lifestyle
April 19, 2024

"Romantic love is sexual love"

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: We have the romantic idea that we could find our other half. Does love complete us first? Or do we have to be whole to really love?

Toni Morrison: We probably have to feel whole already. But our view of love is too limited today. It is always about the love between two partners. The perfect match with the other, which is a male version of us. It's about more: love makes us human.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: To what extent?

Toni Morrison: Animals reproduce, feed their young, stay together in the herd when attacked. But the instinct to take care of a stranger, to be devoted to him, is a radical idea. When Christ said "Love each other!", People said, "What, what do you mean?". This is a development to something more human and humane.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is that why the classical love relationship in your new novel "love" does not play a role?

Toni Morrison: Yes, I wanted to explore the range of emotions that are in the word. There is not only one form of love. When you reach a certain level of adulthood, that wholeness that you have spoken of, then you can come to where love is a generosity of mind.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: In the sense of selfless?

Toni Morrison: Something like that. Many people understand love as "love me," "make me bigger," "make me feel good," "make me happy." This idea of love is beyond measure. And she is infantile. But how do you love when it's not about yourself? The most dramatic thing I could think of in my book is the scene in which a boy in a gang rape, without thinking about it, releases the girl. He has none of this, everything in the scenario argues in favor - instead he releases her.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is this a moment of love?

Toni Morrison: That's love. It is instinctive. It is a pure moment. Not in the romantic sense, but a moment of this unselfish love that one person can bring to another. The boy has nothing to gain, only to lose. He is 14, has never had a wife, everyone is doing it, the music is booming, he wants to be a part of it. And yet there is something in him that enables him to give up the girl.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: So when the mind fails, there is still hope for love.

Toni Morrison: There are theories that violence is natural. I think, however, that our earliest instincts are more towards love than destruction.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: So you mean: violence must be learned, love is innate?

Toni Morrison: Yes. There's a tendency to say that this world has been incredibly violent for so long, so we're just like that. I go from the opposite: we are different, but we are educated to violence. That shocked me so much about the torture images of Abu Ghraib. Torture is not unusual, but the usual pleasure, that was a shock.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: If love is innate, does it still have learned pages?

Toni Morrison: I think that love is learnable. It's about the insight to get the best out of yourself.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Does not love also have selfish sides? Especially when it comes to sexuality?

Toni Morrison: It's not just about getting, but about giving. Part of the excitement is not in your own ecstasy, but in causing ecstasy. If that happens then you will never be satisfied with anything again. When this combination of self-indulgence and self-giving becomes the enjoyment of the other, and vice versa, it is truly generous and selfless and open.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Lose yourself in the other and find one at the same time?

Toni Morrison: Yes, but above all that there is more than "make me feel good". That's enough for many. But the other one is much more powerful. And it is unique. There is nothing like it.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Do we have the ability to truly love several people?

Toni Morrison: Of course you can love more than one person. My students sometimes ask, "Professor Morrison, do you think there is one human being in the world for us?" I always say, "There are probably seven, but you have to travel for that." The idea of the one person is so medieval. Maybe there are people who only really love once. But that does not mean that there are not others who can love four, five times in a row.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: But not parallel?

Toni Morrison: I find that difficult.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why?

I think, then greed comes into play. If two go, why not three, and then all at the same time. Then it's nothing special anymore.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Does that mean true love has to be exclusive?

Toni Morrison: I do not want to say that. But I suspect that the likelihood of finding the exchange and generosity of which I have spoken is rather limited. If I were a man with a harem, I would say, "Of course I can love 30 women." But I have a female point of view, and for me that sounds like consumption.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Now you go to the extreme. Even love for only two people is not really accepted in our society.

Toni Morrison: You talk about sex.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: No, of love.

Toni Morrison: Of course you share your life with several people. You love your mother, your children ...

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: No, I mean romantic love, including sex.

Toni Morrison: So you're talking about sex.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: No, of love.

Toni Morrison: Romantic love is sexual love.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Good. Do you think that you can love two people at the same time romantic?

Toni Morrison: I suppose it is conceivable. But I would not have the capacity. I do not trust it either. I think it is an excuse not to give one single person. I do not deny that there are women or men who love several people at the same time. I just remember a friend who wanted to get involved in this concept of her friend. But in the end she lacked the uniqueness. She was one of three unique.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Why are so many falling in love with love?

Toni Morrison: Because no one teaches us to love. Guys are being ridiculed. Girl is taught to manage love. Because love makes you vulnerable, it puts you in a risky situation, it can keep you from other ambitions. You have to learn love yourself. And sometimes you have the luck to be able to look at others.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Still, there are many people in their thirties who still have no relationship, even though they are from intact family backgrounds. Should not one assume that such a person rather dares to love?

Toni Morrison: Perhaps they are also afraid that they can not match their parents. That they say, "My parents have been together for 40 years, but my chances are not great, I'm going to make a lot of mistakes that I do not want to do." The parents never said anything like that, they just fell in love and stayed together. There was not this review: "Will this be the man?" Their children, on the other hand, want to be sure. It's a mistake to ask, "Will this love last until the end of my life?" Who asks that, moves from quality to quantity.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: What is your idea of romance?

Toni Morrison: Romance is what happens when you meet someone you are attracted to - and the world looks different. The light changes, the food tastes different, everything changes because you feel so alive.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: How can this feeling be preserved?

Toni Morrison: You mean what makes love permanent? Get rid of this idea first of all. Make love a matter of the moment. And the second is humor. Why is everyone taking love so seriously?

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Are you in love right now?

Toni Morrison: No. But being in love is such a wonderful feeling. Not having it is unfortunate. Never having experienced it is a disaster.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Are There Moments When You Forget Love?

Toni Morrison: Never. Maybe you can force yourself to do that. But I think you can not forget the love. It is just too important.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: No substitute conceivable? Friendship, closeness?

Toni Morrison: That's different. Maybe even more satisfying and lasting. Friendships do not develop like love. You have to work on friendship, you have to earn it.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: You would not work on love?

Toni Morrison: Yes. The whole life. "There you have them, now run away with them" does not work. It may start that way, but then you have to work on it as if you were raising something, writing a book, planting something. Love is precious. It is not endless, it is not unconditional, it does not last forever. Just take it and work on it. Then you give something of yourself and take something. For some it's easier because they just fit together wonderfully as a couple.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: If you've traveled long enough ...

Toni Morrison: Exactly, and met one of the seven meant for one.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Do we have a loving ego that resembles all our loved ones because it is just our way of loving?

Toni Morrison: It depends on how rich the emotional life of the loving person is. I am convinced that stupid people love stupid. Common people in common. But it is the power of love that can change that. You can become smart and you can stop being mean. And if one's love turns out to be destructive, we can change that and love someone else differently.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Is friendship a necessary basis?

Toni Morrison: Friendship really makes a lot easier. If you like being with someone, it makes love even stronger. And it's more fun. You just have to watch that you do not want everything from one person.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Do you want to say that my lover does not have to be my best friend, the greatest lover, a good cook, the father of my children and a movie accompanist?

Toni Morrison: Who could bear that? Love a lot of things: a person, the job, the kids, a picture, whatever. Distribute your love a bit.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: I will remember for love five, six and seven. Do you actually think that love can be similarly intense every time, or is there a determining love in life, and all others are in their shadow?

Toni Morrison: That depends on each one.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: Does the ability to intensity have to do with risk taking?

Toni Morrison: It's about having no expectations. You may have a perfect love of 18, 25 and 35. And when you meet someone you worship, you do not want to feel the same as you did at 18. Perhaps the feeling of that time would be superficial. Erotic changes. The sweep of his neck may be less captivating than the conversation. Nothing is more erotic than touching another mind. And then, of course, there is the part where you do not want to talk anymore but just go to bed.

ChroniquesDuVasteMonde: How many more do you expect?

Toni Morrison: One.

Toni Morrison

was born on February 18, 1931 as Chloe Anthony Wofford in the industrial town of Lorian, Ohio. While studying at Howard University in Washington D.C. She met the Jamaican architect Harold Morrison, with whom she has two sons. The marriage lasted six years.

Toni Morrison worked as a university lecturer and lecturer, 1970 appeared her first novel

"Very blue eyes"

, The breakthrough came in 1977 with

"Solomon's Song"

, In these and in their following novels

"Teerbaby"

"Human child"

and

"Jazz"

describes the world of black American women.

Since 1989, Toni Morrison teaches as a professor of humanities at the University of Princeton. For her work she was honored with numerous awards, including the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1993.