I want to read a book about lost love and nostalgic memories.

[Monty Mike]

I am such a huge admirer of Wong Kar Wai's films (director of 2046, Days of Being Wild, In The Mood For Love, Chungking Express, etc.) and find that it is these underlying themes in his fims (lost love and memories) that appeal to me. They also tend to be dark but always very human. I relate to them very strongly and decided that I would attempt to find some literature that has the same tone and mood and can offer me a similar experience. I think in such a book the writing would have to be quite alternative but also very fluent and powerful. Writers such as James Joyce (namely his short story in The Dubliners called 'The Dead') come to mind (lots of time spent in the characters heads and thoughts).

Could anyone recommend me something that roughly fits this criteria? I don't know where else on the internet to ask.

 

[Jacquin]

If you haven't already read them I'd suggest Richard Morgan's Kovacs books. They might not fit the mood exactly but they a cracking read and the third one has lost love as an ongoing theme. They're certainly not happy books though, I just re-read them and whilst sat on the tube could fully empathise with the hero wanting to kill everyone...

 

[Monty Mike]

If you haven't already read them I'd suggest Richard Morgan's Kovacs books. They might not fit the mood exactly but they a cracking read and the third one has lost love as an ongoing theme. They're certainly not happy books though, I just re-read them and whilst sat on the tube could fully empathise with the hero wanting to kill everyone...

Heh, thanks Jacquin. I like the sound of them.

 

[Jacquin]

and while we're at it you absolutely NEED to read High Fidelity if you haven't already. If you have seen the film please try to forget it, the book is soooooo much better in so many ways.

J

 

[DabigJimdogg0]

"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, I love that book. The girl treats him like dirt from the very begging but the pore sap still goes for the bait.

 

[AuntiePam]

If you can find a copy, Praise the Human Season by Don Robertson is the story of a 50-year-marriage. It's told in the present and in flashbacks when the couple are in their 70's.

Crazy Love by David L. Martin is a love story with an animal rights subplot. It sounds bizarre and it is, but it's very readable, and you'll need a box of tissues by your side.

I'm having a hard time coming up with titles that aren't "romance". Katherine by Anya Seton tells a great love story, and Forever Amber by Kathleen Winsor is good too.

 

[The Dark Truth]

I would recommend:

Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Extraordinary novel about love lost and in the end won. First novel I read by this author and I can see why he is so acclaimed. Definately going to read more by him.

The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway. His first novel centers around American expatriates in 1920's Spain. If you like this novel, definitely read For Whom the Bell Tolls (my favorite novel).

 

[whitesilkbreeze]

I don't know if this quite fits the bill, but you might want to check out Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro. It's set in a somewhat dystopian society where the lovers are the 'victims' of that society. The feeling of lost love comes in the latter half of the book mostly, but it's full of a quiet nostalgia. Someone once described it best as a 'quiest desperation'.

 

[algernoninc]

and while we're at it you absolutely NEED to read High Fidelity if you haven't already. If you have seen the film please try to forget it, the book is soooooo much better in so many ways.

J

my kinda person - the bible of lost love

I recently finished "The Time Traveller's Wife" by Audrey Niffenegger, and i was greatly impressed by it - dark, intense, fun sometimes, painfully nostalgic at others, without becoming a sappy Harlequin series romance.

 

[mvr_moorthy]

"Great Expectations" by Charles Dickens, I love that book. The girl treats him like dirt from the very begging but the pore sap still goes for the bait.

That's a good suggestion. Well,Pip's relationship with Estella only shows his folly-- a social miscalculation that ends in personal misery. But his human judgement errs badly in the case of Biddy and Joe.The time he spends with them recovering from his illness --- that is really tragic. Don't we too have similar gaffes in our lives too, when we make a plunge and find ourselves on the woefully wrong side of the wall?

 

[Nimea]

I would second Time Traveller's Wife. Really good.

monty, I hope you don't shy away from gay-themed books because really these are great (well, at least in my mind):

Sarah Waters - Affinity
Like two of her other books this one is set in the Victorian age in England. But unlike the other two that have 'happy endings' (if that's what you would call it) this one is very dark but oh, so bitterly sweet and tragic.

Nicola Griffith - The Blue Place and Stay
The first one is often called a noir crime novel. But it deals with a very strange, detached person and how her world slowly changes. The other one is the prequel and deals with the effects of what happens in The Blue Place. Essentially it is about grief. Yeah, I am spoiling it a bit here.
I read Stay a second time last year because I needed something that expressed and dealt with grief about the loss of a loved one. It's not the same kind of loss that happened to me but nonetheless. It's intense and it is great.

Then there is the (old ) Hungarian writer Sandor Marai. Maybe check out something by him, like Embers. It's about two men who used to be friends. They meet again after ages . . . it's about friendship, loyalty, love (for the same woman ...)

Well, I don't know if any of these really fit what you ask for and whether or not you really would like them. Nonetheless have fun taking a look at them.

 

[Raule]

The Mercury Visions of Louis Daguerre by Dominic Smith is all about nostalgic memories and the attempt to reclaim a lost love.