by Julia H. Jackson
Regardless of your age, disposition, and romantic status, you can’t avoid Valentine’s Day. Whether you thrive off the sentimentality of paper hearts, can’t stand the pink tissue paper wallpapering most drugstores, or secretly wish that certain someone would do something, anything, for you on February 14, surely you’ll have to acknowledge it somehow. Maybe you feel as Welsh poet Dylan Thomas once did; that love is “an intolerable emptiness in me, that can be made whole only by your soul and body. I will come back alive and as deep in love with you as a cormorant dives, as an anemone grows, as Neptune breathes, as the sea is deep.” A bit heavy? Perhaps, but don’t dismiss Thomas, whose love letters to Caitlin MacNamara later comprised an impressive literary tome. Who’s to say that your next original Valentine can’t set the stage for a greater romantic work?
Today we examine 5 Books To Use as Valentines that, who knows, might inspire an ocean dive. Unsure just what kind of message to send your attractive classmate or flirtatious friend-of-a-friend? Not to worry; Eduify’s got your back.
5. For the bold, die-hard romantics:
Twenty Love Poems and One Song of Despair, by Pablo Neruda, translated by W.S. Merwin
Come with me, as if I were dying,
and no one saw the moon that bled in my mouth
or the blood that rose into the silence.
O Love, now we can forget the star that has such thorns!
That is why when I heard your voice repeat
Come with me, it was as if you had let loose
the grief, the love, the fury of a cork-trapped wine
–from “Come With Me, I Said, And No One Knew (VII)”
This 1924 collection of poems by Pablo Neruda established him as the master of eroticism. Born and educated in Chile, Neruda later served as ambassador and émigré in Spain and Mexico. His political affiliation aside, it was the sincerity of Neruda’s “desperate love song” that inspired generations of writers, filmmakers and artists worldwide. Neruda’s unabashed sexuality, coupled with the joire de vivre of a twentieth-century Renaissance man, made his poetry famous worldwide, eventually winning him the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971.
If you dig Neruda’s style, but sense that your date isn’t ready for explicit seduction, check out the 1994 film Il Postino, an Italian story inspired by the life and literature of Senor Neruda.
4. For the English majors:
Possession, by A.S. Byatt
In this 1990 literary fiction bestseller, Byatt weaves two centuries of romance into intertwining stories about two competing graduate students in English who are stuck deciphering the long-lost love letters of two Victorian poets. This is the perfect choice for girls and boys who like to read between the lines, who see romance as a subtle game full of hidden meaning. And for you cinephiles, there’s a film version too, starring Gwyneth Paltrow and Aaron Eckhart.
3. For the garage band guy/girl:
Perhaps this novel’s greatest strength is its loving testimonial to the art of mix tapes. Rob decides to break down his relationship failures one by one, recounting past girlfriends as if he were ticking off records in his collection. One of Nick Hornby’s early hits, High Fidelity could be the story of young hipster love, or it could be a tribute to how we choose to express our affection, via words or chords. The 2000 film adaptation with John Cusak is worth noting, too. This book, coupled with a personally-curated mix CD, might be the epitome of twenty-first century Valentines.
2. For the magical realist in your life:
Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Thomas Pynchon wrote in a 1988 New York Times review that Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera was courageous, not only in its mastery of magical realism, but also because it was not afraid to tackle love. This was a “daring step for any writer to decide to work in love’s vernacular, to take it, with all its folly, imprecision and lapses in taste, at all seriously — that is, as well worth those higher forms of play that we value in fiction. For García Márquez the step may also be revolutionary.” And what could be more revolutionary than a love affair put on hold for 50 years? Not only must Florentino Ariza sit on the sidelines for half his life, waiting for Fermina Darza’s husband to die, but he must endure the two choleras of his time and place: the illness itself, which sweeps the unnamed Colombian town, and the emotional damper la colera, the melancholy that accompanies wars without end.
1. For the aspiring memoirist:
Six Word Memoirs on Love and Heartbreak by Writers Famous and Obscure, edited by Larry Smith and Rachel Fershleiser
Inspired by Ernest Hemingway’s famous six-word story (“For sale: baby shoes, never worn”), SMITH Mag launched a movement in 2006 with the Six-Word Memoir. What better way to kick off Valentine’s Day then to draw on then the concise, heartfelt nuggets like “At twelve, found soulmate, still together” or the bittersweet realities of love’s uglier side (“Inevitably, his obituary didn’t mention me”). This sharp little collection features notable writers as well as contributors to SMITH Mag online. Perhaps you could start the date with a book, and end it with a snappy six-worder of your own!
So there you go—consider all your Valentine bases covered! You might say that these books have a way of turning people on.
Happy V-Day.
