The Agony of Eros (Untimely Meditations)

This is a must have book for our times

great book!

perfect condition

It's all true.

This is a classically written phonomonological essay (not even really a monograph) on the topic of erotic love, with only passing mention of any romantic connotation. The core thesis is a contrast between "sameness" (imagine a worldview that is entirely narcissistic and exists to satisfy ones own capricious needs without concern for anything larger or longer lasting) and a notion of the transcendent. It suffers all the same affectations that other continental philosophy does, namely in that it is mostly a self-referential discussion of a core theory with some borrowed thoughts from Buber, Heidegger, and Hegel. Worth reading on a Sunday afternoon, but after 54 pages I feel my heart being driven back to the cold, dead, unloving arms of analytic philosophy.

This is a fascinating philosophical book on the death of eros in the modern day.

Even though I`m German, I decided to buy this book in english. After reading 2 of Han`s books so far, I felt that english would be easier to understand. So I decided to buy the English variation. I can`t compare the content of this book translation-wise as I didn`t read the original book, but anyways - it`s quite easy to understand. It is not a book to just read away, of course you could, because it's well written, but you might want to think about Byung-Chul Hans observation/theory to profit from it`s message und to understand what he`s trying to say. Byung-Chul Han is influenced by Hegel - as far as I can tell - so his thesis is a good mixture of Hegel, but also Han himself. The book is very thrilling and inspirational, it made me curious about Byung-Chul Han himself, it made me curious to understand and research what Eros, what Erotic actually is and means. It also made me think about myself in the role of a potential partner to someone and made me reflect on my previous relationships, dating and so on. Love really became a conusmable product, the people became consumable commodities - so did sexuality, love and erotic. It`s actually a resume of what we all experience nowadays in the age of online dating, pseudo-freedom, technology and in a world, where we all trained to become the same. Like we would be manufactured in a fabric, to suit in society. I could write so much about this book, as it really reflects on what I feel - which is probably why this book speaks to me, you might think it`s just an overly melancholic and pessimistic review of a person who might think too much - but that`s philosophy. I feel moved by his books and his movie, because I think that he`s so right in many ways, even tho I wouldn`t go 100% with him, actually I`d maybe agree on 60% with him. I would really recommend this book, it offers no solution, as philosophy almost never does, but it might make you question yourself in the concern that you want to know, if you are also just a consumer of love and what it means to accept the Other for the sake of itself and not only for the good features of a person. Very inspirational!

Boa crítica.

Good price - quality. It is a light covers book but quiet affordable too.