How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel

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Summary: A gem of a book
Review: I've never read Proust before, and never thought I ever would, but having read this delicious little gem, I think I will start straightaway. This book is deeply infused with a love of literature, and it communicates it brilliantly to the reader.

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Summary: A must read.
Review: One of the finest books I've ever read. Subtle, profound and very amusing.

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Summary: A Meeting Point of Modernism and Post-Modernism...
Review: De Botton's "How Proust Can Change Your Life" is yet another fix in the flux of experimental fiction, namely experiments on the essence of autobiographies and biographies. Previous examples of these particular experimental novels include Woolf's "Orlando", Stein's "The Autobiography of Alice B. Tolkas" and Winterson's "Oranges Are Not The Only Fruit". De Botton's narrative is an indication of an influenced by Proust De Botton, and, interestingly enough, there are moments in the book itself where one can actually visualize the two authors in conversation. What is it that we can learn from the Master's experiences that are not included in his opus? One thing I learnt was that even Virginia Woolf was so enthralled with Proust's work that she almost gave up writing. However, she held her head high and continued trying and then came up with "Mrs. Dalloway". The book is in a DIY Acheive Happiness form, and what can be more refreshing today than that? My favorite chapter - in the sense that I have picked up something from it that will stay with me for life - is the "How To Open Your Eyes" chapter where De Botton points out that with a short story, Proust was trying to teach us an important lesson: namely, not to ascribe any value to the objects - tangible or non - that surround us but the _correct_ value. And in a world that tends towards superfluity and insatiability, what could be a better awakening?

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Summary: Perhaps I missed something...
Review: The reviews speak of wittiness and humor. While I have read fiction ("High Fidelity", "Keep the Change") and non-fiction ("Culture of Complaint" "I'm Dysfunctional,You're Dysfunctional") which I have found intelligent and humorous, this was not one of those books. At no time did I laugh. While I did find parts entertaining, I give this book a lukewarm 3 stars.

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Summary: Pretentious, patronising and superficial
Review: One of the worse books I have ever read - I love Proust and I found really painful having to go through a very superficial, patronising and pretentious account of Proust's writing, probably meant to give a few hints for dinner-party conversations about famous writers.

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Summary: How to be light and profound at the same time
Review: This is a very engaging and deft homage to Marcel Proust. Proust, rather than his immense novel ("In Search of Lost Time" is de Botton's preference over the usual English title "Remembrances of Things Past"--he does not comment on whether "The Sweet Cheat Gone" is an improvement upon "Albertine disparue") is generally the exemplar. I.e., the books is about what can be learned from the suffering author more than from the suffering narrator of his masterpiece. As filled with delights and profound lessons as the book is, I felt that De Botton evaded THE major question about transforming Proust's experiences of frustration in loving males into the narrator's experience of frustration in loving females. Because it is Proust rather than the fictional Marcel who is central, this is all the more crucial. Did the climate of repression of the time prevent Proust from writing from an openly homosexual perspective about life and love? De Botton is eager to accept Marcel's heterosexualization, even supplying a picture of his girlfriend (to prevent anyone thinking that so deep an immersion into the life and writings of a homosexual indicates the author is also one?). This is not merely a matter of identity politics. The possibilities of sex on a first meeting, to take one instance of what De Botton discusses, are (and were a century ago in France) different for male partners than for female ones. Still, De Botton's book is brilliant with many insights that are not compromised by not problematizing Marcel's heterosexual liaisons. I can't imagine a reader of Proust not finding passages to nod "Yes, exactly" and sections that will make her/him laugh aloud.

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Summary: Sans compare...
Review: Yes, yes, i know Albertine. After several years of living under the yoke of Harold Bloom and Northrop Frye et al who could suck the life out of a cadavre, Botton, a punk at 29, makes me realize that i am not floating alone in a boat in the adriatic. Kudos to Msr. Botton...

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Summary: Very clever, but somehow incomplete.
Review: This monograph on Proust is very enjoyable. Who would have thought that the Master's observations could be neatly paraphrased in a Self-Help format? And yet, here they are. De Boton should be commended for writing a book that is charming, witty, and, most important, lucid (how can one write about a book which seems to have said it all?) But his depiction of In Search of Lost Time is, in some ways, skewed; it's much EARTHIER than he makes it out to be. In the chapter, "How to Open Your Eyes," for example, De Boton alludes to Proust's belief that great art can reawaken the senses, allowing us to perceive afresh "the aroma of fresh asparagus," among other things. It is not, however, the smell of asparagus itself, but its scent in the narrator's urine which excites him: "...all night long after a dinner of which I had partaken of [the asparagus], they played (lyrical and coarse in their jesting as the fairies in Shakespeare's Dream) at transforming my chamber pot into a vase of aromatic perfume." More troubling is the omission of the narrator's predilection for sadism, and Proust's homosexuality, which is given only a glancing treatment. I would suggest an additional chapter to Mr. De Boton: "How to be a Good Bottom." It would include anecdotes about Proust's patronage of MALE prostitutes, passages from "Cities on the Plain" ("By dint of thinking tenderly of men one becomes a woman" is one of the more delicious ones), and drawings by Tom of Finland. I admire De Boton's book; it's great fun! But after putting it down, I felt slightly cheated: When will we get a biography of Proust that neither omits the less rarefied elements of his writing, nor whitewashes the "unseemly" aspects of his personal life? Proust's nonjudgmental depiction of sexuality was one of his most profound innovations. I would tell readers to enjoy this slightly superficial treatment, and then look forward to a serious biography, perhaps the one that ! author Edmund White is supposedly working on now. White is a more thoughtful writer, and probably won't insert a picture of his boyfriend, the way De Boton puts in his girlfriend (what was THAT about?) Overall, a strong 7. If you love Proust, you'll probably scarf it down, like I did, in an afternoon; but if you're looking for something more serious, just read Swann's Way.

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Summary: An opportunity to re-visit Proust's world
Review: One of the biggest reasons for melancholy in my life is having already read Proust's Recherche: I can't have again the pleasure of reading it for the first time. Therefore the book by Alain de Botton was a great experience. It allows you to read again Proust without re-reading the novel. I recommend this book to all those who feel melancholy when they see the already read volumes of the Recherche on their shelves. José Mª Gómez. Spain.

Rating:
Summary: fantastic book
Review: This is one of the most amusing and perceptive books I have ever read. De Botton manages to capture the essence of Proust and to provide a work that is utterly focussed and coherent. An admirable and skilful exercise. I cannot recommend it enough.