AustLit

'Alice is trapped by her misreading of love in a marriage that stifles her passion and independence. The ''person'' of her husband is driven by ambition - his own material advantage. With uncompromising rationality Alice analyses the beliefs and actions that underlie their marital relationship. Their drama plays out against a background of Oxford university and village life where Alice comes to realise that love is more easily recognised than understood.'' ''Nikos Athanasou probes into the lives of his characters with forensic skill, revealing how emotional insecurities can trigger dysfunctional philosophies of love.'' Rhyll McMaster. The Person of the Man is an exploration of love and possession set against the backdrop of university and country life in Oxford. It analyses the pathological marriage between an Oxford academic of Australian origin and his English wife. The basis of this marriage is essentially the universal Hobbesian dictum that ''what most people regard as love is really just approval or more precisely the absence of disapproval''. When Martin's betrayal and the tragedy that follows reveal the true Person of the Man Alice discovers that love cannot be analysed, it can only be understood.' (Publication summary)