Category Archives: Relationships
LOVE SLAP LOSES TRUST
Short of Love (2018) is a novel by Martin Knox, similar to ‘The Slap’ by Christos Tsiolkas (2008). Both novels commence with dramatic incidents pivotal in relationships throughout the stories.
The Slap is bitterly disputed within a family, whereas in Short of Love, Vicki tricks Tom to take a lie detector test, as a university student in Liverpool in the Beatles era, losing his trust. Knox’s book satirizes conventional love relationships and when Tom commodifies their love it backfires disastrously, blowing him and Vicki apart. He is obsessed with her, becoming an irrepressible hippy and a vulnerable CEO. It is a tantalizing love story, a fast-moving page turner with an unexpected ending.
Available on Amazon. Reviews at martinknox.com
LOVE PERSONAL OR COMMODIFIED
The ancients may not have experienced love as people do today. Relationships depended more on fulfilment of duties. When Christianity and God’s love came to prominence, people could love unrelated others. In the 12th Century, romantic love was idealistic about individuals but cynical about institutions, with gallantry and seduction continuing until today. In the Enlightenment (1685 – 1815), there was more idealism about institutions, laws and governments.
In the 1960s the Youth Revolution in America had the Beatles proclaiming ‘All You Need Is Love’ and it was taken up by a hippy social movement. Then a Frenchman, Guy de Bord, in 1967 pointed out in his book ‘The Society of the Spectacle that the appearance of commodity products and images was displacing reason and truth in the production of public goods, causing worker and consumer alienation.
Love was commodified and extraneous qualities flooded society until it was awash with commercial renditions of love. The appearances and images projected by capitalist producers colonised social life. The marriage industry produced identical experiences depersonalised events. The spectacle became less and less active and more and more contemplative and people were getting hurt.
My satire ‘Short of Love’ set at that time has a commodified love relationship that runs into unexpected problems with an unfortunate result. Love is usually more personal today.
‘Short of Love’ is available on Amazon. Reviews: martinknox.com
LOVE CLOSURE DELAYED
Short of Love is a fiction novel by author Martin Knox, based on a true story of a couple’s romance, delayed by a series of obstacles. Tom meets Vicki at university, in the Beatles era and falls in love, but something happens that destroys trust and they are unable to connect on the same level. He tries to defer the relationship until later, when he satirically trades love in a commodity short. But his plan goes badly wrong. They remain friends and try again, but his emigration, career, brother, marriage and children get in the way. Will they get together? The epic story will keep you guessing until the last page.
Available on Amazon. Blog with reviews: martinknox.com
LOVE TRADED SHORT
Martin Knox’s novel Short of Love traces Tom’s and Patti’s relationship from a UK university in the Beatles era to recent times.
Tom’s priority is his career and when he meets Vicki he is distracted.
When a relationship with her would be too demanding, he places her in a holding relationship with his flat mate, until later when she should become available on better terms, like in a commodity short? It is a solution that reveals his nerdy philosophical imagination.
He goes to work as an engineer in Canada and waits for terms with her to improve. He achieves a top management position and strives to connect with her, despite several accidents which keep them apart.
This is a fictional rendition based on a true story which reveals how love can have conditions that create difficult choices and unexpected consequences, revealing controversial ethics in the international petroleum industry.
Available on Amazon. Reviews: mertinknox.com
