It’s a mistake to think that this kind of thing will tell you more about what a human being is. There was a huge amount of excitement a few years ago when somebody found what they called the love circuit, what lights up when you fall in love. Well, did you expect your brain to be a virgin when you fell in love? Of course, something in your brain is going to light up. Something in your brain lights up when you eat a cheese sandwich. This isn’t very interesting. It’s interesting in a way in putting into context what bits of the brain may be doing, but it doesn’t tell you anything about the experience of falling love. Brains don’t tell you about persons, they don’t tell us about consciousness, they don’t tell us about life.

Gary Shteyngart, author of Super Sad True Love Story, in his Fresh Air interview:

When I think of “1984” and “Brave New World,” two brilliant, dystopian books, I remember some of the ideas better in “Brave New World” because I think some of the ideas were stronger and more developed that Orwell’s sort of Stalinist take on Russia.

But I remember “1984” as a novel better because the romance between Julia and Winston was real. It was real, and it was a romance that stood against a society that just wanted to destroy them. And I think, you know, that’s why you root for Winston and Julia because you know that they’re doomed.

I was kind of a romantic kid, so one of the reasons I loved 1984 when I was in middle school was because it was a love story. Something a lot of people forget…