The Symposium

A series of stories by Martin Marks

Philosophers from Plato to Haddaway have asked the same fundamental question: "what is love?" While the latter simply responded "baby, don't hurt me no more," the former addressed the question in one of his most famous Socratic dialogues, the Symposium. The dialogue brought together such great minds as Socrates and Aristophanes to discuss the nature of love while drinking heavily.

This, then, is a literary symposium, a chance for twelve fictional characters chosen from my eclectic bookshelf to sit down, drink together, and come up with their own definition of love. All twelve have something to say on the subject, from twelve different perspectives, in twelve unique voices.

characters	Dramatis Personae.
interlude	First Interlude.
fenchurch	Fenchurch, from Douglas Adams's So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, on love and madness.
interlude	Second Interlude.
deltoid	P.R. Deltoid, from Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork Orange, on tough love.
interlude	Third Interlude.
panther	Anthea, from E. Nesbit's Five Children and It, on love of family.
interlude	Fourth Interlude.
finn	Finn MacCool, a character from Irish legend, on love of nation.
interlude	Fifth Interlude.
franny	Franny Berry, from John Irving's The Hotel New Hampshire, on loving bears and brothers.
interlude	Sixth Interlude.
robin	Robin Goodfellow, a character from English myth, on love and foolishness.
interlude	Seventh Interlude.
lotaria	Lotaria, from Italo Calvino's If on a winter's night a traveler, on love after the revolution.
interlude	Eighth Interlude.
haroun	Haroun Khalifa, from Salman Rushdie's Haroun and the Sea of Stories, on love of stories.
interlude	Ninth Interlude.
baba yaga	Baba Yaga, a character from Russian folklore, on hating love.
interlude	Tenth Interlude.
major major	Major Major Major Major, from Joseph Heller's Catch-22, on love of conformity.
interlude	Eleventh Interlude.
daisy	Daisy Buchanan, from F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, on the limits of love.
interlude	Twelfth Interlude.
rudy	Rudy Walsh, of Kurt Vonnegut's Deadeye Dick, on love amongst the neuters.
conclusion	Conclusion.

Unlike most of the other stories posted here, "The Symposium" is released under a Creative Commons license.