"Love endureth all things": Salley Vickers Discusses Love

Frequent Corfu visitor Salley Vickers, novelist and psychoanalyst, talks about varieties of love, on Something Understood, BBC Radio 4 IPlayer.

"John McCarthy is joined by writer Salley Vickers to reflect on the centrality of love in our lives, considering I Corinthians 13. This is sometimes referred to as the "love chapter" of the New Testament and is often read at weddings and funerals. Tony Blair read it at Princess Diana's funeral.

The chapter includes images and phrases which are known to us all, such as the invitation to "put off childish things" and the mystery of "seeing through a glass darkly".

Salley Vickers' first novel, Miss Garnett's Angel, became a phenomenal word-of-mouth hit and was followed by other greatly loved books, such as Mr Golightly's Holiday, The Other Side of You and Dancing Backwards. Salley has a skill at merging ancient art and modern psychology in her stories and often deals with Biblical matters. Her latest book The Cleaner of Chartres explores one of her best loved themes - the power of love to transform.

In this programme Salley considers I Corinthians 13 firstly as a piece of literature by examining how it works in terms of shape, tone, and images. She then brings her own experience to the chapter as both writer and psychotherapist. Questions arise as to whether it is true that "love never faileth" as the chapter says, what the value is of "putting off childish things", and whether it is always the case that love is greater that faith and hope".