Rating: 
Summary: why marxists got it all wrong?
Review: Kipnis' argument is that marriage has been invented by Capitalism to manipulate us into having children and working hard to provide for them. Does anyone believe that? How did Mr. Capitalism accomplish that? Who and what is capitalism anyway? Does Kipnis know? Is she suggesting that CEOs and mutual fund managers are conspiring to make us marry so that we can work hard to feed our kids?
The truth is that marriage has been in existence for thousands of years. People used to get married millennia before the advent of modern capitalism. Neither did marriage disappear in the Soviet Union and other Marxist states. Modern capitalism if anything acts to discourage us from getting married and having lots of children. How? Very simple: in order to have children, mothers must quit working for several months. This is not something that most employers are happy about. Many women would much rather focus on their career than bear children. Not surprisingly we find that average family size in North America, Japan, and Europe is smaller than it used to be 200 years ago and is constantly declining. What has happened to Capitalism's conspiracy to make us have more children? If there ever was such a conspiracy then it certainly has failed.
Blaming everything on Capitalism has been en vogue ever since Karl Marx published his half-baked ideas about society. The fall of the Soviet Union did not end this unfortunate trend. Many armchair intellectuals and union members truly believe that the World would become a better place if only we could abolish the "wicked" capitalist system. As if the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert do not have many of the same problems that we do. They marry and then divorce, just like we do.
Many marriages are lonely and lifeless, that is true. But don"t blame society for that. Marriage exists in all societies around the World and it always did. The only Force that manipulates us to marry and have children is our DNA. Our genes can't care less about our happiness as long as we ensure their rebirth in the next generation. If there ever was a conspiracy then we should be looking for it in Evolution not in modern capitalist system.
Rating: 
Summary: "Against Love" is the strongest supporter of love.
Review: I read this book straight through. And I found myself looking for the wires that Ms. Kipnis must have connected to me for her diagnosis of my emotional engines. She shamelessly swung her mallet at the bricks that I have personally laid upon love's wall. Through the rubble her thought experiments sparked the sun to shine irreverently into my soul. She was not offering any answers, just a careful view of all the pieces.I would surely have been one of her more persistent test rats in the science lab of love tried and lost. You will see my case number in the Dissolution of Marriage records twice--- to the same woman. Like you, I have been a professional student of love and making it work (or play, as Kipnis thinks it should not be so much work). The net effect of the reading experience provokes the same sensation as when you look down at the beauty of the city from atop a tall building. The chaos of what is below seems somehow more orderly. Maybe you hope, you will be better prepared to deal with the chaos when returning to the street level.
Rating:
Summary: a self-serving look at sexual infidelity?
Review: Once again, Homo Academicus (or Homo Know-it-all-cus?) has shown how arrogant he or she can be. This book is really amazing. This college professor has written a book in praise of adultery. Marriage is an outdated trope, she claims. Those who cheat on their spouses are not scum; they are striking a blow against psychosexual hypocrisy. Additionally, she thinks those who cheat, divorce, and remarry are sell-outs to The Cause. What is one of the highest, most noble forms of adultery? A tryst at an academic conference. That's right. Where else can two Ubermenschen come together to tell each other how smart they are, how good looking they are, and -- above all -- how they are so clever, they don't need society's restricting conventions and petty morality? It is true that adultery is usually a symptom of larger problems in a marriage and not the original cause. It deserves a serious look. But is this it? [NB: The author is not a psychologist but a radio-TV-film professor/self-styled "cultural critic".] Do we need this much irony and hipster intellectual posing? Should society condone the willful destruction of families and the hurtful consequences of extra-marital affairs. Or, is this book designed to make adulterers and sexual libertines feel better about what they are doing?
Rating:
Summary: Laura Kipnis Is A True Romantic!
Review: I absolutely Loved "Against Love". What bravery, what charisma, moxy and sheer guts it must take to write such a book! Not to mention prodigious amounts of impressive, bona fide brain power. It's fun to read, informative, challenging and yes, even romantic! It's looney and juney w/moon madness, all delirious, jaded, cynicism wrapped up in a silken velvet blanket of jazzy, witty verbal persuasiveness
In short, it's really fun to read, reaches dazzling heights of brilliant, powerfully argued scholarship...and also should be taken seriously.
Because I think she's dead-on when she deciphers and dissects the ailing, failing, gasping structure that is known as "modern marriage".
Oh, I don't think she's really down on marriage, per se, or that she doubts that for some people, marriage can be a happy little institution to wrap one's self in.
But it does take work, lots of work! And therapy!! And...oh, just read this great book for yourself to find out more.
After reading "Against Love" I still wanted to look at books on having the "perfect wedding", and I still wanted to see loopy, dopey romantic movies (the opium of the masses) and I still wanted to harbor dreams of finally meeting "the one"!
But I also had to take a long, cold, hard look at just what "true love" really entails, and what sacrifices are demanded.
I believe everything Laura Kipnis writes of, and yes, I do think she's a true romantic.
Why?
Just look at the title of her book: "Against Love". It can be taken more than one way. Think about it.
And no, I don't think she's telling everybody to run out and have affairs. She's taking a penetrating, perceptive look at why many, many married folk do, though.
Read this book!!!
Caveat: not for the conformist who wants to stay that way...in how he or she thinks.
Rating:
Summary: Liars!!!
Review: I doubt whether the most unfavorable reviews of this book were done with the same candidness, and sincerity, and above all LOVE that this book demands of someone.
Yes, it is difficult. But love IS difficult. This book does not oppose love, but is an expression of love. I gather from most the scathing reviews, I feel they either have not read it, or just clearly missed the point.
And, if they have read it, what I feel going on here is a sort of a deception, or clinging; a self deception - a very telling display of how fragile they truly feel "love" as they know it, is.
The book is beautiful, it is a brave examination of love, done with much LOVE!!!
The book will stir you, uncomfortably at times..., but when read with an open mind, can make you laugh, and inspire you to LOVE.
To paraphrase the author in her own reader advisory preface of the book... to be 'against love' is impossible, we are it's servants, slaves, and creators, and we are the will of love...
underneath it all, what it teaches is not to "love", but to love better.
All that is true is love.
Rating: 
Summary: like it or not
Review: I'm not sure if Miss Kipnis is proposing a radical new state of social existence in Against Love or if she is an unusually keen observer of the human condition, or both.
It doesn't matter. Against Love is not only an entertaining read, but westerners (especially women, who actually think about this stuff) will find the book secretly, sinfully provocative, while struggling to come to terms with a philosophy most of them will find threatening: "Hummm sounds like fun. Maybe. But what about the kids? More hummm. And what if my girlfriends decide they want to cheat on their husbands... with MY husband. A girl could drive herself mad with all of the possibilities.
But there's a way to read this book without coming away irredeemably frustrated. First come to grips with the harsh reality that There Is No Answer to this most maddening of human pursuits, and that there never will be. And that just when you've become a little to smart for your own good and decided "Forget monogamy and family values (a repellant phrase if ever there was one); from here on end I'm practicing serial polygammy;" along comes Fate and WHAM there you go again shopping for a sensible car and a neighborhood with Good Schools. Or maybe you're already in one of those Committed Relationships and that same Fate points all of your hormones in the direction of Forbidden Fruit. There are no rules, at least not that survive the end of the day. Miss Kipnis is a sharp gal and she obviously knows this. I can't see why she took a stand for poligamy or adultery, or why anyone would defend monogamy either. But polemic sells. Enjoy the book.
Rating:
Summary: Against "Against Love"
Review: Granted, the divorce rate is at 50% in our country, but what is it in other countries? It's easier here to give up, or to make a hasty decision to get married. The institution of marriage isn't what's wrong, it's the people who use bad judgement and who don't believe in having to work for something worthwhile. Nothing worthwhile comes easy, and I for one, believe that Kipnis advocates the easy way out - she is a proponent of succumbing to lust and desire over deeper more meaningful states of loyalty and commitment which sustain the longevity of a relationship. She fails to address what happens when children come into the equation, and what happens to the family as an institution when monogamy is thrown aside. What then? What kind of society would this be if parents were free to pursue a better sex life and abandon the responsibility of providing an emotionally stable household structure? Though she poses interesting questions that elicit strong reactions in both directions, she fails to propose a viable solution, and her polemic only results in coming off as more of a rant than a productive piece of literature.
Rating:
Summary: A provocative look at love
Review: Laura Kipnis has titled her book "a polemic" and it is that. She marshals arguments and data to show that love, the Holy Grail that so many long for, is not only elusive but also often not the panacea that is promised by society. The love she is referring to is the romantic love we in the Western World base our marriages and relationships on. She does not touch the subject of other loves; love of children, friends and/or family.
I found the first half of the book somewhat difficult but the last half redeemed the entire book. She puts a microscope on the society that holds love and its' rewards as the goal we should all strive for. Yet that same society puts so many obstacles in the path of sustaining it. Her thesis is that love is difficult to live with and even more difficult to sustain. She exposes the conformity and fear of being "different" that society demands from it citizens. The ideals; that love should last a lifetime; that love should be a constant and non-deviating emotion in a marriage; that when in love, one never looks at another woman or man. All rather difficult. Equating "working at love" with the current climate of burgeoning work hours and efforts demanded at even the most mundane of jobs strikes a chord.
Interesting and provocative reading that should spark further thinking and conversation.
Rating: 
Summary: More Questions Than Answers
Review: Laura Kipnis starts this book with a rapid fire series of observations that are amazingly accurate. The sheer brilliance of these observations is undeniable. She also places some truly provocative frames before us and, as others have pointed out, immediately denies their core validity by saying that they are only argumentative devices.
Where the book disappoints is failing to synthesize a coherent viewpoint after such great deconstruction. In other words, OK, you got us in the mode of questioning whether a love relationship should be "work," and that therapeutic approaches may fail because of that wrong assumption.
But, when we're miserable, suicidal, aching, isn't a mechanistic band-aid is better than standing over the sufferer and shrugging? In other words, after her indictment of conventional therapy, she offers no replacement or alternative. If your car breaks down, you should walk.
I want to know whether Laura has played "the Sims 2," the brand new issue of the most popular computer game ever released. In this more sophisticated version, the synthetic people are made (by you) with "aspirations." They can be money, popularity - and romance.
The Romance sim craves multiple intense romantic interludes. The Romance sim is born to pursue intimacy, consummate it, and even marry. The Romance sim can marry a sim with a Family aspiration and have children.
But, often, the Romance sim cannot remain satisfied with this arrangement and is rewarded if they succeed in flirting with, seducing and having sexual intimacy with another Sim. The more such relationships, the better the Romance sim's aspirations are met and the higher his or her satisfaction score.
What's the point? A very simple one: the wise designers of this game acknowledged that everyone has differing aspirations. There will be people who will never be satisfied with monogamous, stable relationships, and will endlessly pursue outside parties. And, strangely enough, this is how they are satisfied.
Not reckoned, though, is the damage wrought to the partners who have other aspirations. In the Sims 2, you can discern what other Sims' aspirations are. If only we could do that as easily in life...
Rating:
Summary: Writing it must have been fun
Review: Kipnis romps through this book with such enthusiasm, it's a delight to read. She looks in every nook and cranny of relationships and holds forth expansively. What a sharp, clever mind is at work.
We're asked to consider many things about relationships, not just marriage and not just heterosexual relationships...why is it such a difficult thing for two people to get along, let alone love, over an extended period of time? She rightly says that the 50% divorce rate doesn't include the people who remain in marriages of misery. Kipnis offers adultery as a way in which people can feel the rush of coming to life, but she doesn't hesitate to describe the difficulties of taking that route and that it can easily be only a temporary escape. Why does our culture almost desperately hold marriage up as a standard, even while many of those promoting it most seem to have the greatest difficulty practicing what they preach?
When I finished the book I thought of the Buddhist idea that the source of suffering is desire. I also thought of how our society promotes desire as a universal good that should be followed at all times, particularly if the path leads into a store. Is it just a coincidence that while I am shopping for food at the grocery store I can hear love songs being played over the public address system? We want people to want, the encouragement, the inducement is constant. It drives our economy. With every taboo falling or fallen we are consumed with desire without restraint, arriving at our destiny as perfect consumers.
Marriage, institutionalized as the most private place of intimacy, is desperately supported because we'd like to believe there is some preserve where crass consumerism can't intrude, but as Kipnis relates we've taken marketing to heart and present ourselves as appealing products on the mating scene. Is it surprising that the product doesn't hold up over time? Image is everything from your car to your house to your job and if one shops for an appealing persona using one's own, how can the charade be expected to last when the pair become known to each other down to every image-busting detail of toothbrushing and body odor?
Our culture promotes levity, with everything light and easy and fun. Design life for yourself and don't take it too seriously! We all are practiced at that. But don't we also desperately long for there to be a place of deep and lasting meaning that lies beyond daily superficiality? Marriage is billed as such, but where is one to begin with little experience of sincerity, constancy, commitment and real joy, when we are constantly blinded by appearances?
Left unsaid in this book is what I think love is: the unaccountable desire to do for another in ways large or small, to put that person first for the pure pleasure of seeing that person happy, relieved, empowered as a result. There's joy in this benign power beyond anything one can do for oneself. When the other person feels the same way, it can't get any better, marriage or not. In such a situation, the relationship is not hard work because the thing to do is always clear and the ways in which to do it are infinitely varied; you become a craftsman of happiness, happy in your work. I believe Kipnis' book is not against this love, but against the easily exploitable, yet untenable popular image of love which can make a relationship seem like a prison.
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