Ely: classics and types of love

[Ruth]

This book is all about love and loss, and it has quite a few classical references (as the author's note about Hadrian and Antinous makes clear). There's the Vestal Virgins, the name Elysium, even the Twelve seem to be vaguely reminiscent of the Olympian Gods.
One thing that struck me was how the common thread through all the stories is love, but that love takes different forms as the characters' relationships shift.
Some examples of different kinds of love, using the Greek words:
(view spoiler)[
Eros (romantic love): vestal virgin!Adrianne and soldier!Antoine's forbidden trysts were the most obvious example of this kind of wild, unstoppable attraction

Storge (parental love): flying dad!Antoine taking care of flying!Adrianne in the post-apocalyptic city was a very moving example, also the prisoner!Adrianne and brain-damaged brother!Antoine relationship kinda read like this despite being a sibling rather than parent relationship

Philia (friendship): not as obvious perhaps, I don't think we ever saw the main two as 'just friends' but I did like the recurring minor characters: Hector/Helen, Sheila the nurse, etc, and the sense of companionship and selfless help. Side note: I find I increasingly prefer stories about decent people trying to help each other, to stories about selfish dicks screwing each other over.

Agape: universal love, love for humankind. Engineer!Adrian with his drive to create and constantly improve the underground city, the sky, the space-ships, and of course to preserve the memories. It was a great example of how love for one person (dead wife!Antoinette) can be turned into a more universal love and make someone try to preserve humankind.

(hide spoiler)]

This book wasn't super-satisfying narratively, but I did really enjoy the elegaic tone, and the ideas it explored around love, memory, continuity etc.
What do y'all think?

[Trike]

I concur. This is one reason why I think it more closely aligns with Philip K. Dick’s work, where the ideas are paramount, but if I were forced to draw an exact parallel of “if you like that then try this”, it would be with Slaughterhouse-Five by Vonnegut.

It has that same sort of dreamlike narrative of jumping perspectives where it might or might not be about being in an alien zoo, or just someone experiencing a mental break from reality. Basically a literature Rorschach test.

[Cathy]

I agree with your comments, Ruth. This book is about love and loss. And it seems an apt reading choice for the times. The mood it creates certainly resonates with my feelings about the world we are living in now.

[terpkristin]

I think I'm having a harder time reading it right now because of that, actually. The times are NOT helping me. But it's going quickly.

[Jenny (Reading Envy)]

I think I'd add to your idea Ruth that these concepts of love are very much a component of Western Civilization and this matters because (view spoiler)[the ending has beings that are outside that story and they can't understand the program.... (hide spoiler)]