Rose: Love in Violent Times
| Author | Inga Muscio |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Popular science |
| Published | 2010 Seven Stories Press |
Rose is the 2010 book by Inga Muscio which looks into the passive and physical violence in our daily lives and describes how we might find love within this violence. It is her third book, following Cunt: A Declaration of Independence (1998) and Autobiography of a Blue-Eyed Devil: My Life and Times in a Racist, Imperialist Society (2005).Rose is divided into three main sections: an Introduction, Part I—Violence, and Part II—Love.
Muscio was inspired to write on the subject of violence based on a quote she heard from Arun Gandhi: “Acts of passive violence generate anger in the victim, and...it is passive violence that fuels the fire of physical violence...If we wish to put out the fire of physical violence we have to cut off the fuel supply."
Muscio stated that it was this quote that was the inspiration for this book and that this quote changed the way she viewed her relationships and the world, itself.
Cover: On the front cover of the book there is a picture of a rose with 101 words forming a ‘spiral’ shape. Muscio insists that these words must be defined by the readers for themselves. She explains the process of narrowing down the list of words in Chapter 5: Definitions within Part II of Rose. These words are (in order):
dream, death, destruction, delirium, desire, despair, destiny, lie, cheat, steal, hate, normal, work, abandon, home, dirty, alien, creation, genius, ugly, violate, nothing, blessed, beautiful, heart, news, knowledge, will, prison, refugee, crime, pathogen, entertainment, space, racism, ritual, healer, holocaust, behavior, terrorist, poor, wrong, discover, virginity, god, own, love, war, museum, disability, cute, execute, vitamin, sex, commodity, trash, good, community, genocide, exploited, safe, whore, innocence, wealth, punishment, value, solitude, power, memory, evolution, damage, ghetto, reality, goodwill, industry, traditional, moral, freedom, prayer, silence, map, courage, miracle, violence, ancestor, occupy, chosen, fact, souvenir, tape, isolation, weapon, paradise, drug, reservation, hot, justice, delicacy, family, empire, izzat.
Within the introduction section, Muscio lays out the purpose of this book, which is to ultimately help us to learn how to truly love. She claims that by looking into, and truly understanding, the effects of passive and physical violence in our lives we will be open and capable to loving. She criticizes the definitions of violence and love found in dictionaries because those terms are “ positively endless and cannot be defined in two short sentences”. (24) Muscio states that “if we learn about violence and we learn how to love, the possibilities are endless”. (32)
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