I liked the last ten pages and the final part of how being against love could also be about being up against love. I liked that twist at the end. The stuff about politicians was pretty interesting. I didn't realize how great the hypocrisy was when the Republicans were going after Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinksy. It's a sort of sympathetic look at those who have affairs, like maybe the adulterers have it right and the monogamists don't...but I'm not so sure I agree. And I thought the...more

like · see review

Mar 03, 2009 Avory rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: sexuality, culture

I expected to like this book a little more than I actually did. I picked it up because it was mentioned in another book, and I thought I might agree with the author, as I assumed it was an indictment of traditional monogamy. Which it is, in a way, but not exactly. To be fair, I was warned. Kipnis says in the introduction that this is a polemic, and so the mild whinginess is probably to be expected. Nonetheless, I find the lack of solutions frustrating. She makes some accurate points about what's...more

2 likes · like · see review

May 21, 2013 Susan rated it 2 of 5 stars

I love a good polemic, and I am hypercritical of conventional romance and sentimentality, but this wasn't really "against love." It was extremely pro romantic love - and lust. It should've been titled "Against Monogamy." Still, there are plenty of good points to be made on that topic, and the author did it pretty well, although the overall result reads a bit selfish and immature. It should be noted, however, that she also forewarned the reader about her aims in writing a polemic, saying it's nec...more

like · see review

May 10, 2009 Sara rated it 3 of 5 stars

Yikes! Parts of this were funny, parts were horrifying, and some parts were an equal mixture of cringe-inducing-giggles.

In one funny section, the author writes "a brief sample of answers to the simple question: 'What can't you do because you're in a couple?'...
You can't leave the house without saying where you're going...You can't not say what time you'll return...You can't go out when the other person feels like staying home...You can't be a slob...You can't leave your (pick one) books, tissue...more

like · see review

Mar 25, 2010 Julene rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

I remember all the buzz about this book. Groups were meeting to discuss it. I sought it out second hand and it's been sitting on my shelf for years. Finally, it was time. Many things I like in this book. But it is now already outdated with the additional political scandals from the ones in the Clinton years she talks about. The book gets at lots of truth about our society, about relationships, marriage, politics, why sex is a focus on our political scene, and she is smart. I loved the ending, so...more

like · see review

Jan 20, 2011 Ruth rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I only read one chapter of this book. It was a very spirited critique of “the confines of coupled life” T. C. sent it to me--a photocopy of the chapter, about 12 pages, front and back. I was happy to receive this, I had started reading it from the book when I was visiting T.C., but we did not get to finish it.

The essay is not too deep but entertaining enough. It is some one with a lot of education and a vagina admitting that being in a couple is sometimes (well, according to her, a permanent) dr

...more I only read one chapter of this book. It was a very spirited critique of “the confines of coupled life” T. C. sent it to me--a photocopy of the chapter, about 12 pages, front and back. I was happy to receive this, I had started reading it from the book when I was visiting T.C., but we did not get to finish it.

The essay is not too deep but entertaining enough. It is some one with a lot of education and a vagina admitting that being in a couple is sometimes (well, according to her, a permanent) drag and you just won’t win. This some what rebellious argument aligns with my pseudo independent thinker self image. But I also consider myself happily married (praise Allah), so I’m a more inclined to call her a whiner than give her props for being a PHD who uses New Yorker cartoon captions to support her case. (Big assumption that she is a PHD).

But it is a fun, quick paced essay,and I enjoyed such tidbits as:“psychotherapy….invented the disease it conveniently exists to cure.” She mentions Foucault briefly, saying that like his argument that prisons, schools, etc. put individuals where they could be located and watched, she believes marraige is even better at that kind of control.

Racing from celebrity spouse murders to snappy Lacanian comments, the author contends that love is harmful to one’s self. Love is inherently unfulfilling. Love demands merging, and merger murders the self. As an interesting sidebar, she blames the age of reason-- since before then they (we?) apparently had no modern sense of self, no privacy, no sexual shame. Modern romance, the origin of the novel, the fantasy of romantic love all take some heat.

This is not overly concerned with the feminist critique of the male dominated rule-a-verse, it is more general than that. It is not just marriage that is a jail sentence, it is the relationship itself. The references to popular cultural are lively but become quickly dated. Lorena Bobitt? There are not many statistics in this essay, and I am not asking for them. But she does often quote captions from the New Yorker, and that is just lazy.

Everone knows love can be a painful place, filled with failure and grief. The author seems to resent the constant drain a relationship draws. She bleakly compares coupledom to childhood, the way to survive is practice obedience and keep quiet.

The last pages of this capter are increasngly unsettling. She lists in increasing and horrifying length what you "cannot" do in a relationship. At first it is light and funny, but like the entire essay, it becomes angry and bitter.

I consider myself happily married, and don’t have a dog in this race, but who are these selfish, controlling assholes everyone is married to? My husband is a thick headed Italian, don’t get me wrong. But, the absolute negative point of view towards coupledom gives no breathing room. Also, there is such a selfishness to her rant, it makes you wonder how much of a pain she must be to live with....So, I have to say I feel very sorry for this woman. All the humour is just a vehicle to express her anger. Who knows, maybe she has mellowed with age. For her sake, I hope so.

(less)

1 like · like · see review

Mar 31, 2009 Caitlin Constantine rated it 5 of 5 stars

Kipnis' book is a funny, smart bit of criticism about one of the major engines of modern American society - romantic love. She uses political philosophy, psychoanalytic theory and social criticism to look at the ways concepts of romantic love interact with political economy, how coupledom replicates the nation-state, sometimes with totalitarian results, how romantic love as we know it is really a modern construct, and the intersection of the Puritan work ethic with relationship self-help pop psy...more

2 likes · like · see review

Mar 08, 2011 Ann rated it 2 of 5 stars

Reasons why this book is disappointing:
1. Kipnis’ arch, ironic tone begins to wear thin about halfway through the first chapter. It might work for an article, but it’s far too precious to be tolerable for an entire book.
2. Kipnis isn’t really against love—she’s just against marriage. She’s actually very much in favor of the disruptive force of adulterous love.
3. The book is essentially the same argument presented over and over (marriage is boring and its primary purposes have more to do with...more

3 likes · like · see review

Dec 01, 2009 Kirsti rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: anger, humor, philosophy, nonfiction, practical-stuff

"We are about to enter the hidden linguistic universe of companionate couples, which as we will shortly see, rests entirely on one generative phrase: 'Would you please stop doing that.'"

Mmmmmm . . . as dark and bitter as a 70 percent cacao bar. I wouldn't want to consume a steady diet of this, but I enjoyed Kipnis's point of view. After all, if society insists so overwhelmingly that love is great and good and the whole point of living, then somebody needs to play devil's advocate. If you have ev...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 14, 2009 Tatiana rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Tatiana by: erica

Shelves: non-fiction

So much unfulfilled potential. I do like the snark, and this book is at its best when showing just exactly how absurd marriage, love and even coupledom are in this society when viewed through a lense of common sense and logic: "Or as marriage reformer Paul Brown put it in the 1830s, scoffing at the idea that anyone could genuinely guarantee marital fidelity for life: 'Now if any person were to make so rash a bargain about any other sort of transaction, our laws would rate him non compos mentis a...more So much unfulfilled potential. I do like the snark, and this book is at its best when showing just exactly how absurd marriage, love and even coupledom are in this society when viewed through a lense of common sense and logic: "Or as marriage reformer Paul Brown put it in the 1830s, scoffing at the idea that anyone could genuinely guarantee marital fidelity for life: 'Now if any person were to make so rash a bargain about any other sort of transaction, our laws would rate him non compos mentis and from thence make the obligantoin void.'" (1830!!), i wanted more than just preaching to the choir. Sure, i can now (hopefully) better articulate my position on love and marriage now that she's given me some choice statements, but what i don't have is any exploration of what i want: an alternative to marriage, reforming the laws so that marriage benefits are bestowed other ways; rendering marriage legally obsolete, new non-nuclear models of families, etc. instead she sort of breezes by, acknowledging that these this can and do exist, but not really giving me any information on them. no positive against all the negative. though she does at least bring up the gay marriage issue as a sort of 'why do they want this, when they've been blessed with not having it and the ability to create what they want without all that societal pressure?' which, oh right, don't ask to be part of the system, take down the system. And i do like the nice side-by-side comparison of all the eerie similarities between the state as an institution and marriage as its sort of microcosm. Which i'm not even sure is the right way to put it, but, right, why is the state in control of marriage in the first place?

anyway, i guess my convoluted review is a mirror of a convoluted book, which, past the witty (and sometimes hilarious)snark of 'seriously? when i lay this out for you, you still want in?', gets a little too tangled in itself, without really giving me what i wanted. which is, i guess, why you can read this book and come away from it writing a review (that i read) saying, 'i agree with all of it, feel more enlightened, down with the sytem, etc, but btw, i just got married, isn't that great???'

oh, and i found her alarming flippant about domestic violence, but that's just me. (less)

like · see review

Oct 18, 2010 Sammy rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, favourites

Five stars is probably too much for this; in truth it's at three and a half stars. But for me, this book had an impact that can't be denied: I discovered this book whilst taking a Marxist politics course in my first year of uni. I was distinctly unimpressed by the Marxist politics, but this book managed to perfectly state my uneasy feelings about the complacency so many of my friends and colleagues had toward the idea of love and marriage as an unshakable moral code.

Kipnis frankly states that sh...more

2 likes · like · see review

Jun 10, 2009 Erica rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: nerdy-nonfiction

In so wanting this book to be great, I may have set myself up for disappointment. But as I decided about half-way through, there is decidedly too much snark. I am probably not the ideal audience in that I already agree with her *basic* tenant that the modern conceptualization of romantic love/marriage is unrealistic and unsustainable, and that adultery is a symptom of this, but rather than building an argument she just gives any counter-argument shit. It's at minimum lazy and at worst insulting...more

like · see review

Jun 17, 2011 Mark rated it 1 of 5 stars

Kipnis seems to misunderstand her own argument. Despite the book's title, it isn't a polemic against love, at all: it's a screed against hypocrisy. In exasperated prose, Kipnis lists the moral vexations that we moderns have brought upon ourselves by clinging imaginatively to Puritanical sexual mores while enacting rather more libertine ones in our everyday lives. Kipnis wants to argue that monogamy is a concept left over from a different time and that we should just admit that our social values...more

3 likes · like · see review

Feb 21, 2011 Irene rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2011

I couldn't concentrate for all the parentheses this woman used in writing her polemic against love. While her ideas are interesting, and I am inclined to agree with her, the arguments presented are disjointed and not really connected from chapter to chapter. Hard to follow.

But, I did manage to follow Kipnis' main point, which I boiled down thusly in my own words: are acting like an "adult" and acting on the impulses of your body, mind, and soul mutually exclusive? Why is morality inexorably tie...more

like · see review

Nov 26, 2011 Marguerite rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: soc-science-politics, feminism

Not for the starry-eyed or the faint of heart. Laura Kipnis plays devil's advocate while scrutinizing adultery (and marriage). Her political references are dated (There are many newer scandals, and Newt Gingrich, who makes Kipnis' Hall of Fame of hypocritical cheats, still has a pulse in the race for the White House.) But Kipnis also hits some big targets with her observations about marriage and industry and the state's interest in preserving monogamy. (She neglects mainstream religion's role, h...more

like · see review

May 07, 2011 Peacegal rated it 5 of 5 stars

The Gulag Archipelago has nothing on love, according to Laura Kipnis. With intelligent wit and hilariously dry humor, the author makes the provocative case that our most cherished emotion is nothing but the worst sort of self-imposed prison.

Readers will encounter shocking (and hard to refute) lines such as

In a commodity culture [love] conforms to the role of a cheap commodity, spit out at the end of the assembly line in cookie-cutter forms, marketed to the bored and alienated producer-consumer...more

like · see review

Jun 09, 2011 Erin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: library-loan

About a year ago I decided that perhaps I should educate myself about this ephemeral concept of romantic love. Not so difficult, as one of my favorite authors, bell hooks, writes extensively on the subject. But of course there was that one book that seemed so absurd I had to go for it. Against Love: A Polemic. Really, could Kipnis pull it off?? And if she managed to convince me of the idea that adulterers are in fact "freedom fighters" (as one review put it) what would that say about me? Well, f...more

1 like · like · see review

Dec 22, 2009 Dinah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: gender-business, instructional-self-help, nonfiction, waxing-philosophical

Alright, Laura. Here's the skinny. Your book caused a bit of an uproar when it came out, because your whole angle is anti-everything this country and its romantic populace stand for. You make a convincing argument that lifelong exclusive coupledom is for the birds (swans, specifically), and that we humans have a lousy track record at it. Thing is, the current divorce rate and latest news update on a Republican family values guy make the same point, in far fewer pages.

I guess this book would be a...more Alright, Laura. Here's the skinny. Your book caused a bit of an uproar when it came out, because your whole angle is anti-everything this country and its romantic populace stand for. You make a convincing argument that lifelong exclusive coupledom is for the birds (swans, specifically), and that we humans have a lousy track record at it. Thing is, the current divorce rate and latest news update on a Republican family values guy make the same point, in far fewer pages.

I guess this book would be a better read for someone who hasn't spent much head-time with queer theory. It was hard to be shocked with your breathless assertions that monogamy doesn't work for everyone, that the definition of marriage and relationships have changed over time, that better systems exist in theory and reality.

And that really was the big problem with this book: the breathlessness. I was continually flabbergasted by the length of sentences, the way paragraphs spanned pages, the sheer number of parentheticals crammed into a single unit. The book is snarky to the point of obnoxiousness -- the sort of thing that I would love to read in blog-length snippets, ripping away at the heteronormative assumption of the day, but for a whole book the tone was beyond tedious.

That being said, some of your points fucked me up real good, Laura. There's a long examination of how we apply metaphors of labor to love, i.e. "working on a relationship." So we come home from work to do much harder work. Should love be a thing that's worked at? Is the stability of coupled life worth it? I might be able to think about these questions more clearly reading Laura Kipnis's ideas, written by somebody else who does not give the impression of authoring on amphetamines.

Can this be blamed on the form? Maybe. Polemics have fallen out of fashion for a reason. I think that reason is, nearly everything we read is polemical these days. Opinions are radicalized to the extreme, although good theorists and reporters do try to make a nod to the other side. There's a value to calling a spade a spade, and there certainly is something radical about taking Love to task. But the problem with a polemic is that it offers no viable alternatives. Which isn't the point! I know! But if you're going to make me feel troubled, I'd like you to also give me a little bit of hope, Laura. There's gotta be something salvageable about this love business.(less)

like · see review

Sep 26, 2009 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Sometimes Laura Kipnis says things in this book that make you smack your head and say, "by god! somebody gets it." But there are also points in it where it seems unbearably repetitive. Mad props for the parts where she: questions why gay people are even buying into the idea of marriage; thinks that Capital by Marx should be used as the modern day marriage manual; and quips about feminism leveling the amount of submission we all have to take. Most people say that a big reason to read this book is...more

like · see review

Sep 09, 2009 Sessily added it

Shelves: own

What “Against Love” is not: a work of sociology, a scientific exploration of marriage, an indictment of every marriage/partnership in the U.S. (especially your marriage), a work in which the author believes every word she says. It’s right there on the cover (“a polemic”), in the Reader Advisory, and in the last few pages: “[Polemics:] overstate the case…Polemics aren’t necessarily unconflicted (nor are the polemiscists); rhetoric and sentiment aren’t always identical twins. Thus, please read on...more What “Against Love” is not: a work of sociology, a scientific exploration of marriage, an indictment of every marriage/partnership in the U.S. (especially your marriage), a work in which the author believes every word she says. It’s right there on the cover (“a polemic”), in the Reader Advisory, and in the last few pages: “[Polemics:] overstate the case…Polemics aren’t necessarily unconflicted (nor are the polemiscists); rhetoric and sentiment aren’t always identical twins. Thus, please read on in a conflicted and contradictory spirit. Such is the nature of our subject.” So, I’ll set aside the obvious criticism which isn’t really a criticism: she over-reaches.

Kipnis questions the way we, as a culture, talk and act about monogamy/marriage: what are our expectations, and what do the “experts” tell us we should do. She takes on the role of a three year old asking why, and never being satisfied with the explanation. She draws on Foucault and Marx to examine how our views of marriage fit into a capitalist society; she examines dissatisfaction and asks what are we trying to achieve with marriage, anyway? And she spends a lot of time talking about adultery. She doesn’t reach any conclusions about marriage, other than it should be questioned, we should all sit back and wonder at why we get married, and, more importantly, why our society is so invested in marriage as the be-all and end-all (marriage solves poverty! If we let gay men and women marry society will fall apart!).

My first criticism is how much time she spends talking about adultery. After awhile I just wanted to sit her down and say “I get it, you’re saying adultery is so prevalent in part because people are dissatisfied with marriage, now can we move on?” But alas, she did not move on for many more pages. I also would have been interested in a more in-depth discussion of jealousy and distrust as it plays out in our national conception of marriage. It’s in there, but not discussed with nearly the number of pages as she devotes to the adulterers. I was much more satisfied with the book when she discussed how our conception of marriage has come to be all about “work,” and her later exploration of marriage and the political sphere.

A more nit-picky criticism is that I found her writing occasionally difficult to read. She phrases sentences so that I had to read the sentence to the end once to figure out what she was driving at, and then read it again to figure out how the end goal reflected on the first half of the sentence. This happened less often in the latter part of the book.

Overall, a fun read, and it made me want to go back and finish Stephanie Coontz’s Marriage, a History: From Obedience to Intimacy, or How Love Conquered Marriage, to see how the historical exploration of marriage lines up with Kipnis’ provocations. And also to see if Coontz has more information about nineteenth century marriage critiques (and attempts at living without marriage) which Kipnis touches on for one or two pages.
(less)

like · see review

Nov 29, 2008 Ciara rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: the recently dumped, spinsters, confirmed bachelors, bad dates

Shelves: read-in-2006, radical-non-fiction, feminist-y-books

i read this book right after i read all about love by bell hooks. i wonder if it would have been possible for me to read two more contrasting books. billed as a pelimic, this book takes a very uncompromising stand against love, as it exists in its current incarnation as the force that compels people to enter into traditional heterosexual monogamous marriage units. kipnis draws a lot of parallels between love & capitalism in order to illustrate the evils of both. it's kind of a little bit an...more

like · see review

Oct 04, 2007 Flint rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: adults

Shelves: nonfiction, relationships, politics

This is a witty, surprisingly political book. It doesn't make balanced arguments but throws everything it has against love, sometimes individual points might contradict. The book isn't trying to be fair though, it's a long rant against the institution of monogamous domestic coupledom. It's best read by those who have been in monogamous domestic couples, particularly if there was cheating involved. It's funny, smart text that is a very fast read.

I shouldn't have read this book directly after rea...more This is a witty, surprisingly political book. It doesn't make balanced arguments but throws everything it has against love, sometimes individual points might contradict. The book isn't trying to be fair though, it's a long rant against the institution of monogamous domestic coupledom. It's best read by those who have been in monogamous domestic couples, particularly if there was cheating involved. It's funny, smart text that is a very fast read.

I shouldn't have read this book directly after reading Glasshouse because it to had it's mocking of sexually exclusive pairbonds and one's partner as part-time jailer and private dick.

Kipnis quips "Adultery is the anarcho-syndicalism of marriage". Kipnis makes a lot of humorous, insightful quips; and this is one of the more astute ones. Anarcho-Syndicalism for those not aware is a strategy for anarchists to abolish capitalism (usually to create Anarcho-Communism) by organizing labor unions that engage in tactics of direct action (strikes, sabotage, boycott) to win immediate demands from employers; while also propagating the idea of a general strike that will abolish the wage system/capitalism entirely. Anarcho-Syndicalism has a contradiction in that it can only exist as method of struggle against capitalism; and not a separate thing unto itself. It imagines a utopian post-revolution social arrangement, but it's institutions (labor unions as antagonist collective organizations against the bosses) will no longer be needed. Strikes are hard, and a society can not continue in a perpetual strike. A new society has to be built in the shell of the old.

Adultery, by comparison, can only exist in a social context of sexually (and emotionally?) exclusive intimate pair bonds particularly when they have the force of law. There is a utopian impulse of "different" or "more" in the "conspiracy of equals" engaged in adultery; but it's a conflict. Serial monogamy is basically the equivalent of quitting your job after you've already sent out your resumes, had interviews and maybe even started working for the new boss part time.

If adultery is the anarcho-syndicalism of marriage; polyamory would be the anarcho-communism of romance: "from each according to their abilities, to each according to their needs", "freedom of association" and "mutal aid".

The book is much funnier than my review.

I've found it wise that while reading this book, to lean over and smooch your partner after every fifteen pages or so.(less)

like · see review

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 43 44 next »

new topic
Discuss This Book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

Recommend it | Stats | Recent status updates

combine
Other Editions (5)

More editions...

Genres

Non Fiction

40 users

Feminism

12 users

Sociology

9 users

Philosophy

9 users

Sexuality

6 users

Psychology

5 users

Gender > Gender Studies

4 users

Love

4 users

Relationships

4 users

Marriage

3 users

See top shelves...

Readers also enjoyed similar books

Books by Laura Kipnis

The Female Thing: Dirt, Sex, Envy, Vulnerability

Bound and Gagged: Pornography and the Politics of Fantasy in America

How to Become a Scandal: Adventures in Bad Behavior

Ecstasy Unlimited: On Sex, Capital, Gender, and Aesthetics

More…

Share This Book

Facebook Twitter Your website

Trivia About Against Love: A P...

No trivia or quizzes yet. Add some now »

Quotes from Against Love: A Polemic

“When sociobiologists start shitting in their backyards with dinner guests in the vicinity, maybe their arguments about innateness over culture will start seeming more persuasive. ” — 7 people liked it

“[T]he hidden linguistic universe of companianate couples... rests entirely on one generative phrase: 'Would you please stop doing that.” — 6 people liked it

More quotes…

title link	preview: Against Love: A Polemic
avg rating	preview: Against Love: A Polemic Goodreads rating: 3.56 (664 ratings)
small image	preview: click here [close]
med image	preview: click here [close]
BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123732.Against_Love?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320470533l/123732.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123732.Against_Love?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]Against Love: A Polemic by Laura Kipnis[/url]

Against Love: A Polemic

Friend Reviews

Community Reviews

Share This Book

Share This Book on Your Website