enduring love

A detailed Summary of enduring love

Joe Rose has planned a postcard-perfect afternoon in the English countryside to celebrate his lover's return after six weeks in the States. To complete the picture, there's even a "helium balloon drifting dreamily across the wooded valley." But as Joe and Clarissa watch the balloon touch down, their idyll comes to an abrupt end. The pilot catches his leg in the anchor rope, while the only passenger, a boy, is too scared to jump down. As the wind whips into action, Joe and four other men rush to secure the basket. Mother Nature, however, isn't feeling very maternal. "A mighty fist socked the balloon in two rapid blows, one-two, the second more vicious than the first," and at once the rescuers are airborne. Joe manages to drop to the ground, as do most of his companions, but one man is lifted sky-high, only to fall to his death.

In itself, the accident would change the survivors' lives, filling them with an uneasy combination of shame, happiness, and endless self-reproach. (In one of the novel's many ironies, the balloon eventually lands safely, the boy unscathed.) But fate has far more unpleasant things in store for Joe. Meeting the eye of fellow rescuer Jed Parry, for example, turns out to be a very bad move. For Jed is instantl

Parry's obsession with Joe manifests itself almost immediately, and it is confirmed that night when he calls to tell him: "I just wanted you to know, I understand what you're feeling. I feel it too. I love you."

In an appendix to the novel, a fictitious professor notes this about Jed Parry's obsession" 'it is not always easy to accept that one of our most valued experiences may merge into psychopathology."

y obsessed, making the first of many calls to Joe and Clarissa's London flat that very night. Soon he's openly shadowing Joe and writing him endless letters. (One insane epistle begins, "I feel happiness running through me like an electrical current. I close my eyes and see you as you were last night in the rain, across the road from me, with the unspoken love between us as strong as steel cable.") Worst of all, Jed's version of love comes to seem a distortion of Joe's feelings for Clarissa.

How do science and religion compete for the minds of humans? How do we cope when someone we love acts contrary to our passionately held beliefs? When does love turn to obsession? What are our moral responsibilities towards other human beings, especially those in danger or those who are suffering?

Essentially, Enduring Love is a study of de Clerambault's syndrome. According to the book, in 1942 the French psychiatrist de Clerambault described his eponymous syndrome as a state of erotomania in which the "'subject,' usually a woman, has the intense delusional belief that a man, the 'object,' often of higher social standing, is in love with her." Every gesture the object makes--drawing a curtain, running a hand along a hedge--is interpreted as a sign of the object's underlying love. And in many cases, it is a love that the subject takes with him or her unrequited to the grave.

McEwan has written yet another engrossing book that is also a minor literary triumph. The premise is simple: a single glance at a stranger turns into a nightmare for Joe Rose as he becomes the subject of the former's obsession. While the stalker wreaks havoc for Joe's life and his marriage, the tables are turned when Joe unconsciously becomes obssessed by the stalker's psychological condition. Along the way, the book raises many questions about trust and forgiveness in a relationship and the conditionality of life'

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Approximate Word count = 1552
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English