[Monologue]

IN THE NAME OF LOVEThis monologue, by Octavia Paz, appears in a pro-file of the Mexican poet by Enrique Fernandez, inthe March 19Village Voice. Fernandez also trans-lated Paz's remarks.

Love wasborn in ancient Rome. In the Ro-man elegieswoman isnot seen merely as an ob-ject for childbearing and pleasure-she hasfreedom. The Western model of love impliesthe big city and the relative freedom of womenthere. Love implies reciprocity. The loved ob-ject must have the freedom to sayyes or no andeven to go offwith another person. That's whatcreates the love conflict, the tension. It's found-ed on freedom and the notion that sexual at-traction is focusedon a unique person, a personwith a soul. This can be seen more clearly inProvencal poetry, in the cult of the lady, and soon. Of course, the Church became frightenedby all this and tried to channel the emotion to-ward the cult of Mary. In any case, the greatinvention ofWestern poets is love. Love under-stood as love of a unique person, one capable ofbeing free.On the one hand, there has to be freedom;

on the other, there has to be fidelity. It's thistension that makes love at once a walking para-dox and an explosive force. Not everyone fallsin love, but this vision of love-which can behomosexual as well as heterosexual-has lastedthroughout the history of the West. And nowit's in danger. First, because the idea of the soulhas disappeared. And second, because in theso-called socialist countries, everything, in-cluding love, is subordinated to production andideology, while in the capitalist countries, loveis endangered by promiscuity. I'm all for free-dom of love, but I'm against promiscuity.Love's connection with politics is the con-

cept of "person." A more or less civilized soci-ety has to be based on a minimum of respect forthe person. The destiny of the person is linkedto the destiny of love and the destiny of politics.Love is transgression, but to tum it into

transgression without risk, i.e., promiscuity, isto destroy it. In consumer society the notion of"person" has been replaced by the notion of"partner." The most lucid writer on eroticismwas de Sade, and there's a scene in one of hisbooks in which the libertines torture two loversbecause love seems to them the worst thing.The notion that one could have a special plea-sure with just one other person seems absurd tothem. Eroticism is with everyone; otherwise,it's no fun. Love is fun only with one person.

That is love's great transgression against family,society, and marriage, but also against promis-cuity and libertinage.The libertinage of consumer society is a lie.

For example, one of the essential ingredients oflove is jealousy.Jealousy is a negative force, butit's justified: one is afraid the other person willleave. Jealousy is an explicit recognition of theOther's freedom. But if we don't care whetherthe Other, whomwe love, after sleepingwith usgoes off to sleep with a porcupine or an ele-phant, then that means the person matters lit-tle to us.Surrealismwasthe last expression in Western

societyof the Romantic dream of the freedom oflove. Surrealismproclaimed this freedom, but itnever proclaimed libertinage. Like all sects,Surrealismhad its heroes and heroines, and oneof those ideal figures was Helorse, Abelard'slover, who stayed in love with him even afrerhe was castrated. Surrealism always affirmedlove, and in this it is the heir of the Provencalpoets and the Romantics. I think that's the roadto love's recovery: the road of the re-valori-zation of singular love. D. H. Lawrence saw itquite clearly. He has a very beautiful poem inwhich he talks about fidelity being the most dif-ficult thing to attain in love and also the mostessential. Lawrence never managed to say thelast word, but at least there was an effort tomake love sacred. Without gods. That is veryimportant. I believe that through love we canre-sacralize society without need of theology.

[Fiction]

ON THE RADIOFromLove Always, a novel by Ann Beattie, pub-lished this month by Random House.

She listened to the radio. She was tryingto get back to that. When Les left, she hadstopped listening to music. He had played theradio all the time. When she had an image ofLes, music accompanied it, like the beginningof a movie. The Eurythmics were on the radio.This summer's Eurythmics record was not asgood as "Sweet Dreams." Lyrics didn't remindher of Les-he had loved all AM music, so justthe sound of the radio waspainful. The specificschanged, but the format never did. It was oneadvertising jingle or another. Music playingsoftly, gradually getting louder as the D.J. fin-ished talking, the number to call to name a songand win a prize, the number-one song, the bighit of summer, fast talk about worthless prod-ucts, where to get tickets to this concert or that

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