How Proust Can Change Your Life

Brilliantly witty and erudite, at home in English and French, knowledgeable in art and literature, Alain de Botton mixes genres to pull out lessons on life and love from Proust's works, while also discussing Chardin and Ruskin and numerous other artists and writers, in addition to discussing Proust's long sentences in a picturesque manner that all really does make us think about our own lives, behavior, and relationships.

Quirky. Quick read. Intriguing hybrid of self-help, biography, literary criticism, and philosophy. With chapter titles like: How to Read for Yourself, How to Suffer Successfully, and How to Be a Good Friend, I found myself wanting to take notes. That I'm ultimately seeking relationship advice from a "reclusive, mustachioed novelist not known for his interest in golf, tennis, or bridge (though he had once tried checkers, and twice aided in the launching of a kite), a man who spent the last fourteen years lying in a narrow bed under a pile of thinly woven woolen blankets writing an unusually long novel without an adequate bedside lamp" really says more about me, than it does about this book. Enjoy!

This book has been ludicrously dismissed as 'facile' by sniffy snobs. The dismaying fact remains that in this age of overcrowding media vying for our attention, you have to be pretty convincing to make people want to give a large chunk of their lives to a 4000 page novel about sponge cakes, silly aristocrats and sickly fops.
De Botton manages this with ease. His book is an excellent precis of Proustian concerns - time, love, friendship, literature - told in deceptively simple language masking thoroughness and complexity. His aren't the last words on these subjects, they are starting points which allow the virgin reader a map when starting on the vast terrain of A La Recherche.
His own prose is elegant, suggestive and sometimes very funny, while his emphasis on the personal is at the same time endearing, a way into the book, and true to Proust. He fills in his narrative with much biographical, historical and anecdotal matter, drawing on letters, newspapers, memoires, which are both illuminating and entertaining.
His own method is seemingly the opposite of Proust's, immediately lucid and precise, but the form of his book follows the Proustian pattern, whereby the book heading in one direction turns in on itself, becomes a book about itself, its own creation, even negating itself as it tells us to abandon Proust if we want to be true to the spirit of Proust.
The book isn't perfect - sometimes the prose is a little TOO easy; both Proust and De Botton come across as near-saintly figures, full of understanding and kindness, when the truth (with Proust at any rate) is much messier; and the last two chapters are a little rushed. But few books outside the thriller genre have delighted me and kept me reading feverishly to the end like this little trinket.

Someone told me last night that they were averse to starting Proust because they had read a 110-page
life of Proust and his character was not the most admirable. I say, before he consigns Proust to the dust
bin, he might want to read this funny volume! I am not claiming to have read all of Proust, but some of it can
be a delight, like for example, the initial Swann's Way: In Search of Lost Time, Vol. 1 (Penguin Classics Deluxe Edition), is I guess my favorite. I can't tell you which is the best edition and/or translation, though last night we were saying the older Montcrieff was good. You can read Botton's book whether you are ever going to read Proust or not and it'll be a blast. For a pre-Proust read, definitely Alain de Botton.

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.

From being a bit of a science fiction junkie (because there was no sex in it) I've become a bit of a literature junkie. Joseph Conrad probably started it, but the non-SF novels of Philip K Dick had a big influence too. Gradually I've explored Turgenev, Huysmans, ETA Hoffman - as well as more traditional fare such as Dostoevsky, Eliot, Sands ..... (And the less traditional - Anna Kavan, WH Hudson, and so on). But not Proust.

I'm not sure why I picked up 'How Proust Can Change Your Life' - perhaps I was looking for something - anything - that would change my life. I recognise that my view of Proust is entirely coloured by de Botton's view, but even so I am amazed at what I read. It's not that I think there is anything especially good about Proust - a battling, struggling individual who just happened to have a way with words - with lots and lots of them. But I do see so much of myself in Proust. And I can understand why some people don't get it: to see the world the way Proust did (as described by de Botton anyway). For example, to be free of the mask of familiarity that devalues so much of the - no, it's not beauty of the world although that's what de Botton calls it - it's the reality of the world. And yet, if what de Botton is describing is accurate, it is something I share with Proust. And, with that overwhelming view of the world, I can understand why so much of Proust's life was 'degraded', 'diminished', 'withdrawn' - scattered with bursts of escaping but having to return to the seclusion.

Will I read Proust for myself? I am unsure if I can. I am unsure if I will be able to resist. If this book doesn't mean a lot to you on first reading, I suggest you read it again. It's not such a labour to do so. Keep an eye open for surprising views of things, and let me assure you that such sensitivities do exist - although I have no reason why.

The one thing I would have liked with this book is a list of references. Since Proust wrote so much - where do de Botton's quotes come from. There are authors quoted too, without specific refernce to where the quote came.

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.

Unlike Marcel Proust, Alain de Botton does not beat around the bush! While Proust's ideas dance around the verbosity of the ordinary, I'm more impressed with Alain de Botton's lesson of understanding and appreciating the seemingly banal. As the director of a Philosophy department, Practical Philosophy might as well be Botton's specialty. His many books on similar topics are witty and fun musings into the nature of reality. His many works range from the abstractions of love to the joy of travel, and even the meaning of work! I recommend this and all his books.

Looking at the reviews of this book, you wonder whether people are talking about the same book. Some call it excellent, others a complete load of nonsense. I can see why people might complain. They might say that you need to read Proust and not read a guide on Proust. But that misses out what this book is really about. It's not attempting to be a "guide"; It's certainly not attempting to replace Proust. It's just looking at a certain side of Proust's thought; what one might call his therapeutic side, and tracing it very skillfully through the letters and the biography and the novel. It reads unbelievably clearly - and so, if one's feeling ungenerous, it might be accused of being "simplistic," but that's naive. This kind of clarity and lucidity requires an enormous effort and huge talent. Alain de Botton's work is uneven. The Romantic Movement didn't really work, Kiss & Tell was Ok but only OK, but he triumphed in two books; On Love and now this title. I can only urge serious readers to take a look at this book. This is a book that matters. It's going to go down in history as one of the finest, most intelligent pieces of literary criticism of the 20th century.

I hate literary criticism. Few things make me bristle more than the thought of anonymous critics deconstructing classic works of literature and reshaping them to fit pre-constructed agendas. Alain de Botton, in his delightful, "How Proust Can Change Your Life," proves that if a critic is a writer first, even the distatsteful act of criticism can sparkle. de Botton has a quirky conversational tone, seamlessly blending personal anecdote, biographical background, and literary wordplay (check out the swirling sentence in Chapter 3) to create the greatest possible result, making the reader want to revisit the always daunting Marcel and his brilliant "Remembrance of Things Past." This is the greatest achievement a critic can hope for, and De Botton accomplishes it marvelously. This book is perfect.

If it weren't for his graceful writing, graceful thinking, graceful gracefulness, this book might, like De Botton tells us Proust was, be too ingratiating. But it isn't. The book is enjoyable to read. Makes you feel a little refined in your head. Makes you feel like being gracious to the whole world, except, possibly, those not so gracious as yourself....

Still, I'd recommend it, even relatively highly. There's information, a refined style, and more than a few points one could do worse than to take to heart.

Marcel Proust, like his fellow modernist icons, Kafka and Joyce, produced a literature which is entirely personal, devoid of the kind of universality which had, up until their time, characterized the Western Canon. If it is a coincidence, it is a revelatory one, that the key moment in Swann's Way, if not in all of In Search of Lost Time, comes with a perversion of the Communion. A bite of madeleine and a sip of tea sends Proust's narrator/Proust reeling back through the years, turns him entirely inwards, and inundates him with personal memories and feelings. During this reverie, Proust's older self essentially communes with his younger self, or selves. Here we have the individual, whole unto himself, needing only his own feelings and memories to find those things which give his life meaning.
This stands thousands of years of the Judeo-Christian tradition on its head. It has been the dream of Western man, and a noble one, that we might rise beyond purely personal concerns and achieve something together as a species, achieve one day a kind of godhood ourselves. In no small part, it is this shared dream, and its requirement of communality, which has led us to create the liberal protestant capitalist democratic institutions which have made possible social progress over the past several centuries. Though these institutions vindicate individual rights, they are focussed on the ways in which men can co-exist and work together. Each in its own way is premised on the Golden Rule : Do unto others as you would have done unto you. Each of us, as individuals, will reap the benefit of the general adherence to this stricture, but it is primarily concerned with how we behave towards others. Similarly, during the Communion we turn not inwards but outwards, remembering the sacrifice that Christ made, taking our sinfulness upon himself, that we might approach closer to God.
It is unsurprising then that the 20th Century, with Proust (and Darwin and Nietzsche and Freud and Marx and Joyce) leading the intellectual way, saw the near collapse of Judeo-Christian tradition and Western institutions and a descent into barbarism, as people acted out the ideas of the vanguard, with every man seeking only his own self interest. What is surprising is that so many chose to listen to the utter blather of such men. And none of those men, bizarre as they generally were, made a more unlikely prophet than Proust.
A truly curious conceit animates the cult of Proust, the belief that the very characteristics which made Marcel Proust so completely aberrant, also made him uniquely perceptive about the human condition. Here's how de Botton puts it :
The magnitude of Proust's misfortunes should not be allowed to cast doubt on the validity of his ideas.
...
Though philosophers have traditionally been concerned with the pursuit of happiness, far greater wisdom would seem to lie in pursuing ways to be properly and productively unhappy. The stubborn recurrence of misery means that the development of a workable approach to it must surely outstrip the value of any utopian quest for happiness. Proust, a veteran of grief, knew as much.
Meanwhile, here's as good a one sentence description of Proust as I could find :
A mother's boy who never really grew up, a part-genuine, part-imaginary invalid totally incapable of looking after himself, a reluctant homosexual who may never have known genuine fulfillment, he spent his early manhood in Parisian high society and then retired, hermit-like, to his famous cork-lined room, where he turned day into night and night into day. -John Weightman, Books Unlimited review of How Proust Can Change Your Life
Okay, so that would make him a gay, hypochondriacal, mama-loving, French, recluse. And it necessarily raises the question : what does someone who was little more than a bundle of neuroses--someone who seemingly incorporated most of the pathologies of a 20th Century which we generally consider to have been a blood soaked disaster--have to tell us about life in general ?
Alain de Botton believes Proust has quite a bit to tell us, and he tries mightily to make Proust seem pertinent to our lives. In effect, de Botton reads In Search of Lost Time as a huge self help manual. This is often very funny, and is presumably intended to be ironic, but is ultimately unconvincing. The many stories he tells about Proust and about contemporary reaction to his writing are quite amusing, but he can never quite get us convincingly past that first big hurdle : Proust was simply too screwed up for us to accept that he has much to say to us. Having successfully turned inward himself, he found nothing but himself, and an unpleasant self at that. The resulting fiction is necessarily idiosyncratic and personal, rather than universal. In the end, all Proust really had to say was what it was like to be Proust, which does not seem to have been a particularly enjoyable experience. Combine that with the fact that he said it in the most stultifyingly boring fashion and at interminable length and there's just no compelling reason to read him.
Each chapter of de Botton's book is based on something he maintains Proust can teach us, and the final chapter is called "How to Put Books Down." One has to assume that this is intentionally humorous on de Botton's part, because there may be no other author who has forced as many readers to put his book's down as Proust. They are truly unreadable, as the comments of even his friends and family acknowledge. If, like me, you feel some obligation to at least familiarize yourself with Proust's work, do yourself a huge favor and read How Proust Can Change Your Life instead of the original novels. Despite its ostensible intent, it will cure you of any desire to pick up a Proustian tome in the first place.
GRADE : B+

There are few works of literary criticism that have touched me as much as this one. Botton brings a lightness of touch to the deepest ideas, and what shines through is how funny and observant he is. I had never read Proust, and I don't know if I will even now. It's wrong to read this book as some kind of guide to Proust - a dummy's guide. It's far more than that, or rather, it's not really interested in teaching something like for a college class. It feels like a personal, intimate book - where the author, via Proust, discovers some essential things. Buy it.

This is a very interesting look at Proust and his way of looking at things. One thing puzzles me though - the author stresses at one point not to fall into the trap of idolatry. This seems to be very usefull advice and all - but haven't we already fallen into that trap by reading this book - it seems like quite a paradox to me - anyway....it is an enjoyable book that makes one's admiration of Proust that much greater - it may even help us enjoy the world we live in a little more - a fantastic effort!

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...

Another fascinating book by Alain De Botton, and a book on a fascinating character. Amazing insights and suggestions into living in this world with topics as diverse as our relationships, being a good friend, expressing our emotions and what to get from reading. Made me want to launch (with some trepidation) into Proust's work.

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.

Utterly unique: How Proust Can Change Your Life is criticism, history, biography, psychology, it is speculation and sheer joy. Share it with people you cherish, give it with enthusiasm: people will love it and you for the consideration. Amazing how perceptive De Botton is, how subtle his distinctions, how articulate his formulations. . . like nothing I have read in literary criticism: elucidating, informative, evocative and ultimately, if conceivable, an enhancement to the pleasures of reading Proust; a wonderful introduction, a rewarding reflection of/ on the original.

I have to appreciate Alain de Botton's graceful prose and neat (if somewhat arbitrary) categorizations of human problems. The title is more or less a joke--this is not liable to institute sweeping changes in your life, but may change your perspective on certain matters, which is more or less changing your life, I suppose. It made a very good before-bed book.

Enjoyable book by a young, enthusiastic author. The themes here repeat in his fiction, but he'll mature. Meanwhile, it would be hard not to get something out of this. I've bought it to give to friends.

This is De Botton at his erudite best. An insightful, witty and intelligent book. It's a quick read unlike Proust and the great thing is you do not even have to have read Proust to appreciate it. De Botton is a marvellous writer and disects Proust's work in an ingenious manner. Throughly recommended.

Alain de Botton's slim volume contains a reasonably good argument for making the considerable investment of time and energy required to read In Search of Lost Time. I don't recall the author promising that reading his book will change one's life, or that reading Proust's work will necessarily be a life-changing experience--only that it might turn out that way.

I was given a dog-eared copy of How Proust Can Change Your Life by a friend whom I'd told I was considering giving Proust a go. I read maybe half of it, found it amusing, and found the portrayal of Proust amusing as well. The book seemed to fizzle out after that, but what I'd read was enough to get me started on Swann's Way. I had not expected Proust to be comical in any way, but I credit Alain de Botton for illuminating Proust's self-deprecating sense of humor. Had it not been for that, I might never have made it past the famous and seemingly interminable description of juvenile insomnia that opens Swann's Way, much less enjoyed it.

Five years later, I have just finished The Captive and plan to begin The Fugitive within the next month or so. Has Proust changed my life? Well, yes. His work has attuned me to the importance of paying attention, resisting the dulling effects of habit, slowing down, finding meaning in the ordinary rhythms of life, accepting the painful inevitabilities of existence, laughing at my own foibles. There's more, but I won't bore you with it.

Proust is not everyone's cup of tea. But he might be yours. And if he is, you're in for what can, in fact, be a life-changing experience. (At the rate I'm reading him, it could also be a lifelong experience.) You may not be happier, handsomer, thinner, richer, or smarter, but you just might have a better understanding of why being who, what, and where you are is worthy of your attention.

If you're thinking about diving into Proust and not sure that it will be worth the effort, I'd recommend spending a few bucks on this primer first. If it inspires you to move on to the real thing, that's great. If it doesn't, you will have saved yourself hundreds of hours of what could be, for some, utter tedium. And if happiness, beauty, and wealth are what you really want, and you want them now, there's always Dr. Phil.

If ever thou - in momentary agonies - feelest that self-affirmation is the remedy for the miseries of this life then, I say unto thee, this bijou volumette should lubricate the very coggery of thy mind and illumine the innermost sancta of a truly great soul, in which is perfected the quintessence of humanity. Perchance this then might reveal itself to be the volume of thine own most ravishing phantasms, and transports of inestimable worth!

Several friends and I decided to read this book to learn about life. It is thoughtfully written and an entertaining to read. The author has a style of writing that is clear, introspective and interesting. I recommend this book to anyone who wants to learn about themselves and about the world.

This is a brilliant book. Written with great humour and understated but piercing intelligence, its a really enjoyable work that riffs off Proust with dazzling style. Enjoy this early work from one of Europe's rising literary stars.

I enjoyed this book because, having never read Proust, I gleaned a lot of his ideas and philosophies. De Botton is a fabulous writer who effectively compares these lofty ideas with real tangible events in our lives.

Great read.

Me and Doris liked this horrible and severe text - but it totally omitted all notion of Proust's hard work in the bush leagues with Alaska's minor leage baseball "Fightin' Eskimos" before he went on to join the Parisian avant guarde of the early 20th C. If you want I can show you a picture of Proust at one of the early Idederod races, but this book is a waste of time if like me your key interest in doctoral studies is Proustian-Alaska biological lies.
DO NOT USE THIS TEXT FOR THAT KIND OF RESEARCH!

Disappointing self-help/literary guidebook that came utterly lavished with positive reviews; The New Yorker said of the book "Curious, humorous, didactic and dazzling...It contains more human interest and play of fancy than most fiction." Maybe I'm missing something or was just looking for something else, but it seems to me that Alain de Botton's book is nothing more than a banal self-help book that is more eloquently written than the other works in this dubious genre. Botton doesn't offer the reader much in the way of literary analysis or explication, rather, he merely uses the life (and scatterings of the work) of Marcel Proust to launch into his mediocre prescriptions for living. Surprisingly, little is actually said about In Search of Lost Time, the author prefers to inundate the reader with scatterings of anecdotes about Proust's health problems and social life. There are a few sections which are worthwhile, such as the great "what if it could have been another way?" conversation between Proust and James Joyce that reads like,

"PROUST [while taking furtive stabs at an homard a l'americaine, huddled in his fur coat]: Monsieur Joyce, do you know the Duc de Clermont-Tonnerre?

JOYCE: Please, appelez-moi James. Le Duc! What a close and excellent friend, the kindest man I have met from here to Limerick.

PROUST: Really? I am so glad we agree [beaming at the discovery of his common acquaintance], though I have not yet been to Limerick.

VIOLET SCHIFF [leaning across, with a hostess's delicacy, to Proust]: Marcel, do you know Jame's big book?

PROUST: Ulysses? Naturellement. Who had not read the masterpiece of our new century? [Joyce blushes modestly, but nothing can disguise his delight].

VIOLET SCHIFF: Do you remember any passages in it?

PROUST: Madame, I remember the entire book. For instance, when the hero goes to the library, excuse my anglais, but I cannot resist [starting to quote]: "Urbane, to comfort them, the quaker librarian purred..." (pg. 112).

There is also some interesting discouragement from Virginia Woolf upon reading Proust's great masterpiece,

"I detest my own vocabulary. Why be always spouting words? [...] Take up Proust after dinner and put him down. This is the worst time of all. It makes me suicidal. Nothing seems left to do. All seems insipid and worthless." (pg. 187).

Unfortunately however, How Proust can Change Your Life is ultimately an overstated, dressed up self-help book with many useless suggestions about how you should live. It is not substantive literary criticism. For the latter, I suggest you seek out the work of Edmund Wilson.

The book covers the life of Marcel Proust, which is pretty uneventful. Alain de Botton tries to draw out wisdom from Prousts writings and life experiences but doesn't elaborate enough. He also throws in a lot of distasteful British humor. If your interested in Marcel Proust, then read through "In Search of Lost Time".

Its a great little book that gives one some perspective on the overall ideas of Proust. I found myself applying to life. I loved the idea of seeing other people you know inside faces and people in art / movies etc. Sometimes when you go to a gallery that has hundreds of portraits or saints etc. it can get a bit dry. Although it really does feel nice to see an old relatives likeness in something and then sit down ponder the idea and feel fresh when walking into the next room.