Are older novels about love more powerful?

La domanda completa, che pone la scrittrice Adelle Waldman, è "Are older novels about love more powerful because their protagonists contended with societal repression, instead of merely struggling with their lovers and with themselves—with their conflicting desires and changing moods? Have the liberation of women and liberalization of divorce law really deprived the novel of its high stakes?"

E la risposta che giustamente dà è "I think the answer is no. The issue turns on where we think the narrative power of those older novels originates—whether it’s attributable to the social constraints on their characters (as well as the satisfying decisiveness of their fates—the suicides on the one hand or marriages that last “forever” on the other), or if, instead, these novels are, like so many contemporary novels, primarily dependent on psychological and internal drama". newyorker. 

In effetti Waldman ha scritto un bel drammone sentimentale, modernissimo e newyorkesissimo, The Love Affairs of Nathaniel P.  (Holt).