To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Books May 24, 1999 URL: http://www.salon.com/books/bag/1999/05/24/updike Updike in love The author of "Rabbit, Run" picks the five greatest novels about romance. - - - - - - - - - - - - By John Updike Loving by Henry Green An English estate in Ireland during World War II lyrically houses amorous doings among both masters and servants. Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert A young bourgeois wife seeks spiritual and sexual fulfillment away from the marital bed and runs grievously into debt. The Princesse de Clèves by Madame de Lafayette A long extramarital attraction is consummated by the heroine’s announcement that the way to keep love alive is not to marry. Les Liaisons Dangereuses by Choderlos de Laclos Polymorphous seduction and betrayal among the terminally jaded 18th century aristocracy: an epistolary novel. The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne Among the Puritan pioneers of Boston, a promising clergyman falls afoul of a dark-haired proto-feminist and her wizardly older husband. salon.com | May 24, 1999