"Love" no more?

[Scheherazade]

Shoutgrace asked a question about "romantics in big cities", which got me thinking:

Are there any "love stories" written anymore? Yes, there are books dealing with existential crisis, modern life, loss of innocence, materialism, mysteries and endless fantasies but "love stories"?

I realise that most books containing romantic allusions is considered "chick-lit" these days (a derogatory term in itself).

Is "love" an outdated topic these days?

[TheFifthElement]

All My Friends are Superheroes - Andrew Kaufman.

Not chicklit and definitely a love story.

[Heteronym]

I read somewhere that Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence is a very good modern love story.

[The Comedian]

Man, that's a good question. I suppose by love" and "anymore" you're talkin' about contemporary novels about love and relationships. I don't know. Sadly, if there are, I'm probably haven't read them. A "the course of true love never did run smooth" story is about as interesting to me as reading the instructions for completing my tax returns. But I'm sure I'm in the minority on this. Surely some Litnetter will know some good, contemporary love story.

[Azazael]

It's a good question.. When romance novels come up all I can really think of are the most famous classics... The only more recent one that comes to mind is Good In Bed by Jennifer Weiner, and I haven't actually read it - it was recommended to me by my librarian, simply haven't gotten around to it yet.

[Scheherazade]

Should have made it clear that I am not actually looking for books dealing with love but just wondering why it does not seem to be a popular topic anymore. If we look at 18th or 19th century classics, they mostly deal with love as a theme. Something seems to have changed during the 20th century so love has been pushed aside.
A "the course of true love never did run smooth" story is about as interesting to me as reading the instructions for completing my tax returns. This is very interesting! Thought you are the one who actually believes in eternal love and all (I remember a discussion we had some time ago).

[The Comedian]

.This is very interesting! Thought you are the one who actually believes in eternal love and all (I remember a discussion we had some time ago).

Well, that's true. I do believe that. But I don't like reading about it so much. It's sort of like money. I like it as much as the next fellow does. But I don't like reading about it that much.

[Dark Muse]

Should have made it clear that I am not actually looking for books dealing with love but just wondering why it does not seem to be a popular topic anymore. If we look at 18th or 19th century classics, they mostly deal with love as a theme. Something seems to have changed during the 20th century so love has been pushed aside.This is very interesting! Thought you are the one who actually believes in eternal love and all (I remember a discussion we had some time ago).

I think perhaps one of the reasons why literature has broken out of the habit of writing love stories is because of the way in which the world has changed so much that love is not quite the same issue as it was back then. And what I mean by that is that the 19th century I think was just the cusp when people were actually starting to consider the idea of love being a valid reason to engage in a relationship (not to say there was no love prior to the 19th century) but in a world that had been primarily dominated by marriages which were arranged for economical and political reasons, and in which one did not consider actually dating, or their own personal emotions when it came to considering marriage, and more oft than not some young girl would just be sold off by her parents to a stranger.

But in the 19th century the idea of actually introducing love into the marriage equation was starting to become a bit more validated, yet at the same time, women still suffered from the need to marry for economics.

While today I suppose you could say love is taken more for granted. It is not treated as seriously in literature because it is now has come to be so much a part of the norm of our lives.

Writing abut love in the past was a way of challenging the status quo and pointing out the problems, double standards, and inequalities, such things which do not effect are day to day lives anymore.

In addition there was also the crisis that the 20th century suffered through with the coming of the war, in which a generation became disillusioned with itself and with the old ideas, and found that the world order they once knew was blown apart from under them, so literature did take a turn into moving away from romance to addressing these feelings of alienation and struggles with identity and trying to make sense of the world again.

The idea of love in such a time of chaos, became like a shattered dream and literature had evolved to come to address the new pressing problems which afflicted society.

So now stories of love which are not seen as presenting any pressing social questions have been reduced to just fluff and pure escapism.