The undefined nature of love is perhaps what adds to its eroticism. Works of literature or even self-help books often describe love as something ‘mysterious and unobtainable’ for most people.
I strongly recommend the book to anyone who wants to reflect on love, both at a personal and at a political level (because as feminists we know what is personal is also political and vice versa.) I will certainly revisit the book many more times to reflect, understand and absorb its essence which is complex, layered and requires deep introspection.īell hooks has acknowledged that our world is suffering from lovelessness as there is no collective understanding of the concept of love and we cannot imagine something that we cannot even define. Therefore, no excuse to love is any short of calling for a revolution to shake up the status quo including the much-commercialized Valentine’s Day! And I think the brilliant bell hooks who passed away recently would have agreed with me even though she would have explained how not to celebrate Valentine’s Day and how to actually and truly love.īell hooks’s book, All About Love: New Visions, is about the concept of love and it was a therapeutic read. In our part of the world where young people are regularly attacked for falling in love and can be murdered for choosing a spouse outside the community. And even though the day is connected to capitalism and patriarchy as it is all about the ‘right gift to purchase’ and promotes the notion of heteronormative coupling yet it is important to observe a day dedicated to love in an extremely divided and hierarchical society. This day is a bit complex in my context in India where the day has been attacked for ‘spreading western culture’ and ‘shameful things such as romantic love’ between young girls and boys.
This review is specially to mark Valentine’s Day which falls on 14th February every year and is celebrated as a day of love worldwide thanks to cultural hegemony of the west over the rest of the world.
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