Patrick Süskind <On Love and Death>

The surprising news that Patrick Süskind, known as a person who always ready to retire and hide from the world, a hermit, had written a book round love reached my ears. What did he say about love? I firmly believed he had written differently from the way the others were written. I cannot but read this book. 

So, what did I feel about what I read? Was I satisfied? At least in the story of Orpheus and Eurydice, I can say I was so. He of course didn't know exactly what is the love, as he declares himself in his book, but what's clear is we can neither love like God, nor call love like God love. God doesn't show human weakness: "This calculating aspect of his nature, his almost unremitting self-control, his immunity to the frenzy of Eros lends a chill to the person of Jesus of Nazareth, a sense of distance and inhumanity." 

Who dare to say that God's love is inhuman? He, Patrick Süskind who seems not to believe God, couldn't prabably insist so easily. The only thing what he'd like to say to people is, in my opinion, we don't have to love like God. The story of Jesus ended in his triumph in his confrontation with death. But Orpheus, on the other hand, closer to us, ended in failure. He says that we are moved to this day because the story of Orpheus is a story of failure. Can we get deep emotion from God's love? (Christians say that God's love is described as 'agape' driven beyond human intellect or emotion.)

We are emotionally extravagant, wayward, sensuously demanding, and urgent when falling in love. Some people say that only the shrewdness, unremitting self-control can lead us to true love. But we can't cherish one without the other. It is our own love.