LOVE [Paperback]

PETER NADAS (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 15, 2004

The hallucinatory, unforgettable account of a moment-or an eternity-in an uncertain love affair

The man has actually come to tell his lover that he wants to leave her, but as soon as he walks in he realizes he won't be able to tell her. The woman rolls a joint. They smoke it. And as they drift into another state of mind, he approaches the border zones between being and nonbeing, between living and imagining, or is it between life and death?

From the acclaimed author of A Book of Memories we now have this unsettling and strangely beautiful exploration of the impossibility of love. The mysterious musicality and physical intensity of the narration will be familiar to readers of Nadas's other fiction, but Love is a radical new departure.

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A magnificent work." -Stuttgarter Zeitung

"Péter Nádas, one of Hungary's pre-eminent literary figures, has . . . transposed the novel of consciousness to the Socialist universe, and closed the gap between prewar modernism . . . and Eastern Europe."-Eva Hoffman, The New York Times Book Review

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Hungarian --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 144 pages
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (March 15, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0374529558
• ISBN-13: 978-0374529550
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 2.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,879,907 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not terrible..., December 31, 2004

By 

P. Shelton (Atlanta, GA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love (Hardcover)

This wasn't a terrible book. The story takes place in a bedroom after smoking a couple of joints. We are treated to the narration from the paranoid mind of the main character, whose ruminations, while painfully unceasing, at times are insightful. I understand where Nadas was trying to go with this, but I think, even with the short length, that without any breaks in the narration from the schizophrenic to a normal mind, many people would likely lose patience, if not pull their hair out.
To the lone reviewer before me, you have mistaken a spot-on drug induced dialogue as immature, childish rantings. While seemingly similar, Art is what separates the two. Just like the abstract painting someone loves which turns out to be a wiping rag.
Even with it's faults, I will keep this one to read again.

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Solipsistic mind-trip, September 3, 2009

By 

R. Wolfe "Morganacat" (AZ, United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: LOVE (Paperback)

This short book takes place over a single night, as a couple smoke hallucinogenic drugs, and the male narrator trips deeper and deeper into his own mind. His existential mental ramblings are a chore to keep up with at times, but it's also (what I would imagine to be) an incredibly realistic portrayal of a drug trip. At times I was with the narrator, with his fears of going insane and feeling on the brink of death and his philosophical realizations on the nature of love and reality. Other times the stunted writing and repetition lost me. But all in all, a very interesting and strange book - provocative in its own way, if a bit flawed in overall execution and conclusion.

5 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A Root Canal Is Preferable To This, August 9, 2001

By 

taking a rest - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Love (Hardcover)

I cannot say this is the worst book I have read in some time; for there are others I never bothered to finish. However, "Love", by Peter Nadas is the worst book I have finished in a very long time. The following is an example of what passes for writing, "I am here. All right. Not here but there. But Where?" The last time I read words like these was during a Dr. Seuss book, except his made sense. "The Cat In The Hat" is Nobel Prize level literature compared to this.

As the jacket explains the book opens with a couple indulging in the most painfully assembled THC laced cigarettes ever to be described. In the time Eva and her TLC has made one Tobacco/THC amalgam, the drivel in the book can be read. This collection of words is the result of an Author reaching for subjects that he is about 100 I.Q. points shy of understanding much less analyzing. I suppose this could be written off as some rambling incoherent result of having a very low tolerance to cigarettes of any kind, but that is presuming too much.

There was one moment of clarity bordering on brilliance when the Author wrote, "I've gone nuts. Crazy, and lost". I could not agree with him more.