On Marriage

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But the way I’m diagnosing resentment is as a more or less unavoidable aspect of globalisation and its discontents. Baum’s methodology is to look at what is missing – a philosophy of marriage, a clear idea of what this dominant structure is and how it influences lives. I think it implies that people feel there’s a danger in humourlessness, which shows just how much savagery there can be in humour.

From Freud to Ferrante, and One Thousand and One Nights to Fleabag, she looks at marriage in all of its forms – from act of love to leap of faith, and asks: what are we really doing when we say ‘I do’? Because you feel out of control, and dispossessed, and you don’t know what you’re about to do, what you’re about to say. She pushes at the boundaries of marriage as a framework for conceiving of ourselves in relation to others .Some of our correspondents have described this as ‘feeling European’ – because the dominant backgrounds are Ashkenazi. Baum brings this sharp self-awareness to her book; as she reflects with the analytical eye of an academic on different iterations and meanings of matrimony, she also frequently illustrates her points with scenes from her own marriage. Baum looks at marriage from multiple angles, legal and political, social and narrative, its interminability and its dailiness .

They feel nobody sees the brilliance that goes into creating comedy, and how deep and wise what they’re saying is in comic form. But the answer isn’t that everybody gets to have power, but that everybody gets to feel the degree to which power is a fantasy.But the way I’m understanding the term ‘Jewish’ there is that it’s a kind of experience of being both inside and outside – at the same time. I don’t like this increasing focus on identity – to demarcate who you are, what you are… and that you can’t transcend these boundaries. For anyone who has experienced, contemplated or rejected it, On Marriage offers a fascinating exploration of an institution that, for better or worse, “continues to shape and carry our human story”. And for me also it’s about the shared nature of feelings – they’re not private, and they shouldn’t be bound up with an ideology of privacy and property.