May has a remarkable ability to bring out what is most true and interesting in his sources. He is the only person I have read who has invoked Schopenhauer and made him sound insightful and prescient, rather than absurd and grandiloquent. Perhaps that simply reflects May’s claim that to love well requires skill and tutoring, and the fact that this book is itself a work of love: one which looks for what is best in its subject and, thanks to the wisdom of the lover, finds it.
Review of Love by Simon May in last weekend’s FT (9/10 July)