All for Love: A Personal History of Desire and Disappointment (Continents of Exile) - Hardcover

In this excruciatingly honest autobiographical work, author Mehta conducts an exquisite exploration of his love life as a young man, attempting to focus an objective lens on the most subjective of matters. The volume, the ninth in Mehta's Continents of Exile series, examines the blind writer's pathos-laden involvement with four different women while living in New York City in the 1960s and 1970s and working at the New Yorker. In rich, sensuous language, he paints a precise picture of people and place, skillfully depicting both India and Manhattan. Much of the memoir consists of letters between Mehta and his various lovers, and this epistolary element best represents the spectrum of emotions. The letters include the minutiae of relationships pet names, inside jokes, mundane retellings of the day's proceedings yet they also reveal a great deal of angst and psychological despair. Mehta demonstrates more than a little bravery by stripping his life to its essentials, and he succeeds magnificently in his endeavor, in part because of his detachment from the events he chronicles. The last section an account of Mehta's psychoanalysis represents the book's only significant flaw. Presented principally as a dialogue between the writer and his psychiatrist, it echoes clich‚d Freudian exchanges between any patient and doctor. In the earlier chapters, Mehta proves his ability to contemplate and investigate his romances on his own, so the intrusion of the analyst is particularly grating. Though the concluding chapter falls short of those preceding, this elegant volume remains a striking piece of insight into the nature of love.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Since 1972 Mehta, a prolific author, MacArthur fellow, and longtime staff writer for The New Yorker, has been producing a series of autobiographical works titled "Continents of Exile." This, the ninth volume in this series (after Remembering Mr. Shawn's New Yorker), focuses on his relationships with four women during the 1960s. Each affair is related in meticulous detail, and although each was quite different, they all shared several characteristics: an early physical intimacy, Mehta's yearning to get married, and the woman's abandonment of him, followed by a long period of depression. It was significant, says Mehta, that during these relationships his blindness was never mentioned. Ultimately, these breakups led to a long period of psychoanalysis, which helped Mehta to accept his blindness and to understand his relationships better. Although Mehta's aim in the series has been to relate his experiences objectively "and so avoid the pitfalls of confessional writing," in this memoir he seems to re-create all the self-absorption, self-pity, and emotional turmoil that he spent years confessing on his psychotherapist's couch. This narcissistic brooding may appeal to Mehta's ardent fans, but most readers will find it hard to plod through. Suitable for larger public libraries. Ilse Heidmann, San Marcos, TX
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.