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The Art of Loving (P.S.) (Paperback) (平装)
by Erich Fromm
| Category:
Love, Relationship |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
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| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
MSL Pointer Review:
The Art of Loving is the book of delving into the concept & nature of Love which is very helpful and informative in understanding how our love relationships work, how love disintegrates in modern western society and how we can practice love.
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AllReviews |
1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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Chicago Tribune (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
Erich Fromm is both a psychologist of penetration and a writer of ability. |
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Fortune (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
Every line is packed with common sense, compassion, and realism. |
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Values and Visions (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
In his most famous work Erich Fromm explores all aspects of this art from romantic and parental love to love of God. He explains how to move beyond anxiety, fear, and shame to experience the best that life has to offer. |
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Monika Gordon (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
Erich Fromm, the author, was born in Frankfurt in Germany in 1900. He claims that love is the only sane and satisfactory answer to the problems of human existence. However, most people do not bother to develop their capacity to love. Learning to love requires practice and concentration.
Dr. Fromm discusses romantic love and all the wrong notions that surround it as well as love of parents for children, brotherly love, erotic love, self-love and the love of God.
The book is filled with challenging observations about a complicated subject that the author treats in a lively, human and extremely interesting manner. This is a must read for anybody who desires to expand their ability to give and receive love.
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B. Rottman (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
I have reread this book more than any other that I own, partly because it's short, but mostly because Fromm is such a lucid and perceptive writer. I simply cannot recommend this book highly enough. I don't agree with all of it - his take on homosexuality, for instance, which may or may not be attributable to the day in which it was written - and many readers may not care for the way he frames behavioral patterns in psychoanalytic terms. That said, you can read right past those stylistic elements, because his prose is positively oozing with compassion. I don't think it's overly dramatic to say that it would take me longer to convey how excellent this little book is than it would take you to read it.
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Hiram Pardo (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
This book literally invaded the stage of the intelectual world in the sixties .
Fromm reflections about the nature of love are deep and wise. The ideas about the mature love are shown with meticulous mood through every chapter .
A must for you to read it.
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A reader (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
Certainly Erich Fromm's best work, The Art of Loving summarizes the core aspects of Fromm's idea's on love and human nature. It would be incorrect to describe The Art of Loving or any of Fromm's work as scientific theories of human behavior. Rather, his work puts forth a complete philosophy of love and harmony that is at odds with the dominant scientific and technical philosophy that dominates post-Enlightenment Western thought. Drawing more on the humanistic and Marxist strain in Western thought, Fromm argues that love is a paradox. It is the union of two people who remain independent individuals. It is a situation where "two become one, and yet remain two". He contrasts this with the situation where one individual dominates the union (sadism, masochism), which he likens to the dominant-dependent love between parent and child. Whatever its philosophical origins, however, Fromm's ideas very simple and the book is very simply written and quite short. Of all the great philosophers, Fromm is by far the most accessible. All the better, because Fromm's central idea, that love is not the excitement of having a new lover, is not the asymmetric union of man over woman or woman over man, but rather that love is the union of two individuals who remain independent from one another, is an idea that modern society must discover.
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Sathish Srinivasan (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
Many books have been written and are being written on love,romance and spirituality. In todays world that is either fighting on the name of religion without any real spiritual quest or qenching it in hedonistic ways, I feel there is a major need to learn about love and cultivate it than never before. Spitituality as I see it is but a question- " we are born without our will and we die against our will. And things in between seem to happen without me having to say anything much. So, what am i doing here?". Well, there is no real answer to this question, but there is a solution, and that is to feel at home here in this world from the day we are sent to this world untill that day we are forced to call it off. And love for ourselves and for this world is what we need to achieve that state of restfulness. All dogmos and ideologies are nothing but theoretical derivations out of the above mentioned axiom, and problems arise as people stick onto the derivations without really understanding the basic problem, that is, " how to love?". All the spiritual texts put great emphasis on love, but, they associate great sins with the failure to achieve love, and so it is looked upon as a virtue of saints and monks that is not a necessity for ordinary people . But as that is the very problem this whole humanity is trying to answer without really understanding it, no one can really feel peaceful and call himself spiritually matured without mastering this art of loving. And to my knowledge, this is the only book that says love is an art that can be mastered by anyone and everyone by cultivating three simple virtues namely patience, perseverence and practice. With all my heart i recommend this book for anyone with real spiritual quest, for anyone who is interested in finding his place in this world. I suggest you read the last chapter in this book titled " The practice of love" before reading the other chapters.
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Richard R. Rohde (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-25 00:00>
"Love," says Fromm, "is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." Poets have written that, "Love conquers all," and to "surrender to it." Urging one to surrender implies resistence to Love, but why?
Fromm asks, is Love an art, or is Love a pleasant sensation or feeling which to experience is a metter of chance, i.e. something one, "falls into," if one is lucky. Fromm asserts that Love is an art, and says that to truly Love, in all its forms, one must possess: Maturity; Self-Knowledge; and Courage.
"Object," or "faculty,": Many people pursue objects or affection, or objects to love, and correspondingly treat them as possessions. Fromm asserts that Love is the faculty or ability to Love in its different forms: brotherly love; romantic love, etc. Since Love is an art to be practiced, Fromm asserts that it can only be practiced in freedom with one another. In other words, people cannot treat others as objects or possessions to be controlled for ones own egotistical or selfish purposes. Such behavior to result in certain destruction and never to attain true Love.
"Love," vs. "falling in Love/Infatuation,": People speak of falling in Love, with new people they meet. Falling in Love is not necessarly Love, but infatuation, e.g., strangers meet, they break down social walls between one another, they feel close/as one. This new experience, infatuation, Fromm describes as "one of the most exhilarating and most exciting experiences in life. However, Fromm argues astutely, that this initial infatuation feeling slowly and naturally loses its miraculous character more and more with time, as the two people get more acquainted and learn more and more about eachother - flaws, character defects, etc. Fromm says the problem all-to-often arises when people confuse infatuation feelings (exhilaration/excitement) for proof of the intensity of their Love. As the infatuation feelings naturally subside, it results in the wish for a new conquest, a new "Love," with a new stranger. Again the stranger is transformed into an "intimate" person, again the experience of falling in love is exhilarating and intense, and again it slowly becomes less and less, and ends in another wish for a new conquest - a new "Love," always with the illusion that the new "Love," will be different from the earlier ones. Fromm says this is not Love. These illusions are greatly helped by the deceptive character of sexual desires. Sexual desire aims at fusion, says Fromm. It can be stimulated by the anxiety of aloneness, by the wish to conquer, by vanity, by the wish to hurt or even to destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by Love. Because most people associate sexual desire with the idea of Love, says Fromm, they are easily misled to conclude that they Love each other only when they want each other physically. Fromm asserts this is not unlike a drug addiction, when people constantly seek out the exhilaration/excitement of infatuation. Fromm cautions that if the desire for physical union is not stimulated by Love, if romantic/erotic Love is not also coupled with other forms of Love, that it will never lead to union in more than an orgiastic, transitory sense.
An implication of this that when this happens, i.e., when one finds new infatuation, the other one on the losing end gets scarredm then after a few times of getting burnt will begin to actively destroy or sabotage Love in the nascent stage when it occurs in the future, in an effort to avoid the past painful feelings associated with Love gone wrong or to avoid feelings of vulnerability and/or to maintain control - in essence to not surrender to Love.
Fromm describes what he calls the essential components that need to be mastered, for all forms of Love: Care (the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love); Responsibility (to be able, willing and ready to respond to the psychic nneds of the other); Respect (concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he/she is on their own, to be aware of her unique individuality - freedom); and Knowledge(a desire to discover what makes the other "tick," an active penetration of the other person).
Fromm concludes that Love is not just a feeling, it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. To love means to surrender and commit without guarantees. Love is an act of utter faith says Fromm.
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Mohammed Faheem Khan (MSL quote), India
<2007-01-25 00:00>
I have finished reading "Art of Loving" by Eric Fromm just yesterday. It is a good book but more based on psychoanalytical studies. It does gives a very good information on the art of loving but less life based examples and more researched material. The description of the kind of love father, mother, son, daughter, and others have is amazing Or rather I would say much well researched. The book does not at any word inspires you to love but just tells you what love is. It does not ask you to start loving but rather gives you the meaning of what love stands for. It is a very good and well written book. In fact to be more precise a well researched book. It is definitely not meant for any of those people who think that reading it will be fun, because it has such profound studies incorporated in it that the book requires definitely a very high sense of understanding and concentration. It is one of those kinds of books which have only hundred pages, but each page is so strong that sometimes it takes two days to understand what the author wants to tell through that page's writting. I would definitely recommend you to read this book as it not only gives the view points of the author but also of the others whome the author has met and read. It is a researched material where the author not only discusses his view points but also every now and then tell and discusses each topic with others opinions and then later comes to the cumulative conclusion. Most of the teachings and the thoughts are though very personal but then that applies to most of the authors writtings and thats okay.
I hope you all will enjoy reading this book as I did.
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1 Total 1 pages 10 items |
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