On the Etymology of Love

Perhaps an unusual post for this blog, but I came across this quote on another blog and had to post it somewhere. It's by Lewis Thomas:

Love

From the Indo-European root leubh, containing the general sense of loving, desiring and caring all at once, the Germanic tongues evolved bileafa, meaning belief and faith, strong terms indeed and surely the underpinnings of genuine love. It needed only a suffix to become Old English lufu, and then love. Latin used the same root for libere and libet, carrying signals of pleasure, goodwill, freedom and candor. Libido was a more carefully used variant, cautiously indicating strong desire with risks of caprice and immoderation, even lust, brushing against Cupid and cupidity. Sanskrit had lubhyati, he desires, Lithuanian still carries liaupse from the same root, a song of praise. Leubh survives in modern German Liebe, solid, enduring love.

The French je t’aime, irreplaceable, and all the variants of amour emerging from the Latinamo, as robust a source for passionate love as the language has devised, can only be tracked as far as the ancient Latin word amma, believed to be a childhood term at the outset. From amma we have the Latin and French words for love, and also amicus, a friend, a reminder not to lose sight of the old connection between love and friendship. Also two of the most agreeable English words in the language: amiable and amicable.

It is as though the language tried several paths into the meaning of love, then thought twice and corrected itself. Kwep and kwap turned out to be the wrong way to go, blind alleys leading to cupid and vapid. The other roots produced the real idea, the foundation of lasting love: trust, belief, reliance, freedom and desire all combined, something to grow up with, a string of lovely, lovable words.

- Lewis Thomas: Notes Of A Word Watcher (1990)

Cosmicomics

Italo Calvino was a Cuban-born Italian who wrote primarily in the latter half of the twentieth century.  Many of his stories combine elements of magical realism, fabulism and fantasy.  His most famous work is the novel If on a Winter’s Night a Traveller, which takes his metafictional style to the extreme, interspersing several unfinished stories and chapters among one another, and establishing the reader as the main protagonist.  It’s a must-read if you like quirky, postmodern writing that tears down the meaning of story, and skirts the boundary between fact and fiction.  It is, however, lacking in real emotive feeling or strong characters.  Calvino is, in my opinion, at his best when writing short stories, and one of his best collections is called Cosmicomics.

Each of the stories in Cosmicomics is based on a scientific theory of the universe.  Some of the stories here neglect plot in favour of exposition, becoming more like the descriptions of worlds found in Calvino's equally brilliant Invisible Cities, but even these stories are a joy to read, since Calvino explores the possibilities of each theory with such depth and imagination that often it's like reading a tour guide to a fascinating alternative universe.  But the stories where he manages to instill a sense of conflict and determination from his central character (every story is told in the first person) are the real shining moments for me, whether it's an evolved fish trying to persuade his stubborn old uncle to leave the seas and join him on land, or the man plummeting through space for millions of years desperately attempting to embrace a nearby falling woman.  I've always loved Calvino's work, but this book gave me exactly what I always thought was lacking in his writing before, emotions that the reader can identify with rather than just pure intellectual contemplation.  That's still there, too, and as always it's expressed with the most brilliant prose, but I was glad to feel a lot more drama between his main characters this time round.  I’d highly recommend this to anyone new to Calvino, as it's accessible, short and easily one of his best works.

Stacking

One of the games I’ve recently been playing is Stacking, which came out last month.  Developed by Tim Shafer’s Double Fine Productions, this puzzle-adventure game takes place in a world populated entirely by Russian Matryoshka dolls, which stack inside one another according to increasing size.  You control tiny Charlie Blackmore, whose chimney-sweeping family has been forced to work as slaves after falling into debt.  Using his ability to stack into dolls and use their abilities, Charlie must save each of his family members, and also end child labour, which is being enforced by the evil Baron.

The game has a very charming Industrial Age setting with old train stations, steamships and zeppelins as the main backdrops.  The soundtrack, primarily consisting of piano and violin, is appropriately vintage, as are the cutscenes, which are presented like old silent movies.  The dolls all speak in a sort of mangled gibberish, like the Sims, and each has its own unique ability, which can be used to solve puzzles.  For example, prima donna Wilhelmina has a powerful singing voice, which can smash glass.  Fire Chief Russell can spray his hose to put out fires.  The Widow Chastity can seduce and distract male dolls.  Cigarette-smoking milkman, Meriwether Malador, can flatulate in order to clear the nearby area of dolls.  There are well over a hundred of these throughout the game, so the range of puzzles, not to mention the different solutions you can come up with, is extensive.

Stacking’s entirely unique style of gameplay, beautiful presentation, and lighthearted tone (notwithstanding the whole child labour angle and all) make it a great game for those looking for something a little different from the standard, violent shooters saturating the market.  It’s currently available to buy on the Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network stores.

Present Tense

Gary Usher was a California-based musician who in the sixties wrote and produced numerous hits for various Surf Rock artists.  One of The Byrds’ best albums, Younger than Yesterday, was also produced by him.  Later in the decade he collaborated with local session musicians to create several semi-fictitious studio bands, one of which was Sagittarius, named after Usher’s star sign.  Their first album, Present Tense, was a commercial flop in 1968, but with the aid of a remastered reissue thirty years later, it has since grown a small cult following.

Many of the songs on the album are ethereal pop tunes layered with strings, flutes, and multipart harmonies.  Although the band hails from the states, they sound a lot like the psychedelic baroque pop bands so prevalent in Britain at that time: the Zombies, the Kinks, Kaleidoscope, Pink Floyd, etc.  Having said that, their closest comparison is with the American band, Millennium, whose album Begin is another lost classic of the sixties.  There are also strong echoes of The Beach Boys, especially on the brilliant, dreamy single, My World Fell Down, perhaps not surprising given that Usher had once co-written several songs with Brian Wilson.

Present Tense is an appropriately sunny, bucolic album to listen to now that spring is nearly upon us.  So by all means, click here for a download link.