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By Ann Swidler. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001. 300 pp. ISBN 0226786900.
Declaring that love is "profoundly social and cultural," Ann Swidler opens Talk of Love by declaring "love is a perfect place to study culture in action" (p. 2). Subordinating what people think to how they think about love, Swidler aims to examine culture as a "tool kit" (p. 39) from which people draw to understand and guide their experiences in romantic relationships. The goal is important, albeit not fully realized in this book.
Talk of Love asserts that two cultural views of love persist in the United States. One is the romantic myth as embodied in Romeo and Juliet and many less noteworthy literary efforts. Within this view, there is one right person for each of us, love conquers all, and true love lasts forever. The other view is that love is a prosaic, ongoing project that requires effort, sacrifice, compromise, and continuous improvement. Within this view, love involves managing the continuous complications of keeping a relationship intact.
Swidler's respondents claimed to reject the romantic myth of love. Yet -- and this is key to Swidler's argument -- many of her respondents also used the myth of romantic love at key choice points, such as deciding whom to marry and whether to remain in a marriage. At the same time, her respondents invoked the realistic view of love to manage the everyday process of being and staying married. Swidler shows that her respondents use both views of love to navigate relationships. Yet she fails to reveal how or...