There are novels that enter the history of world literature by right, and end up representing real points of reference for the cultural history of a country, forever immortalizing places, moments, particular contexts of which the protagonists of the events narrated are the perfect expression.
Some of these novels, then, tell the most beautiful feeling, love, capturing different shades and often contrasting sides, narrating its beauties as well as the tragic side, the joys that derive from it or the suffering and pain often intimately linked to it. . Whether it is nineteenth-century novels or stories set in the present day, it does not matter, because the ways in which one can live and (try to) describe love are immutable in time and eternal; so, whether you want to grasp the sweetest or the most bitter side, everyone can find in a book their own characterization of the noblest sentiment of the human soul.
If counting the love books written over time is practically impossible, we can however say that there are novels that incurable romantics absolutely cannot have not read. Do you want to know what they are? We have collected 15 … try to take a look, and if someone is missing, fix it immediately!
1. Romeo and Juliet (William Shakespeare)
THE love story par excellence despite its tragic nature; yes, because, narrating the events of the unfortunate lovers set in Verona at the end of 1500 , the Bardo taught us that, unfortunately, relationships do not always have a happy ending, indeed often the thorns are much more numerous than flowers. The surnames of our two protagonists weigh on their destiny more than boulders, since a bloody feud has existed between families since time immemorial and, for this reason, their union is far from blessed. Romeo and Juliet will try to fulfill their dream of love by running away and organizing tricks which, however, will backfire on them. Unfortunately, we all know the ending.
2. Pride and prejudice (Jane Austen)
Published for the first time in 1813 , the novel focuses on the events of the Bennet family , whose mother, in the absence of a son, hopes to see their daughters married soon. When Elizabeth , the second child, meets the taciturn Mr. Darcy , a series of conflicts and misunderstandings will arise that will lead the two to discover each other in a completely unexpected way. The title of the book comes from Darcy’s pride in her social class and Elizabeth’s prejudice towards her.
3. Silk (Alessandro Baricco)
Hervé Joncour, a silkworm trader, goes to Japan after an epidemic that has struck them in all European countries. Here, as a guest of Hara Kei, he meets the gaze of a beautiful girl, who strikes him and will upset him to the point that, even once he returns home to his wife Hélène, he will never feel the same again. He will return to Japan in search of the girl, but, once he returns to France disappointed by the outcome of the trip, he will receive a letter written in Japanese ideograms, thus assuming that it was she who wrote it; after the death of his wife, Hervé will learn of something that will force him to re-evaluate all his feelings and his way of life.
4. The pages of our life (Nicholas Sparks)
The novel, released in 1996 and with a film adaptation dated 2004, begins with an elderly man reading his diary to a woman suffering from Alzheimer ‘s . The story, set in the 1940s, tells of two boys, Noah and Allie , belonging to different classes, who know each other and between whom the passion immediately breaks out, however opposed by her family, especially by her mother; found themselves after the Second World War, the two trying to make up for lost time. The book flows by intertwining past and present, until you discover that …
5. Love in time of cholera (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
The Colombian author was undoubtedly one of the most eclectic, subtle and ironic writers of the twentieth century, but with this 1985 novel he also demonstrated a deep romantic and passionate streak.
Florentino Ariza met the beautiful Fermina Daza at a very young age , and the two consumed a platonic love, made above all of romantic letters. Forced by her father, however, she decides to terminate the relationship, plunging Florentino into deep despair . Their lives run parallel for years and in extremely different ways, with Fermina marrying the most famous doctor in the city and treating Florentino with indifference on the sporadic occasions when they meet, and the latter who, on the other hand, struggles to climb socially precisely for have more opportunities to meet his one love.
6. Breakfast at Tiffany’s (Truman Capote)
Before the cult film starring Audrey Hepburn , “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” tells a different, particular love story between the protagonist, Holly Golighty , and the novel’s narrator; he sees and listens to all the events in which Holly is involved, between acquaintances with wealthy men and gangsters of the underworld, up to her marriage with the Brazilian politician Jose di lei, who wants to take her to South America. When the paths of Holly and the protagonist seem to divide, she invites him for a ride, but his horse goes wild and Holly, to save him, loses the baby she was carrying, son of Jose.
Determined to leave, on the way to the airport Holly abandons her red cat , the only faithful friend, together with the protagonist, who has always remained close to her. However that animal is too important to her, so …
7. Great Gatsby (Francis Scott Fitzgerald)
In the roaring New York of the 1920s , the shy employee Nick Carraway , the narrator of the story, as soon as he arrives buys a house near the sumptuous villa of the enigmatic Jay Gatsby , a young billionaire of whose past little or nothing is known, but well known in the area for away of the wonderful parties that he organizes in his own home. Gatsby soon forms a strong friendship with Nick, to whom he is surely bound by a sincere affection but who is above all the cousin of Daisy Fay , a girl he had met years ago, before leaving for the war, and to whom he had sworn to marry her . Slowly Nick realizes that all the glitz, the worldliness and the beautiful things surround Gatsby they are only means he needs to attract Daisy’s attention, in the hope of bringing her back to him ; but things are not that simple …
8. On the bank of the Piedra River I sat and cried (Paulo Coehlo)
Pilar is a young woman from Soria willing to work hard to build a secure future, find a good job and a good husband to lead a peaceful and stable life. When she receives the letter from an old teenage love, now famous for her ability to speak with God and perform miracles, which invites her to a conference she will hold in Madrid, she Pilar decides to accept. Meeting with him again, starting to frequent him again will lead her to listen more carefully to her inner girl, but also to rediscover the faith and, above all, the beauty of total abandonment which is her true love .
9. Gone with the Wind (Margaret Mitchell)
The only novel by this American writer, from 1936 , has become one of the most famous and successful films in the history of cinema of all time. Set in the Georgia of the Civil War , the book tells the life of the capricious Rossella O’Hara , rejected by her great love Di lei Ashley of her, who prefers to marry her cousin Melania before leaving for the front. After a long wanderings and various loves, the adventurer Rhett Butler, a dark and rude man, appears on Rossella’s road. How will the spoiled Rossella react in front of a man who does not bend to her every will?
10. Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostand)
Cyrano is an excellent swordsman, not only with sidearms but also with his sharp tongue. Sublime poet and writer, he is secretly in love with his cousin Rossana , but held back by her long nose that distinguishes him from confessing the candid and pure feelings he has about her. In order to be close to her, he agrees to help the handsome but stupid Christian cadet whom Rossana loves. However, there is that last letter written to her by Cyrano that will help her open her eyes and …
11. Anna Karenina (Leo Tolstoy)
One of the most tormented and tragic love stories in the history of literature is the one narrated in this 1877 novel , which stars Anna, wife of government officer Alexandrovic Karenin , and young officer Aleksej Vronskji. Her husband’s blackmail and her jealousy towards Kitty , Alexei’s wife, will lead Anna to verge on her madness.
12. Wuthering Heights (Emily Bronte)
The orphan Heathcliff is welcomed into the Earnshaw family , who inhabit the property called Wuthering Hieghts . She immediately becomes deeply attached to the daughter of the Earnshaws, Catherine , but the too wide social difference between the two of her forces her to marry Edgar Linton, Di lei ‘s rich and kind neighbor . Heathcliff, wounded and furious, goes away, only to return three years later, as a wealthy man, with the sole intent of destroying the family. Cathy, aware that she is the cause of so much pain, cannot bear this weight, and Heathcliff, now destroyed by suffering, tries only to take possession of everything that belonged to her.
13. The footsteps of love (Nicholas Sparks)
Landon Carter is a rebellious boy who can often get into trouble to impress his braggart friends. When he invites the sweet and devoted Jamie , daughter of a pastor and orphan of a mother, to the prom , the contrast between the two seems evident: she is sweet and full of faith, she is angry and still hurt by her separation of her gods him. However, in a short time a very pure, passionate and complete love will be born between them, which will be upset by a revelation of her: for two years, in fact, he has discovered that she is ill with leukemia . Landon’s whole world and his way of life are completely turned upside down, but love is too strong to be defeated.
14. Don’t move (Margaret Mazzantini)
Winner of the Strega Price in 2002 , the novel develops through a long flashback of the protagonist, the doctor Timoteo , who retraces the phase of his life in which he experienced the most dazzling and total passion, which began with a horrendous rape but then transformed into complete, deep and pure love. The events that will upset their lives will oblige Timothy to a deep and devastating inner journey.
15. Madame Bovary (Gustave Flaubert)
Emma is a young woman married to the modest doctor Charles Bovary , who has built, on the basis of her romantic readings, an elegant and high-bourgeois ideal life, far from the gray mediocrity in which she and her husband live. Finding a lover of her who helps her to finally live as she would like her does not succeed in relieving Emma from her depression, making her feel suffocated by married life but with no possibility of escape. The feeling of her rejected by her, disillusioned for the umpteenth time, and trapped by her will lead her to a tragic decision.
