Feast Of Love

The Feast of Love (Vintage Contemporaries)
$14.95
I read The Feast of Love without ever having heard of the movie, and found this book to be delicious (the movie is now on my "to-rent" list, however (as with nearly all movies based on books), don't expect it to be nearly as good as the book.

We spend our lives yearning for love, and perhaps too often we fail to sit back and look at the many types of love that come into our lives along the way. Even long-time married couples will admit love is not as it is portrayed in fairy tales or even movies. Love may be fleeting, beautiful, powerful, provocative, painful, mysterious, lasting, borrowed, stolen, perverted, lost- and this book does a stunning job touching on all of those.

For me, the book left me thinking about the value we place on love, and how the pursuit of love can yield such differing results. Each couple has a different story, and even within each couple love is seen so very differently. Love is intense, but had the circumstances been different, would the young teens love lasted for another 5, 10, 20 years? Love is unexpected, but would there have been a different result with Bradley if Kathryn had not become friends with Jenny?

Hands down a wonderful book. Contains sexual content, so recommended for mature audiences only. Read this book. You might even find yourself loving it.

The Feast of Love.
$3.95
Loved, loved, loved this book almost to the end. I was completely engaged in the story and the wonderful, well-drawn characters, and would have given it five stars. But then the last couple chapters fizzled, seemed as though he just didn't know how to end it. That said, I still recommend it. At least most of it.

Griffin & Phoenix
$14.98
I never saw or heard of this movie before last week. I just rented it from Blockbuster because I like Dermot Mulroney and Amanda Peet. Since renting it last Sunday, I have seen it 5 times. This is now one of my all-time favorite love stories and I usually HATE movies that don't have the typical happy ending. This ending was not typical but very satisfying. I am now going to purchase it on Amazon because in my opinion, it is a must-have in any DVD collection. If, before seeing this movie, I had read a review that had told me to bring a box of kleenex, I would have avoided it at all costs but in this case, the tears are cathartic, not distressing. Really, Griffin and Phoenix makes you think and cry and hope and want to see it again and again.

The Feast of Love
$10.00
Among literary cognoscenti, Charles Baxter has a well-deserved reputation as one of America's finest writers. Best known for his short stories, Baxter has also produced three novels. His fourth, The Feast of Love, combines the best of both genres. You should put me into your novel. I'm an expert on love. I've just broken up with my second wife, after all. I'm in an emotional tangle. Maybe I'd shoot myself before the final chapter. Your readers would wonder about the outcome. But why stop there? Bradley goes on to suggest that he send people to Baxter, "actual people, for a change, like for instance human beings who genuinely exist, and you listen to them for a while. Everybody's got a story, and we'll just start telling you the stories we have"--a sly tip-off to the reader of this elegant, quirky, and wholly engrossing novel that the writer may be no more reliable than his narrators. What follows is a chronicle of love--the mad kind, the bad kind, and the kind that sustains us when everything else is gone. In addition to Smith, we meet Chlo���, a young waitress at Bradley's espresso bar, and her ex-junkie boyfriend, Oscar; Bradley's next door neighbors, Harry Ginsburg, an elderly professor of philosophy, and his wife, Esther; and Kathryn and Diana, Bradley's two ex-wives. The characters take turns narrating, often commenting on and correcting versions of events mentioned by other characters in previous chapters, and occasionally advising Baxter on the progress of his novel: "Don't threaten people, especially lawyers" legal eagle Diana warns "Charlie" shortly before she launches into her own story. "Don't threaten your own characters. It's for your own good. You'll wind up in a mess of litigation and... subplots."--