Book

I'm not a big reader, but in the train to Paris this morning I finished a wonderful book. By absence of men is the story of two boys during the first world war whom fall in love, an impossible love.

"I indeed think, I'm sorry, that love is the indispensable reason of grief.
You have to know that the other before anything, is the one whom causes us sorrow, or will cause. Sooner or later he fails to be there, openly or furtively, concience or unconscious, partly or completely. Yes, he always fails and it is impossible to possess him completely. Possessing: an ugly word, isn't it? I can hear you say it. Despite, whether you want it or not, love eventually is a matter of possessing. Do you love me? Do you love another?
And worse: because the other fails we love him more. Through our hindrance our passion adopts a fixed shape. That is the problem. The perpetual necessity to seduce, to convince, to keep the other with us, to prevent him from going, that is what nourishes our love. We end in a vicious circle in which we of course loose, whilst we thought we were winning, but in we eventually are superseded because we could not win. The love kills itself. "