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Title: How Proust Can Change Your Life: Not a Novel by Alain De Botton ISBN: 0-679-77915-9 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 28 April, 1998 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.99 (83 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Finding serenity in a labyrinth
Comment: Then, as a chocolate truffle comes at the end of a seven course meal and threatens to dissolve the wonders of all the complexities of taste that had come previously to the pallate, came Alain de Botton's How Proust Can Change Your Life--for, having been introduced to Proust, like M. Botton, at an early age, perhaps too early to appreciate it to the fullest degree possible, yet grateful for the experience, I had taken the full meal before the truffle--and I was filled with a sense of new taste, and new desires for old tastes; yet I also marvelled how the book remained light, well-informed of but unburdened by the labyrinthine Proustian sentence structure and syntax (which is featured on a particular page containing the longest sentence in literature--Proust's, of course); and I found new clarity in all my emotions, especially in how much I hated James Joyce, all through the instruction of this book; which I must admit is far better if you have taken the year off and read In Search of Lost Time; and it occured to me that one could easily talk of any chapter of this book in analysis, which is a high, high compliment, for it indicates that an experience with a book can penetrated one's very psyche; and what better is there in the book than the Proustian paradoxical discovery of finding all complexities of beauty in the simple, the uncomplicated, the serene--this is a great book, which makes, unlike so many books, an exceedingly gracious exit, advising us, importantly--perhaps saving our lives!--how to ESCAPE from the spell of great books, of which this may be one, and which certainly derives from the richest seven-course meal the French have yet offered the world.
Rating: 5
Summary: Provisionally a minor classic
Comment: I found this book to be original and thought-provoking.
For some reason, it evoked a similar state of mind to that which I experience while reading Iris Murdoch's "Under The Net".
It appears to be a light philosophical treatise, albeit disguised as light literary criticism. As such, it passes the essential test of practicality. I have found myself (mentally) referring back to certain passages when wondering what to do about this or that situation in my own life.
I also found it to be very good fun to read.
Time and re-reading often do strange things to books. So I am not prepared to come to a conclusion about "How Proust Can Change Your Life" until I have read it again in a couple of years' time. But I am already looking forward to doing so.
Meanwhile, thanks Alain de B for a very unusual experience.
Rating: 5
Summary: GET THIS BOOK
Comment: I read all the time, every day, and this book is fantastic. I've read Proust, but it isn't necessary to have read him to love this book. In fact, this book makes a nice introduction to Proust, and if you wanted to fake having read Proust, this would be an enjoyable way to pick up enough information to do just that :-)
This book is simply one of the loveliest meditations on reading and life, and how they intertwine, that I've ever read. It's not a book for people who don't like to read, but for anyone who DOES like to read, I think it would make a lovely gift. I gave it to myself, and I thanked myself for it very much.
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Title: The Consolations of Philosophy by Alain De Botton ISBN: 0679779175 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 03 April, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Art of Travel by Alain de Botton ISBN: 0375420827 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 30 July, 2002 List Price(USD): $23.00 |
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Title: On Love by Alain de Botton, Alain Botton, Alain de Botton ISBN: 0802134092 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: January, 1995 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: The Romantic Movement : Sex, Shopping, and the Novel by Alain De Botton ISBN: 0312144032 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 15 May, 1996 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Kiss & Tell by Alain De Botton ISBN: 0312155611 Publisher: Picador USA Pub. Date: 15 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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