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therestheo

therestheo

Beautiful In My Worn Clothes: The Transgressions of Love

Beautiful In My Worn Clothes: The Transgressions of Love - Rod Dubey Won on GoodReads First Reads.

Beautiful in my worn clothes presents an interesting journey of the transgressions of love through history, literature, politics and economy, which I would have enjoyed more if its pace would have been slower. I had a hard time following the "time line" because several views, authors and figures were thrown in together without much of an explanation. Maybe it was because most of the references were new to me and the book was intended for someone more knowledgeable, but I felt that, this way, I couldn't completely grasp the message the author was trying to convey. This doesn't mean I didn't get anything from it. Actually, it taught me new ways to look at love. Love as a political force, as a creativity tool, as a social movement and many others.

I especially enjoyed the analysis on Austen and marriage as a mere contract, sometimes viewed as something that kills love, and found very interesting the consumerism view on love, which left me wondering, why, if love is sold as a scarce product, does consumerism contribute to a perception of a partner being disposable? Even though it is said that people are sold as objects, "a mere list of attributes" that can be easily replaced, we still believe in "the one". Is consumerism the path chosen to search for our "other half"? A test towards the scarcity of this product called love?

Beautiful in my worn clothes definitely makes you think, which is one of the reasons I liked it. The other reason is that it calls attention to the power of love as a transgressive force, a shout-out to the freedom it gives us.