Eros and Pathos: Shades of Love and Suffering

This book, along with James Hollis' The Eden Project, analyzes the origin of Romance and its inevitable failure and what to do with the mess you have on your hands afterward. It can only be understood through the lens of experience - novices need not apply because they will fight the book's wisdom all the way. The other reviewers are correct so I won't repeat them. Suffice to say, if you really want to understand how and why you feel the way you do about your quest for a partner, read both of these books several times. Oh, I almost forgot, it helps to be desperate!

in explaining the ungraspable realm of the emotion of love, especially the WHYs and HOWs of it - for instance why do we fall in love with a particual person and why no other can replace that person.. it will help you understand love, jealousy, suffering, fear of loss and all the confusing states we experience while faling in and out of love. it will also help you deal with your own emotions, especially when love turns into suffering, as it inevitably always does. on a downside, for a non-native english speaker author's writing style was really hard to follow.

It is no accident that Carotenuto continually refers to poets such as Rilke in his discourse. He looks to them, and to all creative minds, to elucidate otherwise impenetrable or unspeakable truths about the human condition, and particularly the pain and confusion often associated with love relationships. He does so with astonishing success. Carotenuto himself writes with the impact of poetry. He is able to articulate Jungian concepts in a way that makes sense to the reader on an intuitive, existential level, and not just an academic one. In chapter after chapter, he explains that the confusion and pain often associated with love relationships -- including betrayal, jealousy, need for power, loss of identity, erotic fantasy -- are born of not merely dysfuntion, but of our longing as human beings for authenticity. I have found no other book, in literature or psychology, that has come close to providing the same quality of psychic relief. That is not to say that the book offers solutions or self-help wisdom. It does not. What it says to the reader is: You are not insane; what you are feeling is universal, and moreover, valuable and necessary. For anyone who is in love or has experienced the loss of a love, this book is an invaluable resource-- something that can be turned to for a sense of stillness. The book is especially geared toward people engaged in creative pursuits who are battling against society's expectation that they adhere to more conventional life paths. Translation: If you are a starving artist, this book is for you too.