Thursday, August 11, 2011

Charles Baxter on Love

The main character of the novel owns a coffee shop.

"Bradley, I don't think you should talk about these things."
"Why not?"
"Some matters you shouldn't verbalize. I mean really, Bradley" ―and here she raised her hand and caressed my cheek―"all this love business is just nature's way of getting more babies into the world. The rest of it is just all this romance nonsense." She struggled for the word. "The rest of it is just superstructure."
"Well, maybe. But what if," I said, still gazing at her, with her sly sexy smile like a little dawn on her face, "what if the love we feel, what if it's central, what if it's what makes the world's soul possible, what if it's what made the world and keeps it running, and the babies are also a product of that, our soul-making, not the only product, but..."
 "That's what I mean," she said. "You're so weird and metaphysical. For a coffee guy."   
The Feast of Love, pp. 172-173.             

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