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Communion: The Female Search for Love [Hardcover]

bell hooks
3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)


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Book Description

January 22, 2002 Bell Hooks Love Trilogy

Renowned visionary and theorist bell hooks began her exploration of the meaning of love in American culture with the critically acclaimed All About Love: New Visions. She continued her national dialogue with the bestselling Salvation: Black People and Love. Now hooks culminates her triumphant trilogy of love with Communion: The Female Search for Love.

Intimate, revealing, provocative, Communion challenges every female to courageously claim the search for love as the heroic journey we must all chose to be truly free. In Communion, hooks, one of our most revered and acute social critics, answers all our questions about the place of love in a woman's life. In her trademark commanding and lucid language, hooks explores the ways ideas about women and love were changed by feminist movement, by our full participation in the workforce, and by the culture of self-help. Her penetrating words silence our fears about becoming women who love too much, yet they also challenge us. Her words stir us to devote as much of ourselves to love, to loving our partners, our bodies, our pasts, our parents, as we do our careers and our independence.

In chapters as personal and prescriptive as bell is passionate and provoking, Communion guides us toward the path that leads to true fulfillment. This work exposes our fears, hopes, and longing, all the while addressing the powerful insight that women who cannot love can never really grow up. In Communion, hooks celebrates the experiences of women over thirty, shares collective wisdom, and bestows on us the lessons learned as we practice the art of loving. Communion is the heart-to-heart talk every woman needs to have. And this conversation guides us--mothers, daughters, friends, and lovers -- on one of our most life-affirming journeys.



Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

While feminism may have changed boardrooms, it didn't make much headway in bedrooms, argues philosopher/writer hooks. Women have made progress in regard to social empowerment, but the quest for emotional density for love has remained elusive. Why are men still so emotionally unsatisfying? Because, hooks argues, "patriarchal thinking has socialized males to believe that their manhood is affirmed when they are emotionally withholding." Patriarchy valorizes power and assigns it to men, and devalues nurturing and labels it feminine. Thus, young postfeminist women find themselves with "nothing to show" from their newly won equality but a double shift of work: first the paid job, then the physical and emotional homework of their relationship with their man. Still, as feminists of hooks's generation reach midlife, they may find it easier to rethink these terms of engagement, to risk changing things. The first step, she says, is self-love accepting one's body and soul just the way it is. Without such acceptance, women cannot escape the domination-submission dynamic. Even then, in this patriarchal universe finding love with another person may require some creativity. Hooks explores romantic friendships, lesbian loves and "circles of love" (which allow for committed bonds that extend beyond one partnership). A life with no coupling, but "a more authentic relationship between self and world," may also be satisfying. Twenty-something women who've embraced the highly problematic "bitch persona" Elizabeth Wurtzel has written of may sneer at hooks's affirming style, but older women, particularly those raising girls themselves, will find much to ponder here. (Feb. 1)Forecast: This should satisfy those looking for an alternative Valentine's Day gift for the leftist/feminist woman in their life.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

It's not true that you can love too much, social critic hooks warns women. Just let yourself go.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 272 pages
  • Publisher: William Morrow; 1ST edition (January 22, 2002)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0066214424
  • ISBN-13: 978-0066214429
  • Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #170,164 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bell Hooks is a cultural critic, feminist theorist, and writer. Celebrated as one of our nation's leading public intellectual by The Atlantic Monthly, as well as one of Utne Reader's 100 Visionaries Who Could Change Your Life, she is a charismatic speaker who divides her time among teaching, writing, and lecturing around the world. Previously a professor in the English departments at Yale University and Oberlin College, hooks is now a Distinguished Professor of English at City College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York. She is the author of more than seventeen books, including All About Love: New Visions; Remembered Rapture: The Writer at Work; Wounds of Passion: A Writing Life; Bone Black: Memories of Girlhood; Killing Rage: Ending Racism; Art on My Mind: Visual Politics; and Breaking Bread: Insurgent Black Intellectual Life. She lives in New York City.

Customer Reviews

3.6 out of 5 stars
(16)
3.6 out of 5 stars
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars wise, humane, and well worth reading. March 6, 2002
Format:Hardcover
I have read journal articles by bell hooks, but this is the first book I have read of hers. It won't be my last book by her.

Communion: The Female Search for Love is part memoir, part challenge, and very thoughtprovoking.

One aspect I liked best was her debunking of the myth of "women who love too much." Another center of focus is the effect of gainful employment on the perceptions of love.

Her language is direct and clear, but not simplistic.

This is a very good book, and one that I hope will be widely read and discussed.

Even though her subtitle is "The Female Search for Love," men can learn from this worthwhile book, if they have the courage to read it.

This might be an excellent choice for a book group.

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20 of 24 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Love from a feminist perspective February 19, 2003
Format:Paperback
Communion is a discussion and legitimization of the pursuit of love from a mid-life feminist perspective. Hooks believes that the desire to understand how love works is a serious, important, and ultimately joyful life-work activity that should be studied and taught. The big question she attempts to answer is how to "find, keep, and make love despite the power of patriarchy."

The best part of this book is that Hooks always tells the truth as she sees it. There is no glossing over or contriving to make a point. Sometimes her language is sexually explicit and blunt. She explains love from the perspective of her own personal life experience and through intelligent observation and study of our culture and gender practices. The impact of the feminist movement is woven through her assessment. Unlike many other feminists, however, Hook's voice is not militant.

There is only one caution. The ever-present temptation for Hooks and for all of us is to find excuses why we cannot find love or be loving. From the ego's perspective, there is always a so-called justifiable reason for the rejection of another. In this case, the justifiable reason is patriarchy. However, unconditional love means that we undo the hate inour minds and extend love no matter what distressing disguise is presented to us.

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7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars not her best but still good September 12, 2004
By Naoki
Format:Paperback
And for a reader who is not hip to feminist thought or lit, this is a good soft entry. I enjoyed bell hooks analogies and statements regarding that women do seek love in so many ways and her most important point was that many women do not receive non-sexual love from men, which is necessary for balance in life, thus forcing them to seek it in so many other ways.

This book encouraged me to read and understand other bell hooks books that are phenomenal. I respect hooks for offering a wide spectrum on emotions, and reality
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9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Self love radiating out to others January 19, 2003
Format:Hardcover
Simply wonderful. Covers not only romantic, familial, and friendly relationships but focuses on the heart of the matter: women loving and respecting ourselves. Choosing appropriate relationships and nurturing them is only one part of that more important aim. bell hooks urges us to focus on being complete within ourselves - difficult for all women in our culture, particularly so for women of color.

Her observations are wise. Her grasp of history is absolute. Her ideas stimulate intelligent and loving thought, conversation, and action. Read this book.

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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Impressive! June 13, 2002
By mp541
Format:Hardcover
I have to admit that I was both surprised and pleased by this body of work. This book is the best out of the love trilogy. She challenges women to dare to love beyond the romantic/sex paradigm. Also, she is brutally honest about how hard it is to find a partner who is truly unshackled from the chains of domination. Kudos to bell for writing on a very complicated topic: love.
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10 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening April 16, 2002
Format:Hardcover
This is about the second work that I have read by Ms. hooks, and I wasn't disappointed. In this work, she talks about the things females do for love, and how it costs us. She talked about her mother, who would gang up with her dad and belittle her for reading, then outside of the father's presence, she would praise her for reading, and try to placate her when the damage was already done. or when she was with her partner and whenever the partner had a good employment opportunity, the author would willingly go, but when the author got a similar opportunity of her own, the partner was unwilling to go. Personally, I feel we as women sacrifice a lot in the name of love. We are usually the first to change, to adapt, to mold, and go along with the program. To me that is not love. I feel that Ms. hooks wrote the book from a feminist and womanist standpoint, and her points were valid. Amazon.com said that this book would make a great Valentine's present for someone single. I agree. Get this book and grow.
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars Definitely 3rd in the Love Trilogy March 3, 2003
Format:Paperback
bell hooks blew me away with All About Love and Salvation. Communion, however, left me wanting more. Although it was written in the typical bell hooks fashion -- I love her writing style, Communion didn't have the same passion, spirit and overall power that the previous two books had. I did like the way she weaved her own self into the topic. By doing so, she makes the reader feel closer to her and helps them relate better to their own search for love.
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13 of 17 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Not as pleased as other readers.... May 2, 2002
By A Customer
Format:Hardcover
I consider myself to be a huge bell hooks fan, but this book wasn't doing it for me. Usually, I can reading her cover to cover in a day and a half, but this time I find myself just barely picking through this. It's odd that her book "Salvation" on blacks and love was more interesting and only half the size of this tome. bell prides herself on bringing up race, class, and gender issues simultaneously, yet race and class drop to the wayside here. (To her credit, age and sexual orientation is brought up often.) I think readers unfamiliar with her work are going to be put off by her constant pointing to patriarchy and her continual assessment of feminism as a key aspect in women's search for love. Usually, bell has something brilliant to say in every chapter, and this time, I can't quote much that made me say, "Ahh! Good point!" bell can't really write bad books, it's just that this one did not blow me away like her previous texts.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars Amazingly Written
I've been searching for books that help me, as a man, understand my complicity in patriarchy, this book has done wonders for helping me delve further into the issue.
Published 4 months ago by M. Givens
5.0 out of 5 stars Satisfied Customer!
I really appreciated how well the book was packaged. I received it in good condition. I not only like the contents of a book, I like a good looking book (inside and out)!
Published 22 months ago by jackie
4.0 out of 5 stars bell hooks & communion
I have recommended this book to all those women in my life who have sold out to the patriarchal values in American culture because I want them to find communion with a more... Read more
Published on August 12, 2005 by David W. Sprague
1.0 out of 5 stars Tries to go the distance
This book, I attempted to approach with feelings of wanting answers and wanting to feel safe and secure in our often harsh, demanding, and very male world. Read more
Published on March 3, 2004 by Dame N. Motion
1.0 out of 5 stars Tries, but terribly misguided
I was a bit dismayed with Hook's book because in reality it just reiterates the cliche'd notions we all have about gender and gender relationships. Read more
Published on February 19, 2003 by misette delongue
3.0 out of 5 stars Okay, but....
This is my first bell hook's book. I think her book "Communion: The Female Search for Love" is good but a little weak on the feminism and radicalism she is noted for. Read more
Published on November 15, 2002
1.0 out of 5 stars do not read
this book is not good. It is the reason why men are so frustrated with much of the womyn's literature that is coming out. If you hate men and like womyn and are a womyn... Read more
Published on August 23, 2002 by jan
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