A bestselling author draws on the work of one of history’s most important writers to show us how to best live life in a book that’s "delightfully original.... A self-help book in the deepest sense of the term" (The New York Times).
Alain de Botton combines two unlikely genres—literary biography and self-help manual—in the hilarious and unexpectedly practical How Proust Can Change Your Life.
Who would have thought that Marcel Proust, one of the most important writers of our century, could provide us with such a rich source of insight into how best to live life? Proust understood that the essence and value of life was the sum of its everyday parts. As relevant today as they were at the turn of the century, Proust's life and work are transformed here into a no-nonsense guide to, among other things, enjoying your vacation, reviving a relationship, achieving original and unclichéd articulation, being a good host, recognizing love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on a first date. It took de Botton to find the inspirational in Proust's essays, letters and fiction and, perhaps even more surprising, to draw out a vivid and clarifying portrait of the master from between the lines of his work.
Here is Proust as we have never seen or read him before: witty, intelligent, pragmatic. He might well change your life.
Editorial Reviews
Review
"Delightfully original.... As well as being criticism, biography, literary history, and a reader's guide to Proust's masterpiece, this is a self-help book in the deepest sense of the term." —The New York Times
"One of my favorite books of the year.... Seriously cheeky, cheekily serious." —Julian Barnes
"Curious, humorous, didactic, and dazzling.... It contains more human interest and play of fancy than most fiction." —John Updike, The New Yorker
"A witty, elegant book that helps us learn what reading is for." —Doris Lessing
"A wonderful meditation on aspects of Proust in the form of a self-help book. Very enjoyable." —Sebastian Faulks
"Funny and very refreshing." —San Francisco Chronicle
From the Inside Flap
Alain de Botton combines two unlikely genres--literary biography and self-help manual--in the hilarious and unexpectedly practical How Proust Can Change Your Life.
Who would have thought that Marcel Proust, one of the most important writers of our century, could provide us with such a rich source of insight into how best to live life? Proust understood that the essence and value of life was the sum of its everyday parts. As relevant today as they were at the turn of the century, Proust's life and work are transformed here into a no-nonsense guide to, among other things, enjoying your vacation, reviving a relationship, achieving original and unclichéd articulation, being a good host, recognizing love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on a first date. It took de Botton to find the inspirational in Proust's essays, letters and fiction and, perhaps even more surprising, to draw out a vivid and clarifying portrait of the master from between the lines of his work.
Here is Proust as we have never seen or read him before: witty, intelligent, pragmatic. He might well change your life.
From the Back Cover
Alain de Botton combines two unlikely genres--literary biography and self-help manual--in the hilarious and unexpectedly practical How Proust Can Change Your Life.
Who would have thought that Marcel Proust, one of the most important writers of our century, could provide us with such a rich source of insight into how best to live life? Proust understood that the essence and value of life was the sum of its everyday parts. As relevant today as they were at the turn of the century, Proust's life and work are transformed here into a no-nonsense guide to, among other things, enjoying your vacation, reviving a relationship, achieving original and uncliched articulation, being a good host, recognizing love, and understanding why you should never sleep with someone on a first date. It took de Botton to find the inspirational in Proust's essays, letters and fiction and, perhaps even more surprising, to draw out a vivid and clarifying portrait of the master from between the lines of his work.
Here is Proust as we have never seen or read him before: witty, intelligent, pragmatic. He might well change your life.
About the Author
ALAIN DE BOTTON was born in 1969. He is the internationally heralded author of the novels On Love, The Romantic Movement, and Kiss and Tell; his work has been translated into sixteen languages. He lives in Washington, D.C., and London.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Following is an excerpt from Chapter 8, "How to be Happy in Love":
Q: Did Proust have any relevant thoughts on dating? What should one talk about on a first date?
A: Advice is scant. A more fundamental doubt is whether one should accept dinner in the first place.
There is no doubt that a person's charms are less frequently a cause of love than a remark such as: "No, this evening I shan't be free."
If this response proves bewitching, it is because of the connection made...between appreciation and absence. Though a person may be filled with attributes, an incentive is nevertheless required to ensure that a seducer will focus wholeheartedly on these, an incentive which finds perfect form in
a dinner rebuff.
Q: Was he against sex before marriage?
A: No, just before love. And not for any starchy reasons, simply because he felt it wasn't a good idea to sleep together when encouraging someone to fall in love was a consideration.
Women who are to some extent resistant, whom one cannot possess at once, whom one does not even know at first whether one will ever possess, are the only interesting ones.
Q: Surely not?
A: Other women may of course be fascinating, the problem is that they risk not seeming so...
Q: Are there any secrets to long-lasting relationships?
A: Infidelity. Not the act itself, but the threat of it. For Proust, an injection of jealousy is the only thing capable of rescuing a relationship ruined by habit...The threat of losing their partner
may lead them to realize that they have not appreciated this person adequately...If someone threatens the relationship, they get jealous, wake up for a moment, have another kiss with the horny tusk, and get bored once more. Condensed into a male heterosexual version, the situation runs
like this:
Afraid of losing her, we forget all the others. Sure of keeping her, we compare her with the those others whom at once we prefer to her.
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Product details
Publisher : Vintage; First Edition (April 28, 1998)
Language : English
Paperback : 208 pages
ISBN-10 : 0679779159
ISBN-13 : 978-0679779155
Item Weight : 7.2 ounces
Dimensions : 5.16 x 0.56 x 7.98 inches
Best Sellers Rank: #188,111 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
#35 in French Literary Criticism (Books)
#75 in French Literature (Books)
#437 in Literary Criticism & Theory
Customer Reviews: 4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 1,477 ratings
