8 books to read if your heart is broken

Questions about what to watch or what to read can be asked, it seems, endlessly and more than once – after all, any good work, be it a book, movie or TV series, unfortunately, sooner or later ends and leaves. Its audience or reader is in the throes of new searches. But there is some good news, too.

To make your task easier, every week we ask our columnist Konstantin Obraztsov – the writer, author of “Red Chains”, “Hammer of the Witches” and other books, as well as the creator of the “Sample Reading” show on YouTube and the “Obraztsov” channel on Telegram – the best in the world to share his collection of good literature and TV series with diamonds.

Konstantin Obraztsov

Today’s agenda includes books that will help heal a broken heart.

“This isn’t about you, it’s about me…”, “We need to move on…“, “Life is long, yet you will find…”, “We can stay friends…” And of course we are indispensable “You are so good/fine…”, – Everyone has heard something like this at least once in their life, and even if they haven’t, they will definitely hear it again. You may have reasonable doubts about the ability to achieve goals, help the Universe or successfully develop oneself, but the fact is that sooner or later a close and dear person will start something like this. “We need to take a break and think about everything…” – there is no doubt about that.

What to do if the one and only turns out to be someone else?

In addition to psychologists, sweets and alcohol (I do not recommend, but I do not condemn) there is cinema and literature. Sometimes in such cases they recommend watching romantic comedies, but this is not good – they are only suitable for those who look like their typical heroes, going through the pink pony period in relationships, playfully feeding each other popcorn in the cinema. puts whipped cream on half their noses, uses the word “half“What other crude love clichés are there?

When the heart from which Cupid’s arrow has just been removed hurts with unbearable pain, romantic comedies only annoy, like “Don’t be sad!” or “Everything will be okay!”, which immediately makes them want to throw it down the stairs.

One should experience sadness in a correct and enjoyable way. When love leaves, what’s left is the blues, not three happy chords. Blues and good books.

For delightfully bitter or solemnly bleak, lyrically subtle, or soul-shattering sadness, you need to choose things worthy of such a situation as the loss of love. For you today – five shades of love melancholy from the best experts.

Carlos Ruiz Zafon

“Marina”, “City of Steam” collection of short stories

Carlos Ruiz Zafon, poet of Barcelona, ​​modern Spanish classic, is the best writer I know who describes the subtlest shades of the joy of finding true love and the inevitable pain of losing it.

The hero of the story “Marina” is fifteen years old; At this age, the memory of the first touch of the hand of the girl you love is more valuable than the sex in your entire subsequent life. Of course, the girl must also be extraordinary: Marina is interested in mystical secrets, herself a miracle and mystery woven from the ghost mists and dark legends of old Barcelona.

In Saphon’s novels, love almost always comes first, it is undoubtedly real and doomed to lose: lovers are pursued by evil fate, murderers, disease and death, and this is certainly better than boredom.Let’s stay friends“If you are not bothered by the gothic fiction, skeletons in the closets, curses, animated dolls, etc., in which Saphon has masterfully created the texture of the plot, “Marina” is the number one choice.

Additionally, I recommend “City of Steam,” a small collection of short stories: A boy in love tells tales to a girl; a haunted vagabond; A girl sold into sexual slavery by her father is the sine qua non of love’s sorrow.

Knut Hamsun

“Pan”, “Victoria”

Norwegian writer of the last period of classical literature of the late 19th – early 20th centuries, in his works recognizable notes of Russian classics dissolve in the cold expanse of Scandinavian minimalism.

There is no mysticism here: in the novel “Pan” charismatic Lieutenant Glahn seeks peace and solitude far from civilization, but finds fatal love. It has it all: “arousing passion and pleasure in style”only you understand me“, the transformation of love into interdependence, jealousy, cruel manipulation, a love triangle that ultimately turns into a kind of dodecahedron, self-harm, suffering and crazy frenzy characteristic of strong and bright natures. A separate bonus is the amazing nature and weather of the cold, never-ending northern summer .

If “Pan” leaves a pleasant aftertaste, amp it up with “Victoria,” a small but surprisingly lyrical novel about two people in love who are constantly prevented from being together by social inequality, financial difficulties, chance romances and, finally, death. .

I. S. Turgenev

“Asia”, “First Love”

If these two stories of the Russian classic have crossed your mind for any reason, now is the time to meet them.

In terms of the number of shades of sadness, Russian literature has no analogues in the world: we have everything, from Pushkin’s ironic sadness to Leonid Andreev’s black despair.

Ivan Sergeevich Turgenev dissolves sadness in a gentle, watercolor style painting. In the story “Asia” the hero falls in love with an extremely spontaneous, eccentric young girl, but he himself does not quite understand what he wants. He, too, does not understand what he wants, and their mutual attempts to answer this question result in the narrator being able in his old age to only look at the dried flower and sigh at what a fool he was.

In the story “First Love”, another “Turgenev girl” Zinaida skillfully commands a harem of suitors who form a kind of club of hopeless lovers around her. The hero falls in love more than anyone else and in the end it turns out that… But let’s not spoil the last development that adds a special drama to the story.

Eric Segal

“Love story”

If your crush is young Mickey Rourke from Wild Orchid and 9 ½ Weeks, this is the story for you. If young Mickey Rourke is your mother’s crush, try reading it anyway: Seagal has a bold, concise writing style typical of the late ’60s, reminiscent of Salinger or Bukowski, and a straightforward plot narrative without unnecessary twists, à la Remarque.

There are no mystical beauties, no neuroses: the heroes love each other deeply and honestly, make sacrifices for the sake of their love, but everything ends as it ends, and the end of Seagal’s ingenious story breaks the heart no worse than Saphon’s novels. Hamsun.

The story became an absolute hit around the world in the 70s, a hit in Russia in the 90s and remains a classic to this day.

There is a famous saying: “To love is to never say you regret something.”

So don’t regret it.

M. Bulgakov

“The Master and Margarita”

The theme of love in Bulgakov’s famous novel is one of the reasons for its incredible popularity.

“Follow me, reader!..” – the author invites us, promises to show true love and, naturally, does not deceive us at all. The heroes overcome social conventions, the machinations of unsavory villains, the unknown, separation, and imprisonment in a psychiatric clinic to be reunited for good in the finale. The master writes a romantic masterpiece and suffers, Margarita also suffers and then turns into a no less romantic witch. It seems like it’s all about the so-called all-conquering power of love, but there’s a nuance.

In order to part together and enjoy love in eternal peace, the heroes had to die.

Bulgakov showed us what truly true love looks like, but this statement applies only to the Master and Margarita, who are free and brave enough to be ready to die for this love. Therefore, the Master can be forgiven for forgetting the name of the woman with whom he lived before running away to the basement, and Margarita secretly comes to the same basement and cheats on her husband, and the author does not accuse her of treason. These two paid the highest price for their love and they deserve to call it real.

“The magic of Revealing” awaits everyone who wants to rush into the basements, without sacrificing anything, like ordinary people gathered at a variety show, with their petty desires and shameful ordinary adultery.

True love can be tough and cruel.

Note: Loss of the ability to love and fall in love is a sure sign that a person has entered the “age of survival”, even if he has recently turned thirty.

If you’re still in love the way you were when you were 17, you’re 17, no matter what your passport, your moralists, and your mirror say. By the way, if you can truly fall in love, as in your youth, then the mirror is most likely a compliment for you.