Labyrinth of Desire: Women, Passion and Romantic Obsession [Paperback]

Rosemary Sullivan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 2, 2003

"A beautifully woven tapestry of insightful corollaries and personal stories, offering fresh conjectures into the psyches of women and men in love." -- Elle . Think of torch songs and the tango. Think of films such as Casablanca and The English Patient , of novels such as Wuthering Heights and Rebecca . Think of romantic, obsessive love, the hot bed of passion we fall into, the emotion we call true love. This is the subject of Rosemary Sullivan's provocative and fascinating book. Beginning with her own telling of a fictional love story, she then, chapter by chapter, deconstructs it, skillfully pushing back the layers of meaning to look at what is really happening. Using literature, mythology, film, and personal anecdote; with graceful writing and an intimate knowledge of the subject, Rosemary Sullivan has written a brilliant exploration of our desire for romantic love as she attempts to answer the question, Why do women love as they do?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Why do smart, sensitive women turn into lemmings at the sight of some Don Juan, throwing themselves over the cliffs of love like self-destructive fools? They're not fools, Sullivan argues, and far from destroying themselves, women use these "love objects" very deliberately, if not consciously. Sullivan poet, biographer and English professor at the University of Toronto develops this idea in an original and disarming manner. She presents a love story of her own design involving a lone woman in a foreign town, a dark and stormy artist lover and a horrible ending, leaving the world in ashes. Then she deconstructs the whole tale, teasing out its truths. The Werther male, the "demon lover"/Heathcliff, the solipsist/narcissist male who finds "S I N" or "Safety in Numbers," the Jean Rhys-ian woman so "adept at the broken heart" they're all here. And while Sullivan explores differences between the sexes in the way males and females love, she acknowledges that there's a universality in the obsessive love experience. Plunging into a passionate obsession lets humans release control and explore unknown depths within themselves. In the end, they may be shattered and alone, but out of that loneliness can come new understandings. Sullivan's cultural references Frida Kahlo, Sylvia Plath, Virginia Woolf, Marguerite Duras are right on target for any woman who's ready to (re)question the role of love in her life. Agents, Jan Whitford and Jackie Kaiser. (Feb. 1)Forecast: This Canadian bestseller is an obsessive read not academic, but not self-help, either. Bound to interest a wide range of book-buying women Ms. readers, NPR listeners, Utne fans and reading clubbers it should do well. After all, who hasn't had an intense love affair they're still fixated on?

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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

From Library Journal

This book about love and addictive relationships begins with a fable about one woman's experience with obsession, and succeeding chapters also use fables to explore the various components of obsession. Throughout, Sullivan uses examples of famous love stories, real and fictional, to enrich her examination as she attempts to answer the question, "Why are people, women in particular, addicted to romantic, obsessive love?" Sullivan's introduction of real love stories and her conversational style, which creates intimacy between reader and writer, set this apart from other popular works on the subject. An award-winning Canadian writer and poet (English, Univ. of Toronto), Sullivan is better known for her biographies of writers, e.g., The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out. This departure has brought her success; it's been on the best sellers list in Canada. Recommended for public and academic libraries. Shana C. Fair, Ohio Univ., Zanesville
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 192 pages
• Publisher: Counterpoint (September 2, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1582432872
• ISBN-13: 978-1582432878
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 5.3 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #576,174 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Rules for overeducated women, January 31, 2002

By 

Jessica Jernigan (Mt. Pleasant, Mi.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Labyrinth of Desire: Women, Passion, and Romantic Obsession (Hardcover)

Labyrinth of Desire is The Rules for women of ample brain. Like the authors of that classic self-help manual for the man-crazy, rosemary sullivan understands the ways in which love drives women mad. by looking at literature & movies, sullivan identifies the love stories that make women a bit stupid, the stories that help us to confuse fantasy with reality. but sullivan offers neither advice for navigating through these narratives to marriage -- a la The Rules -- nor does she teach us how to steer clear of the doomed romance altogether. rather, she analyzes the tragic love story as the female version of the hero's quest, & celebrates it as a revelatory life experience. Labyrinth of Desire is erudite, insightful, deliciously compassionate, & ultimately empowering.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The complete truth, October 24, 2003

By 

Tiffany Rhoades "devout historian" (FL, USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Labyrinth of Desire: Women, Passion and Romantic Obsession (Paperback)

A romantic at heart, this book provided a new insight into love and it's many forms - and an explanation for why some girls (and guys) fall in love so quickly, passionately, and often. Her description of the two main types of romantic love (mainly focusing on obsessive romantic love a.k.a. short-term, lustful love) via storytelling is both entricate and easy to understand. Anyone who has ever been in love can relate to this, and it certainly provides a medium for exploring not only the loves we have had and may have, but also views of love and ourselves. A must read for all lovers the world over.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Pleasures of the Soul, January 29, 2007

By 

Rebecca Johnson "The Rebecca Review" (Washington State) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Labyrinth of Desire: Women, Passion and Romantic Obsession (Paperback)

"My sense of romantic love inevitably involves obsession. It occurs when we meet the person we feel is essential for our life. Without that person, we will die. It happens when life stops us suddenly in our tracks and we love in a way we didn't know was possible." ~ pg. 4

Rosemary Sullivan explores more than obsessive love in her unique personal story which becomes as much an unveiling of her own world as an understanding of the search for ourselves by becoming obsessed with another. Throughout "Labyrinth of Desire," she paints erotic portraits of feminine longing and uses the colors of a short story to paint larger pictures within a world of spontaneous choices and unrestrained desire.

I started to read this book in bed one night while my husband was looking up something on a map and I was amusing myself by reading him sentences so he could look up various locations in the initial story. A woman becomes obsessed with a man while she is on an adventure in Mexico. This leads to a discussion of what actually occurred within the relationship and why it eventually ended in disaster. Or did it end badly? Rosemary Sullivan has a few intriguing ideas about why we fall madly in love and how it can birth the self.

Within the "almost confessional" personal revelations, excerpts from her diary, pop culture references, quotes from famous artists, passages from novels, witty conversations in movies, secrets between friends and intriguing memories from her world travels, Rosemary Sullivan reveals that she at times misses the "waking up of the world."

For anyone who has experienced obsessive love or even just falling in love without complete obsession, this will present intrigue. Although, I must admit that an especially artistic movie can produce a similar "awakening" to the world. Colors become more vibrant, you notice the steam on a cup of coffee, the sun feels warmer on your skin, you long to sit in the sun as if it was some invisible connection between you and your lover.

The most revealing aspect of this book may be the information on how she despises one type of romantic love and embraces a wilder more provocative expression. Needless to say, there is something warm and beautiful in this book, although it can at times read like a conversation between friends discussing their favorite lovers, movies and world travels.

This book will be quite enjoyable to anyone who has ever wished to be an artist's muse. I think at the heart, this entire concept of obsessive love is birthed from our desire to be needed and validated. Why else would be long to be needed when so deeply obsessed with the object of our affection? Or does a sense of security make us feel that this magical space in our own little world will continue indefinitely?

While falling madly in love has its seductive beauty, resisting when inappropriate reveals entirely new facets of your soul's strength. Obsessive love is a little dangerous and it could destroy your life and that may also be its appeal.

~The Rebecca Review