How Proust Can Change Your Life

Product Details

Author : Alain de Botton
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9780330354912
Number of Pages : 224
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 1998-04-09
Publisher : Picador

ASIN : 0330354914

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Editorial Reviews

Synopsis

'What a marvellous book this is ...de Botton dissects what (Proust) had to say about friendship, reading, looking carefully, paying attention taking your time, being alive and adds his own delicious commentary. The result is an intoxicating as it is wise, amusing as well as stimulating, and presented in so fresh a fashion as to be unique ...I could not stop, and now much start all over again.' - Brian Masters, "Mail on Sunday".'De Botton not only has a complete understanding of Proust's life ...but what is particularly charming about this small, readable book is its tongue-in-cheek benignity, its lightly held erudition and its generous way of lending itself to what is not only the greatest book of the century but also the darkest and the most eccentric' - Edmund White, "Observer".'It contains more human interest and play of fancy than most fiction ...de Botton, in emphasizing Proust's healing, advisory aspects, does us the service of rereading him on our behalf, providing of that vast sacred lake a sweet and lucid distillation.' - John Updike, "New Yorker".'De Botton's little book is so charming, amusing and sensible that it may even itself change your life.'- Allan Massie, "Daily Telegraph".'This engaging book is one of the most entertaining pieces of literary criticism I have read in a long while.' - "Sunday Telegraph".'A very enjoyable book' - "Sebastian Faulks".

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Customer Reviews

An erudite meditation on Marcel Proust's life - and its lessons (2008-01-28)

Are you tired of self-help manuals? Is that because the authors often seem to need help themselves? Or they all spout the same buzzwords and clichés? Or they are banal and boring? It sounds as if you are all self-help-manualed-out. Perhaps you need something different. Try Marcel Proust, revered master of exquisite expression and luminous prose. In Search of Lost Time, also called Remembrance of Things Past, Proust's one-and-a-quarter-million-word magnum opus, does not contain a trite sentence or conventional thought. You can learn much about living from such a profound genius, including how to spend your time, how to see and feel things, and why, sometimes, it is best just to stay in bed. Alain de Botton is your witty, often hilarious guide, providing valuable life lessons from Proust's writings and thoughts. getAbstract finds this ingenious, utterly original treatment thoroughly enjoyable. Wishing you the same.

Sublime (2008-01-21)

I'm afraid to go and read 'In Search...' now, in case it is de Botton that I've been seduced by rather than Proust!

How to appreciate the simple things (2007-08-09)

Reading anything by de Botton I feel a serenity descend upon me. His writing seems to have a soothing effect and this book was no different.In "How Proust can change your life" he takes the wisdom to be found in the novels of Proust and shows how they can help us to live better lives. Or perhaps to make us aware that we live better lives than we think.There are sections on how to love life, read for yourself, take your time, suffer succesfully, express your emotions, be a good friend, open your eyes, be happy in love and put books down.I loved this book and it has made me feel I can read Proust and appreciate it properly. Swann's Way is next for me and I am looking forward to it with anticipation. But whether you intend to read Proust or not this book is well worth reading.

de Botton on top form (2007-06-21)

There is a section in this fantastic, unique work in which de Botton describes Proust's fanatical devotion to John Ruskin, the English art critic, an admiration which verged on infatuation. This book reveals that de Botton feels much the same way about Proust. Happily, the reader is left in absolutely no doubt as to why the author feels that way so insightful are the observations and so pertinent are the excerpts from "In Search of Lost Time". In fact, those without the time to read Proust's masterpiece (that is, almost everyone) will find no better synthesis of that great novel, and no more persuasive illustration of Proust's brilliance.The whole experience is truly life-changing and, whilst the title does not reveal this, de Botton himself deserves some of the credit for that too.

Best of his lot (2007-02-17)

While some of his later books struggle to marry the chirpy narrative style with the weight of ideas, this one does it perfectly. de Botton's finest hour. it will make you want to read Proust. And that is no mean feat. gloriously, it will allow you to sound as though you have read it all without ever having opened a page of the impenetrable texts!

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