Around the year 1 C.E., the Roman poet Ovid followed up "The Art of Love," his dating manual in verse, with an antidote titled "Cures for Love." Among the recommendations are to pick up a hobby ("cow bulls into submission"), distract yourself with a new partner ("as they split off into many a stream, mighty rivers lose muscle"), and, if possible, take a trip at once: "Don't fake an excuse, either, for sticking around. Don't check the calendar. Don't keep looking over your shoulder back at Rome."
This past summer, I did the bidding of the ancients and booked a seat on the Berkshire Flyer-Amtrak's seasonal train from Penn Station to Pittsfield, Massachusetts to get some distance from my own romantic disappointment. A few weeks earlier, I had been dumped by a man I was seeing-and by text, no less. Even the rake Rodolphe had the decency to add a drop of water to his breakup letter to Emma Bovary, hidden in a basket of apricots, to make it look as though he was inconsolable. Yet does that spare Emma's feelings? When the basket arrives and her husband invites her to smell the fruit's sweet aroma, she shouts, "I can't breathe!" With respect to breakups, the message is the message.
This story is from the December 09, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber ? Sign In
This story is from the December 09, 2024 edition of The New Yorker.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 9,000+ magazines and newspapers.
Already a subscriber? Sign In
NO WAY BACK
The resurgence, in the past decade, of Paul Schrader as one of the most accomplished and acclaimed contemporary movie directors is part of a bigger trend: the self-reinvention of Hollywood auteurs as independent filmmakers.
PRIMORDIAL SORROW
\"All Life Long,\" the title of the most recent album by the composer and organist Kali Malone, is taken from a poem by the British Symbolist author Arthur Symons: \"The heart shall be weary and wonder and cry like the sea,/ All life long crying without avail,/As the water all night long is crying to me.\"
CHOPPED AND STEWED
The other day, at a Nigerian restaurant called Safari, in Houston, Texas, I peeled back the plastic wrap on a ball of fufu, a staple across West Africa.
TOUCH WOOD
What do people do all day? My daughter loves to read Richard Scarry's book of that title, though she generally skips ahead to the hospital pages.
HELLO, HEARTBREAK
Heartbreak cures are as old as time, or at least as old as the Common Era.
ENEMY OF THE STATE
Javier Milei's plan to remake Argentina begins with waging war on the government.
THE CHOOSING ONES
The saga of my Jewish conversion began twenty-five years ago, when I got engaged to my first husband.
OBSCURE FAMILIAL RELATIONS, EXPLAINED FOR THE HOLIDAYS
Children who share only one parent are half siblings. Children who have been bisected via a tragic logging accident are also half siblings, but in a different way.
NOTE TO SELVES
The Sonoran Desert, which covers much of the southwestern United States, is a vast expanse of arid earth where cartoonish entities-roadrunners, tumbleweeds, telephone-pole-tall succulents make occasional appearances.
BADDIE ISSUES
\"Wicked\" and \"Gladiator II.\"
