Someone said somewhere that Emants writes rather scientific and perhaps even cold, and Liefdeleven (1916) by Marcellus Emants (1848-1923) reminds me indeed a bit of a scientific study. Emants is known to write about actual persons and situations, and it is generally thought that Liefdeleven is about his third marriage (1904) with a German actress (the name of the main character “Christiaan Duyts” - Duyts meaning “German” in dutch- seems to support this).

The book is written from a male perspective which gives it a perhaps interesting one-view-only look upon the problems that arise in the book.
The story starts quietly like a man-meets-woman story but as it progresses it becomes more naturalistic to an extend that it even gets hard to be confronted by many of the conversations/discussions in this part of the book. This confrontation makes that one wonders how it all will end.

I actually don't think the book really is about how bad it is to be married, or how hard it can be when you meet the wrong person. I think the book is about the reality of life. ( )