The Lovers Summary
Philip José Farmer

The Lovers Summary

The Lovers is essentially a study of the close relationship between sexual and political repression. The first portion of the novel, portraying Hal's miserable life under the Sturch, is an anti-utopia or "dystopia" warning against the dangers of isolating ourselves from joy and love by denying out sexual natures. As Farmer does throughout his writing, he implies in The Lovers that the physical and the spiritual are one, and that in rejecting the former, we also destroy the latter. Without Jeannette, Hal is a resentful, terrified rabbit. With her, he at least temporarily overcomes a lifetime of rigid discipline and in the process illustrates Farmer's three preconditions for a love which is both physical and spiritual: a genuine passion, a deep affection, and a feeling of being one flesh, male and female inseparable.

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