Description
Book SynopsisThis book examines the gripes which plague the lives of modern couples Jean-Claude Kaufmann is one of the best-selling sociologists in France and always provides interesting and accessible accounts of everyday life Often amusing, this study explains the importance of overcoming conflict in strengthening a relationship.
Trade Review"Kaufmann is a wise and clever microsociologist, inspired by Erving Goffman, by fashion magazines, and by kittenish and cougarish women. He is the voice of the annoyed, the vexed, the fearful, and the comforted."
Contemporary Sociology "Living in an increasingly detraditionalised world opens up glorious new opportunities for individual autonomy and self-realisation. It also creates unprecedented pressures on long-term relationships. Kaufmann
brilliantly captures this paradox of life in late modernity, analysing the seemingly limitless sources of mutual irritation in everyday life, as well as spouses' inventive revenge and peacemaking tactics."
Véronique Mottier, Jesus College, Cambridge & University of Lausanne
"Jean-Claude Kaufman's Gripes is one of those rare books that brings into focus a seemingly unimportant fact of life. Irritation and the slow abrasive effect of the gripes it causes are sands that grind down the gears of relationships. Behavioral scientists and self-help advisers make so much of the powerful passions. Kaufman brilliantly illuminates the simpler forces of social disruption."
Charles C. Lemert, author of Muhammad Ali: Trickster in the Culture of Irony
Table of ContentsIntroduction
PART ONE : 1 + 1 = 4
1. The conjugal adventure
Domestic emotions
1 + 1 = 1?
Sparks start to fly
The comfort zone
Doubly irritating objects
Key episodes
2. Men and women - different or complementary?
The different approaches
Glitches
Are men less irritated?
Irritated by a spectre
Millions of Peter Pans?
Stubborn macho reactions
PART TWO : IN THE EYE OF THE STORM
3. The causes
The symbolic toothpaste tube
Forced proximity
A waltz in double time
Traces of the self
Money matters
Secret worlds
Too close
Too distant
4. The mechanics
The list
Crystallisation
Letting off steam
Aspects of identity
‘Passion killers' and the magic of love
Confused feelings
A certain notion of the truth
Dissonance
5. The wider picture
Family baggage
«Mummy's boy»
«That slut»
Inattentiveness and humiliation
Dissatisfaction
Disgust
Pathological irritability
Aggravating social circumstances
PART THREE : SMALL ACTS OF REVENGE AND ROMANTIC TACTICS
6. Communication difficulties
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth
Hot and cold
The language of gestures
The use of laughter
Inside the mind of the irritator
Secret acts of revenge
7. Love's secret ways
Minuscule victories
The about-turn
When irritation melts away
Physical therapy
Judicious use of sulking
Seeing reason
Reframing the scene
The little cinema and voice off
Accentuating the positive
Conclusion
Methodological Appendix
A new research technique
My direct correspondents
A research project cannot be emptied out like a bag
My other sources
# Bibliography
