Scan barcode
hoperu's review
4.0
I read this while I was trying to get through Proust, but I don't remember much of either, so I probably need to reread both!
valerief's review
2.0
For whatever reason, this book failed to grab me. For such a short work, it took me a bit to get into and finish. However, it is much shorter than "In Search of Lost Time" and included some interesting biographical information on Monsieur Proust.
sinelit's review against another edition
2.0
burası türkiye'nin en derin magazin çukuru şokopop! kavga, polemik, basitlik, skandal...
bu kitabın bende yaptığı çağrışım tam olarak bu. buydu, bir yere kadar. dolayısıyla bir derinlik beklemeden, öylesine okuyor ve eğleniyordum. ancak gelin görün ki bir noktada istediği anlamı çıkarmak için alıntılarını ve anektodlarını eğip bükmeye başladı. joyce ve proust arasında bi diyalog yazmak filan bunlar nedir ama ya. türkçede tam bir karşılığı olmadığını düşündüğüm için direkt olduğu gibi yazacağım: cringefest. olmamış, yüzeysellikten başka bir şey bu yani.
bir yerine iki yıldızı alabilmesini ise sonlara doğru woolf'la ilgili paylaştığı şeylere borçlu. ameliyatlı yerime geldi adeta.
bu kitabın bende yaptığı çağrışım tam olarak bu. buydu, bir yere kadar. dolayısıyla bir derinlik beklemeden, öylesine okuyor ve eğleniyordum. ancak gelin görün ki bir noktada istediği anlamı çıkarmak için alıntılarını ve anektodlarını eğip bükmeye başladı. joyce ve proust arasında bi diyalog yazmak filan bunlar nedir ama ya. türkçede tam bir karşılığı olmadığını düşündüğüm için direkt olduğu gibi yazacağım: cringefest. olmamış, yüzeysellikten başka bir şey bu yani.
bir yerine iki yıldızı alabilmesini ise sonlara doğru woolf'la ilgili paylaştığı şeylere borçlu. ameliyatlı yerime geldi adeta.
simonenicole's review
5.0
Skepticism would be not only understood, but encouraged, upon hearing that I cancelled my evening plans to devour literary criticism of Marcel Proust. But there I was on a Sunday afternoon, reluctant to put down How Proust Can Change Your Life for even the length of a quick meal. Alain de Botton’s pithy book totals only 197 pages, many filled with pictures whose stories help to illuminate the prose. Yet its effect is much weightier, carried with me like the gratification of reading, say, all 4,215 pages of In Search of Lost Time.
In that vein, referring to this work as merely literary criticism feels reductive. De Botton somehow manages to blend an empathetic biography of Proust with tender moments of his own personal narrative. He connects effortlessly with the reader by delivering lucid moral takeaways from long-winded, opaque story-telling.
Upon finishing I felt utterly convinced of Proust’s genius, and of the fact that I’m unlikely to ever find time or sufficient interest to read his seminal works myself.
But, how much does it really matter whether I one day read In Search of Lost Time, and thus acquire the noble bragging rights of having read In Search of Lost Time? In just one Sunday afternoon, I already felt as though I’d siphoned off its delicious elucidations, each abridged by individual chapters in de Botton’s book: How to Take Your Time, How to Open Your Eyes, How to Be Happy In Love.
The portrait of Proust painted by de Botton is consistently unflattering. I was shocked by his mother’s profound Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She seemed to reinforce Marcel’s hypochondriac tendencies by insisting his asthma keep him indoors, by berating him for minute details of his sleep schedule and bodily functions even as a thirty-year-old man. Yet with compassion, de Botton reflects on how these physical experiences enabled Proust to better appreciate moments of wellness, of happiness. “We suffer, therefore we think.”
After all, de Botton seems to argue, how could a reader understand completely the trials of an insomniac unless forced to read a thirty-page depiction of tossing and turning – illustrating that drawn-out sensation of unwilling consciousness between three and four in the morning?
Unlike those of my college professors, De Botton’s philosophy lessons are spiced with irony, with humor, with electric prose. Take this single sentence, which made me pause and reflect for perhaps longer than did any two-hour lecture endured as a coed: “If, as Proust suggests, we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought.”
Talk about inspiration to become a writer.
As a Francophone, I opened How Proust Can Change Your Life with an inherently positive bias, as well as contextual knowledge that de Botton is himself a Francophone too. (Though, in his case, a rather more scandalous label since the Brits have this ingrained legacy of cultural smugness toward the French, whereas I’m merely a young American woman who is expected to overly romanticize the chicness of smoking cigarettes, photographs in front of the Eiffel tower, and the sultry sound of rolled Rs.)
From this title and context alone, I already anticipated relating to the French, even Proustian, quality of taking one’s time. What I did not expect was to ultimately buy into the New York Times review quoted on the front of my paperback copy: “A self-help manual for the intelligent person.” I put down the book feeling helped, as though I was suddenly equipped with a more thorough awareness of how to be a better friend, how to find beauty from previously quotidian moments, how to recognize and appreciate the unique sensation of falling in love – all thanks not to de Botton, but to Proust.
In that vein, referring to this work as merely literary criticism feels reductive. De Botton somehow manages to blend an empathetic biography of Proust with tender moments of his own personal narrative. He connects effortlessly with the reader by delivering lucid moral takeaways from long-winded, opaque story-telling.
Upon finishing I felt utterly convinced of Proust’s genius, and of the fact that I’m unlikely to ever find time or sufficient interest to read his seminal works myself.
But, how much does it really matter whether I one day read In Search of Lost Time, and thus acquire the noble bragging rights of having read In Search of Lost Time? In just one Sunday afternoon, I already felt as though I’d siphoned off its delicious elucidations, each abridged by individual chapters in de Botton’s book: How to Take Your Time, How to Open Your Eyes, How to Be Happy In Love.
The portrait of Proust painted by de Botton is consistently unflattering. I was shocked by his mother’s profound Munchausen syndrome by proxy. She seemed to reinforce Marcel’s hypochondriac tendencies by insisting his asthma keep him indoors, by berating him for minute details of his sleep schedule and bodily functions even as a thirty-year-old man. Yet with compassion, de Botton reflects on how these physical experiences enabled Proust to better appreciate moments of wellness, of happiness. “We suffer, therefore we think.”
After all, de Botton seems to argue, how could a reader understand completely the trials of an insomniac unless forced to read a thirty-page depiction of tossing and turning – illustrating that drawn-out sensation of unwilling consciousness between three and four in the morning?
Unlike those of my college professors, De Botton’s philosophy lessons are spiced with irony, with humor, with electric prose. Take this single sentence, which made me pause and reflect for perhaps longer than did any two-hour lecture endured as a coed: “If, as Proust suggests, we are obliged to create our own language, it is because there are dimensions to ourselves absent from clichés, which require us to flout etiquette in order to convey with greater accuracy the distinctive timbre of our thought.”
Talk about inspiration to become a writer.
As a Francophone, I opened How Proust Can Change Your Life with an inherently positive bias, as well as contextual knowledge that de Botton is himself a Francophone too. (Though, in his case, a rather more scandalous label since the Brits have this ingrained legacy of cultural smugness toward the French, whereas I’m merely a young American woman who is expected to overly romanticize the chicness of smoking cigarettes, photographs in front of the Eiffel tower, and the sultry sound of rolled Rs.)
From this title and context alone, I already anticipated relating to the French, even Proustian, quality of taking one’s time. What I did not expect was to ultimately buy into the New York Times review quoted on the front of my paperback copy: “A self-help manual for the intelligent person.” I put down the book feeling helped, as though I was suddenly equipped with a more thorough awareness of how to be a better friend, how to find beauty from previously quotidian moments, how to recognize and appreciate the unique sensation of falling in love – all thanks not to de Botton, but to Proust.
r2bone's review
4.0
interesting take on the views of proust, great introduction to the theme and the life of the philosopher