One of the best is set in the near future. There are historical tales and modern ones. Authors still living and those long dead. There are famous names, and unknown ones. The stories were all written in the last 120 years, but come from Russian, Chinese, Austrian and Czech writers as well as Americans. Certainly it would have given more pleasure that way.Īs it was, I found it as mixed as the authors and styles included. Perhaps such a book is not intended to be read as a book, but dipped into now and then, one story at a time over a longer period, with other works interspersing. There are 26 stories in all, which I found to be too many for a single collection. In some of the collection the analogies are easily identified, others are less clear – but as in any collection the choice is purely personal and so it is to be expected that any reader will not entirely agree with all that is presented, and may perhaps wonder at what is omitted.

There must be a barrier to the object of the affection or the removal of the barrier has unwelcome consequences. His contention is that for a story to be a love story, as opposed to a story about love, either there must be a sparrow, or the sparrow must be dead. It is from this scenario that Jeffrey Eugenides takes the title for this collection of short stories, which he subtitles Great Love Stories from Chekhov to Munro. Having first wished the sparrow away, our poet is now forced to wish him back again to see his lover smile as she was once wont. Two of his early poems to Lesbia centre on her love for her pet sparrow – the first lamenting that it is the sparrow not he that is the object of her affection:īy the second, the sparrow is dead and the mistress is distraught. What then is a young man to do, but turn to poetry?Ĭhanging her name to Lesbia, Catullus set about dedicating a number of poems to his adulteress mistress, celebrating and lamenting their love in equal measure. Whoever she was Gaius Catullus was smitten – and Clodia was not available to be pursued as he might otherwise pursue her.

It is not certain who Clodia was – she may have been Clodia Celer, licentious wife of the praetor Metellus, but equally she may not. His name was Gaius Catullus and he fell in love with Clodia. Sixty-odd years before the birth of Christ, there lived in Gaul the son of a minor aristocrat.

Buy rather than borrow - it's best read slowly. Too broad a scope, with an admixture of style and setting, results in a disparate array, rather than a cohesive collection.

Summary: A collection of love stories selected from 120 years worth of literature from around the world is bound to be personal, so it's inevitable that some will touch, move or delight, whilst others leave you switching off the light and opting for an early night instead.

Poem innocence harold brodkey