Quest for Love

Boasting a Who's Who of Say What? personalities, such as John Gray, Marianne Williamson, Thomas Moore, Barbara De Angelis, Harville Hendrix and Erica Jong (who actually makes the most sense!), the 3-volume Quest for Love series explores the intersection of passionate love and spirituality, helping viewers to embrace the former so that they may fulfill the latter. I think. Toss-off scraps of pysch-101 are expelled from the mouths of "today's leading thinkers" in the opening volume, Love, Passion, Soul, while soft-lit scenes of couples hugging and kissing and feeding each other food, float in and out of frame. In extremely tight (intimate?) close-up head-shots, these leading thinkers tell us all men are hunters and must pursue-conquer-pursue, while all women should be coy and play the flirting game because they've got the "feminine juice." Oh really? Only a Neanderthal-ish dweeb (or one of today's leading thinkers) would say that! I'm not convinced all men and all women are inherently different or that we have to play by strict built-in rules of gender to find true love. Frankly, it surprises me that this stereotypical sexist thinking is still fashionable. Which brings me to my better-than-it-should-be star rating: unfortunately, prepackaged regurgitated ‘insights' are all the rage right now and the fact of the matter is that this set (which also includes the volumes Soulmates and Ecstasy) will prove popular in most general collections. Recommended, with serious reservations (she said coyly as she stewed in her feminine juices). Aud: P. (N. Plympton)