378
PARTISAN REVIEW
Lagerlof's affirmation lies close to my convictions: love is rare, love is
difficult, but nonetheless magnificent. Here, rather than seek al ternative
responses to the same question, I would ask another one: Why is this so?
What does love have that makes it the most precious aspect of existence?
The narratives of Lagerlof and Gary are beautiful, but they are no more
than a crutch for us here, showing love instead of analyzing it. We must
look elsewhere for illumination. Yet there is a preliminary question to be
answered: what is love? What do we mean by this word, so banalized from
common use?
Fortunately (or perhaps unfortunately), a great many authors have
already asked themselves this question; our task here is to learn and under–
stand, rather than invent. For my starting point I would take not a
canonical text of the past, but rather common opinion, which consists of
at least two elements: first, one must distinguish love from other feelings,
primarily friendship and parental (or maternal, as we tend to say) affection.
Secondly, love of this sort is based on sexuality, whether sublimated or
repressed.
These last two cliches or truisms can be decentered, dislodged from
their ruttedness, provided one is willing
to
give up a few well-established
certitudes. This was the approach taken by Erich Fromm, in one of the
richest modern essays on the subject,
The Art oj
Lovil1g.
Fromm begins with
the observation that love is an action, an attitude of the subject, and that
therefore a definition of it is more than merely the identification of its
object; we are dealing with something larger than the simple initiation of
contact between two individuals. The love-objects in their variety may of
course shape the feeling, but they do not define it completely. Parental love
is never confused with sexual love, yet one must still begin by outlining
their common traits, familiar to every parent. It is no mistake that Jan–
and Selma LagerIof-see a perfect example of love in the love of the father
for his daughter. So too do Gary and little Momo, who loves-and is in
love with-Madame Rosa, the woman who has raised him. The brutal loss
of the loved one is a similar experience whether it be a child, a lover, or
even a friend or parent.
Freudian psychoanalysis has taught us to see the love which ties us to
our parents in childhood (which can also take the form of hatred or resent–
ment) as containing the prototype of our adult loves. Yet a reciprocal
implication is often overlooked: that the same love is what links parents to
their children. The argument occasionally advanced against making this
jump-that love between parents and their children is imposed, while
lovers are chosen freely, and hence these are two different types of love–
does not hold. First of all, one does not necessarily love one's parents (or
children); furthermore, the love one chooses is not born of animal instinct,
