A lot of things could be written about Valentine’s Day; I’ll skip the obvious.
As I am almost positive that the recipient of my valentine’s gift will not see this, I’ll confess that I’ve done the cliche thing to do this year: I’ve purchased a copy of My Mistress’s Sparrow is Dead, a collection of love stories edited by Jeffrey Eugenides .
While proceeds benefit 826 Chicago, I am generally a fan of Jeffrey Eugenides’ work, and I’m in a relationship with someone looking to renew their literary interests, it’s really the inclusion of Robert Musil’s Tonka that convinced me to make the purchase. Since reading Die Verwirrungen des Zöglings Törless (Translated as The Confusions of Young Torless, The Confusions of the Young Cadet Torless and Young Torless) in an existentialism course as an undergraduate, I have been a huge fan of Musil. Reading Tonka again has made me commit to FINALLY finishing Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man Without Qualities).
Eugenides’ introduction is what you would expect: literary, thoughtful and humorous. While I like the distinction he makes between love and love story, the introduction and the stories included all boil down, for me, to what my grandmother told me about romantic relationships: “it’s always a form of insanity.”
So, in my particular state of insanity, with Valentine’s Day approaching yet again, and a tryst already penciled in for the 12th, it makes sense to re-read favorite stories, ponder and annotate them, and, finally, share the insanity.
I recommend “The Female Brain” by Louanne Brizendine , which shows that
being “in love” is a function of certain chemical changes in the brain, which returns to its normal state after a couple of years or less.
Thus the feelings of being “in love” are always of limited duration.
All the more reason to savor these emotions while they’re still there!!!
For more information and some updates to previous scientific inquiries, see anthropologist Helen Fisher’s Why We Love: The Nature and Chemistry of Romantic Love.