FICTION

ON LOVE by Alain de Botton (Atlantic Monthly Press: $17; 231 pp.) “Familiarity (of lovers) creates a new language, an in-house language of intimacy that . . . cannot readily be understood by others.” This is one of the many ideas in “On Love,” Alain de Botton’s concept-oriented novel that tells the story of one couple’s relationship as if it were under a microscope. As they fall in love, every thought, word and gesture of the two characters is carefully labeled like a scientific specimen. There’s even diagrams. When emotional distance and manipulation creeps into their blissful relationship that is labeled also. “And so at this point, desperate to woo the partner back at any cost, the lover turns to romantic terrorism . . . (sulking, jealousy, guilt) that attempts to force the partner to return love by blowing up . . . in front of the loved one. . . .”

The ins and outs of passion, as described by Alain de Botton in painstaking detail, is almost completely universal. Anyone who’s ever been in a relationship, or even watched one on TV, will recognize the “Subtext of Seduction,” “The In-House Language,” and “Romantic Terrorism.” This immediate recognition is the novel’s blessing and curse. It’s a lot of fun to be validated again and again, to be humorously reminded that all the pain you’ve been through is very much the same as other people’s pain. But in the end recognition alone won’t carry a whole book. “On Love” is a one-trick novel, a neat, scientific equation that explains things already discovered long ago.