How the French Invented Love: Nine Hundred Years of Passion and Romance

By Marilyn Yalom

“Absolutely marvelous…lively and learned….Marilyn Yalom’s book is a distinguished contribution to our experience of a great literature, as well as an endearing memoir.” —Diane Johnson, author of Lulu in Marrakech and Le Divorce

“[An] enchanting tour of French literature—from Abelard and Heloise in the 12th century to Marguerite Duras in the 20th and Philippe Sollers in the 21st.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

How the French Invented Love is an entertaining and masterful history of love à la française by acclaimed scholar Marilyn Yalom. Spanning the Middle Ages to the present, Yalom explores a love-obsessed culture through its great works of literature—from Moliere’s comic love to the tragic love of Racine, from the existential love of Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre to the romanticism of George Sand and Alfred de Musset. A thoroughly engaging homage to French culture and literature interlaced with the author’s delicious personal anecdotes, How the French Invented Love is ideal for fans of Alain de Botton, Adam Gopnik, and Simon Schama.

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Oct 23, 2012
• ISBN: 9780062048325

Marilyn Yalom

Marilyn Yalom is Senior Scholar at the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University and author of A History of the Wife (2001), A History of the Breast (1997), Blood Sisters: The French Revolution in Women's Memory (1993), and Maternity, Mortality, and the Literature of Madness (1985). Laura Carstensen is Professor of Psychology and the Barbara D. Finberg Director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender at Stanford University. She has published more than eighty articles and chapters on life-span development, marriage, and emotion.

Reviews for How the French Invented Love

[jguidry-1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

From the title of this book, I thought it was going to be a sociological exploration into the romance and courting habits of the French. I was pleasantly surprised to find out it was about French romantic literature. There were a few sociological-type personal anecdotes from the author about herself as well as friends and associates. I thought the anecdotes were distracting from what really interested me--the changing views of love and romance in French literature. I found the scope of the literature choices interesting and liked hearing the personal histories of some of the authors. I enjoyed this more as a literary exploration than I probably would have as a sociological exploration. Glad I didn't judge this book by its cover.

[doingdewey · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

How the French Invented Love is a history of love in French society, particularly French literature, from around 1100AD to today. The author summarizes classic stories to give you a feel for the era, but leaves out just enough that you desperately want to read the complete work. These glimpses into each era’s literature are spiced up by the addition of true anecdotes from the author’s personal experience in France. Some of these stories are not for the faint of heart, as they include adultery and other even more unusual romantic situations, but there are very few explicit sex scenes included. I would rate this one PG-13.Despite the lack of explicit sex scenes, I would highly recommend this book to all fans of the romance genre. Even as someone who only dabbles in romance, I found the history of the genre and the ways it shaped and was shaped by French culture incredibly fascinating. One of the few downsides to the book was the lack of a clear thread connecting the different eras into which the author divided French literature. She draws few overarching conclusions, focusing instead of analyzing the spirit of each era separately. In a lesser book, the lack of direction might have ruined the book for me; this one drew me in with accessible summaries of classic literature, the spicy real life anecdotes, and the interesting topic. It was hard to put down!A few other likes and dislikes… I loved that the author included some words and phrases in French along with translations. It was incredible how many different words there are for different shades of love and I appreciated her explanations of phrases without direct English translations. Some of these added real insight into the differences between French and American views on love. I was less fond of the way she referred back to authors discussed earlier without reorienting her readers with some descriptors. That oversight meant I did a lot of flipping back and forth to check which author wrote what. Finally, and appropriately for a book involving such focus on the sensual, the physical book itself particularly appealed to me. From the appearance of the cover to it’s canvas-like material to the rough edged pages, the book was as elegant as the French society it portrayed.

[mykl8s · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Nice topic, fun read.

[bibliolisa · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I absolutely loved this erudite and entertaining journey through 900 years of passion and romance. Yalom uses a combination of anecdote, literary analysis, and personal reflection to show just how obsessed the French are with love. This book will defnitely send you to the library or the bookstore as Yalom gives compelling summaries and analyses of novels by Stendhal, Sand, Flaubert and others. She leaves out the spoilers though, and manages to make the reader want to dive into the novels for herself. Yalom also has an engaging and intimate style--this is definitely not a book filled with academic jargon. Some takeaways: French women don't get fat because they are keeping themselves slender for the affiars they will be having with much younger men; French high schoolers are sophisticated enough to handle such texts as "Dangerous Liaisons" (can you imagine the calls to the school board if that were required reading in the US?) and a homely but intelligent Julie de Lespinasse juggled three lovers and managed a voluminous correspondence with two of them. If you are intrigued by French novels and French romance, this is the book for you.