Jacques Henric on Love: Finkielkraut and Audi's New Books

In a feuilleton for artpress, Jacques Henric reviews two recent French books on love: Alain Finkielkraut's "Et si l'amour durait" (Stock) and Paul Audi's "Le Théorème du Surmâle" (Verdier). Henric explores the tension between love and sex, drawing on Lacan and Jarry. He notes that Finkielkraut analyzes four novels by Madame de La Fayette, Ingmar Bergman, Philip Roth, and Milan Kundera, arguing that love is a pure event, a grace, yet precarious. Henric observes that Finkielkraut becomes increasingly disenchanted as he engages with Kundera's lucidity. Paul Audi's book uses Lacan's thesis that love supplements the nonexistent sexual relationship and Jarry's theorem that love is an act without importance because it can be done indefinitely. Henric questions whether one truly loves when having sex, referencing the DSK affair. The essay concludes with a reflection on the tragic love of Tomas and Tereza in Kundera's "The Unbearable Lightness of Being," leaving Finkielkraut in a state of peaceful sadness.